Another new 260 owner...

[SJAurora]

Howdy all,

Just picked up a 1983 260 Express Cruiser about a week ago. Still learning a lot about it, fixing a few things here and there, and getting used to it's handling on the lake. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of water out here in central Colorado but it's enough to have fun.

It's got the twin V6 engines with OMC stern drives - all seems to be in really good condition for it's age. Have a few minor leaks on the stern drives allowing some water in so I need to reseal those in the near future. Had a lot of electrical issues, got most sorted out so far and at least a plan for the rest of them.

This is the exact boat I've been wanting for a while now, I love that classic Sea Ray styling and it was tough to find a good twin drive 26' boat in Colorado.

I have lots of plans for this boat, some pretty simple, some probably pretty far fetched but I'm looking forward to the journey.

One of the first interesting projects is to build a joystick control for the trim tabs (forward for bow down, back for bow up, side to side to adjust roll angle to compensate for load shift, wind, etc.) - anybody else do this yet?

Also looking to put an A/C unit in - saw in another thread about one mounted in the front of the cabin and venting into the anchor locker - I like that idea but would want to come up with a good ventilation method for proper condensor coil cooling. Fresh water cooling sounds like a good idea - might have to look into that.

 

[Nehalennia]

Welcome
I'd get the leaks fixed sooner than later. They can cause you a lot of damage and expensive repairs quickly.

Good luck

 

[brains06]

Welcome
I'd get the leaks fixed sooner than later. They can cause you a lot of damage and expensive repairs quickly.

Good luck

I'll second that, not to mention excess water = excess weight and that makes performance suffer. The joystick control sounds interesting and probably simple enough if you steal the control stick from a spotlight or something. I'd love to hear about it if you do it.

 

[K-9]

Welkom,to the water keep the water out and crew in.Get thee to tech boats do not leak...they sink.Fix NOW

 

[SJAurora]

Thanks for the welcome(s)!

The leak is only in the seals for the outdrives (OMC Outdrives) so it leaks a small amount of lake water into the oil in the outdrives. No water leaking into the boat anywhere - always dry as a bone unless we get caught in the rain.

I had the same thing going on with my older OMC 800 and I just changed the fluid once a week in the outdrive (3 to 4 times out on the lake a week). 2 years of that and still haven't had any problems with that one, although I do plan on fixing these ones this winter after the season is over.

I got a pair of matched joysticks (really cool ones at that) from a surplus place here in town. They military spec with sealed switches, stainless steel frame construction, aluminum joystick knobs and a nice rubber boot seal as well. I've designed the circuit using a series of relays and rectifiers, now I just have to build and test it. Wish I had tab position indicator lights though, but I'll manage by feel. I'm also going to build an add on circuit that raises both tabs when the ignition is shut off so every time I start the boat I'm automatically starting from a known tab position.

I'm using the second joystick to control a halogen remote light I'm mounting under the bow pulpit - 5,000,000 adjusted candle power flood light. I'm going to put a pot in the circuit as well to control the brightness of the flood light from the dash as well as the tilt and rotation of the light.

Once I test the circuits, if anybody wants them I would be happy to upload the schematics.