This is the boat that I bought... It is a Hydrostream Vandal, a 79' model. As you can see, this is a pretty sweet looking boat with a lot of potential (at least that is what myself and Nate see...). It has a 79' 3cyl. Mercury 70hp outboard motor that is in suprisingly decent condition. It cranks right up and idles fine.... The best part is, we only paid $600 for all of it!
Compression test reads:
Cylinder 1. 125psi
Cylinder 2. 135psi
Cylinder 3. 120psi
This is what the boat looked like brand new, and hopefully it might somewhat resemble these pics in the future.
Here is a list of things we have done since we bought it:
-Cleaned it out!
-Removed carpet.
-Washed throroughly.
-Put in new Battery with cover.
-Installed new fuel lines.
-Removed old broken steering system.
-Replaced steering system with brand new one.
-Pieced through 3 Mercruiser control boxes that came with boat,
and combined the best parts of the 3 to make 1 good one, spliced the wires
and added working fly by wire throttle cables.
-Repaired nicks, cuts, and 1 leak in the underside of the boat with
fiberglass resin and mat.
-Also repaired some hairline cracks in the fiberglass in the inside on the boat (did not affect the integrity of the boat, I just wanted to fix them).
Left to do list:
-Install speedometer.
-Install tachometer.
-Paint engine cover.
-Paint boat white.
Update: I drove the boat all summer, and probably took it out 10-12 times and had a blast on it. I took just about everyone that I know out on it and we have had a lot of fun on the inner tube, water skis, and just cruising.
The only incident that occured while boating was pretty harsh... when Melissa and I were first out, the old propeller came off!!! It happened while we were 1/2 a mile from the dock! Luckily we were upstream and finally after an hour, we saw someone who towed us back to the dock.... what an adventure. I got a new propeller (with locking nut!) and everything works great now.
The boat was well worth the $600.
