Buying My first Ski Nautique- Too many hours?

Do you run all at 8 hours each or do you let the kids help out and run the risk of them creating more winter projects? 

I know am being kinda negative here but it is also possible the buyer was reading this thread also.  You have been looking for two years and when you found one you decided to tell everyone about it on a public forum.  This is the #1 goto site for older Correct Crafts.  Lots of people on here looking for boats to buy.  Not to mention the flippers.  You can do a forum search and get all the information you need in regards to what to look for when buying a boat.  Next time just post the pictures after it's in your driveway.  On a positive note maybe it was a POS and you dodged a bullet.

Correct Crafts hold value well if they run & look good.

Don't forget about the trailer, they often are neglected.

You know Pete's just phishing for a reason to tell the world once again about the phenomenal lifetimes he gets out of his stuff. 

Usually measured in years not hours, since the stuff has to have been running to rack up some wear.

He conveniently forgets to mention how many years some of these boats have gone without running or seeing the water though

Yes, on my 1980. On several occasions I purchased gauge sets trying to find various ones that worked for my 1980. I still have several old ones in a box, I think.  I like an operational meter so the end of the season, I knew how much use the boat got. I always change the oil in the fall no matter the amount of use and have had to change it soon due to exceeded 50 hours in a season. 

 I have also seen many of these old boats with the hour meters not working.  It is my opinion the hour meters were not sourced to last 42 years , more like 10 years, but it is just my opinion. I am sure some have had them last longer, but it was not my experience. Even my 2002 Sport did not come with the original hour meter. The digital gauge was updated by the previous owner.  He did document the hours at the time of the swap. When I installed Star Gazer, I loaded what I believe, based on what I was told to be the current hours of the boat based on the old gauges and the new. 

It is all about the MFG cost of the boat, sure Correct Craft could of sourced a more expensive better built hour meter, but the boat had to meet a specific price point. In 1979 Correct Craft was still under bankruptcy. 

I never trust hour meters running or not on a 42 year old boat, but that is just me. I look at overall condition to understand if the boat was properly cared for. Bottom End should go 3000 hours or more if properly cared for. 

Pete, you really should give him a link to a video showing how to hook it up to the typical 78 Ford starter system with the remote relay/slave solenoid 

 

or go hook it up on your Tique and take a picture  

You might want some input as far as the compression numbers to expect on the test and they're gonna vary depending on whether it's done hot or cold

Asking the seller to give you numbers is sort of an invitation to get screwed.  Along the lines of "the owner reports solid floor and stringers"

Seeing the test done yourself takes any uncertainty away.

Fully charged battery for best cranking, throttle and choke both wide open, plugs out, disable the spark like mentioned earlier ( or you can unhook the positive wire feeding the coil) and crank the engine over 3 to 5 turns and read the gauge. It has a carburetor so no need to disable the fuel system

Repeat on each cylinder

Write down the numbers, they should all be within 10 percent of the highest cylinder in the perfect world.

A cold, mild compression 351 with some hours on it, I'd be happy with numbers in the 105 to 115 range or higher. You may get a wild variety of opinions on what the numbers should be 

Higher is better and remember ...........not all gauges are created equal, one gauge may read a lot different than another but you can look for consistency between cylinders no matter what the readings are.

Just pull the center wire out of the distributor cap.  Or the other end from the coil, same result.