My young friend & neighbor was offered a free boat & trailer so he went for it, so he now has a new project hence I do to!:lol: I have never owned a boat myself although I have had many friends who did, and my friend...well he's been on a boat:lol:..the boat is a '74 SVR 200 w/Ford 302 MerCruiser stern drive. The boat was stored uncovered on a driveway for 5 yrs. so the interior upholstery all needs replacing, fortunately sourcing new seats was not hard just a matter of$$$...I told him ..no such thing as a FREE boat! with a lotta cleanup though it seems to be in decent shape & surprisingly everything is there down to the snap on windshield covers. What I don't have is a lot of tech & spec. info as manuals are hard to find and Searay's archives don't go back that far. From what I can gather the '72 thru 75 models didn't change till '76 ?..so what we have is a SELOC Mcruiser stern drive '64-'91 repair man. which for now is minimal help..what I really need is an owners manual..I know..good luck with that! :lol: I did find a manual by Clymer: MerCruiser stern drive repair man. 64-85 that might be more relevant?? also a site Stern drives.com can make you a copy of the Mercruiser factory manual "74-77 engines&drives all" but they want $88+sh. now me I'm "old school" can't have to many refs. but he doesn't want to spend more $ on manuals unless necessary so if anyone knows about these being a must "have" let me know please. So far we have removed the seating & done a lot of cleanup we also took off all the wood trim/hatches etc. which I'm refinishing. The plan is to replace all fluids,filters, belts etc. buy 2 new batterys and see if it'll fire up, wer'e told it ran great when it was last used sooo..anyways if anyone has any sage advice or suggestions I'd love to hear em! I know he's looking forward to taking his boy's 3-5 (and me) out boating so I want to make sure things are done right I'm sorta an** that way anyway! thanks for listening..Brian
