?? Regarding purchasing '83 241 Weekender

I would not worry about the I/O and the boat being in the water. I think the I/O in the water thing is way exaggerated. My original 470s lasted 23 years, my boat is in the water five months a year. The OMC stringers did have a lot of issues back the day but perhaps that was more design than anything else. Moving the motor up and down to raise the drive and have the large rubber thingy in the transom did look like a lot of trouble to me. My first drives were Alphas and no real problems. You are looking at a motor and drive you can fix yourself and would like the solid transom, go with your original idea - if the shoe fits and all that. You could always put a bracket and OB on a former I/O boat but that would cost more than an I/O repower.

Hey perhaps this guy will come around. I don't think I have seen any 241s around here lately. There was one in a yard up the street from a job we were doing a year back or so but it has moved and I have no idea what happened to it. It was an early one too. IIRC it had a stainless rubrail and I believe that was only on early models.

Good luck.
 
Offshore, I was not recommending running the OMC just finding a good condition hull with that power and change it out. Raw material if you will. That would provide a larger pool of boats to look at, maybe. I would not buy an OMC, stringer or OMC's the more modern Merc, copy on a bet. In my area there used to be a lot of OMC powered Grady's around.
 
I don't think you can replace an OMC (w/ the big ribber boot) w/o major transom work.....that's why I would stay away from them all together.
 
Offshore did you ever see one of those drives move up and down on the screws? Little electric motors everywhere. Way too many moving parts I think.

When I repowered went from two I/Os to one. As it turned out my transom needed to be rebuilt but they had said that if the transom was good all they would need to do was fill the existing holes, glass it over, then put in the new cut out. It didn't sound like too big a deal but perhaps it is. For sure the easiest thing would be to find a Merc. powered hull.

I was at a yard over on the cape years ago and I looked up on the rack and there was a boat that used be berthed here,
still had the name on the sides. But at first glance it looked very odd. When I looked harder I realized it had no provision for a power unit - that is full transom no I/O hole, no bracket for an OB, no cut out for an OB. The guy from the yard said they had taken it in trade and it had been powered with an OMC stringer drive. The OMC was beyond help so they had taken it out rebuilt the transom and were waiting for someone to show interest and they would install a bracket and OB on or more likely put in a new I/O, whatever the new owner wanted. Makes sense but it sure threw me for a minute though.
 
For the time being, it seems this particular GW is out of the mix. The owner believes he can sell it to someone from Canada (we're in Allentown, PA) for slightly more. BUT... he is hoping this guy from Canada is going to drive down, buy the boat and never notice the large soft spot in the floor. The owner is NOT telling him, in advance, of the soft spot!
 
Dennis, there is always a few Gradys for sale down here in Florida. I see you're up in Allentown ( I lived in Jersey till '05), too bad you're not closer. I just sent a guy an email that is selling a 24-25 without power that he states has a good hull/transom. I'm only interested in the hardtop boat has on it. he only wants a few thousand. I saw a few cheap ones on Ebay too that had been dunked during sandy.
 
Did u try craiglist for Delaware and Maryland? When i was looking I found my offshore 24 listed in Maryland but it was actually being sold by blue mountain marine in Bangor Pa. And i full transom is nice esp with kids and water conditions. We spent labor day weekend with the grady at Indian River Marinia when we were heading out in the inlet and even the back bays the swells and all the boat action was intense at times.
 
lime4x4 said:
Did u try craiglist for Delaware and Maryland? When i was looking I found my offshore 24 listed in Maryland but it was actually being sold by blue mountain marine in Bangor Pa. And i full transom is nice esp with kids and water conditions. We spent labor day weekend with the grady at Indian River Marinia when we were heading out in the inlet and even the back bays the swells and all the boat action was intense at times.
Click to expand...

That's close by me,I run out of Sebastian Inlet usually, and it gets crazy at times. I used to run out of Moriches Inlet, and they are very similar in rough water at times.
 
The Sandy boats are ones I've been a little skeptical of (maybe that's better said as "afraid of"!). But, that's a good point - maybe I should look at those a little closer.

You're right, Vero, I do see a bunch down in Florida. Long way away, though. But something I find interesting... at least from the pictures... the boats from Florida, on average, tend to look nicer than the ones up here. Are they cared for better down there - meaning cleaning, waxing, etc?

John, you know what? I never even thought of looking at Craigslist from another area!
 
Well, Craigslist was the ticket! We found a 1982 241 Weekender in Delaware and my brother and I went down to look at it on Monday and came back to PA with it! There's a soft spot on the port side of cockpit floor (which he told me about), but it's a pretty good location to repair. Other than that, everything else is really nice. There's an extended hardtop (about 2'-3' longer than standard) with curtains (all in great shape) that was added about 5 years ago. This is great because somehow extending a hardtop was something I was going to try and figure out.

The engine is a 2000 Yamaha 250HP... and some of you are wondering... wait, you said it was a Weekender - should have a stern drive? In 2000, it was professionally modified and a Grady Drive bracket was added. The area where the stern drive normally was (the dog box) was removed and a flat, removable floor was installed -- extra storage, now! This turned out to be the EXACT type of boat we were looking for. We really had wanted an outboard all along, but I didn't like the large transom cutout (kids).

Even the trailer is in good shape with a new braking system, bow to stern.

Oh... get this... about 6 years ago, the owner scuffed a cylinder when a ring broke (he thinks that what caused it). He bought a used motor (same year as original) from a reputable dealer that certified it and changed things such as the fuel pumps. He still has the "old" motor and said I can have it! Freebie!

We're looking forward to doing some "customization" and updating and then getting this bad girl up to Maine!
 
Congratulations on your new boat Dennis! Hope you get plenty of use out of it, and it lasts a long time! :goodjob
 
Thanks guys! I appreciate all your help during this. It did make the process a little easier. I'll post a few pictures - especially of how the boat was transformed from i/o to o/b.
 
EDIT: Any idea why the pictures are getting cut off? I tried using the Photobucket method thing (for some reason I couldn't make an album here on the forum)

Here's a couple pics.

This the how a previous owner transitioned from stern drive to outboard. Removed the main dog box, relocated the front panel further aft and filled the floor with a removable panel. There's a large aluminum angle that spans the interior of the transom. Two aluminum angles then run from the transom, forward and down, to about where the stern drive motor mounts would of been.



This is the extended hardtop - it goes aft enough for the curtains to cover those who would sit on the seats behind the main seats (sitting on the fishboxes). The name has already been removed... :wink:


This is the "mix" of two outboards - the powerhead being the replacement. There's an obvious color difference and I'm not sure if it's due to fading or from Yamaha changing the color. I'm pretty sure the lower unit is a model year 2000. Did Yamaha change the color darker in 2001?
 
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