New to me Cobalt, 1995 252 with 502 Mag and Bravo 1

Continuation of my search thread here:
http://clubcobalt.net/threads/my-what-do-you-think-about-this-boat-thread.105/page-3#post-700

She arrived on-time yesterday, absolutely no issues in the 2100 mile journey from Deep Creek Lake, MD to me here in Scottsdale, AZ. Finally got a chance to see how well the dealer's clean-up job went. The wet sanding and buffing took all of the chalkiness out, looks a million times better than it did when I saw it in MD. But...it's still not quite as shiny as I'd like. Will have to work on this a bit. I'm going to start with a wash and wax, I'm not sure if they waxed her when they finished cutting and buffing.

Before:


After:


Got a Carver Sunbrella bimini installed after delivery yesterday, looks pretty nice. I wasn't thrilled about drilling new holes but you gotta do what you gotta do...


Interior shot. Engine hatch vinyl isn't the greatest, but it's actually better than a lot of newer boats I've seen. Probably won't worry about replacing until it gets a lot worse. The rest of the interior looks good, rosewood is a bit faded, might have to try and fix or replace.

 

Going to work on trailer fix-up a bit. I have new fenders on order, going to replace the lights with new LEDs as well and shine up the wheels. Needs new bunks, trying to decide if I want to play with the position of the boat on the trailer at all while replacing. It sits up a little higher than I like, but due to the position of the front cross-member I can't really lower it at all without getting into a full-on trailer adjustment. You guys see any issues with the boat being up as high as it is now? In order to drop it down I'd have to move the boat further back on the trailer and then tongue weight would be too low (I figure boat/trailer/fuel weighs about 5500 lbs right now, measured tongue weight at 426 lbs so I'm at 7.7% TW, don't want to go any lower than that), so I'd have to move axles as well, then extend brake lines, etc...yuck.

If I decide to leave the main bunks where they are, I'd like to add some keel guide bunks in towards the center and probably put a roller on that front cross member.

 

I put the flusher ear muffs on yesterday to fire up the boat. Once I got it running they slipped off at some point and the impeller ran dry, heated up and cracked the plastic impeller housing. I guess that's my "welcome to the family" gift to the boat, lol. Got replacement parts ordered, should be here tomorrow. Love me some Amazon Prime free 2-day shipping It has the mechanical fuel pump, so I'm going to change the pump drive oil as well while I'm in there.

When starting, I have to bump the key several times in order to get the starter to engage. It might engage one out of every 4 or 5 key bumps. I did some searching on this and came up with either a bad slave solenoid or possibly a bad starter. Didn't see this problem when testing in MD. At least both are relatively cheap. When it does turn over, it seems to be intermittently slow to turn, but fires up real quick even though it sounds like the starter is struggling. I have a new slave solenoid on order as well and a starter in my shopping cart in case that doesn't fix it.

Finally, what is the typical expectation for including accessories like life jackets, mooring lines, fenders, etc in a boat purchase? The boat had a bunch of that stuff when I checked it out. I never specifically asked about it (my mistake obviously), but they kept it all. Not a huge deal, but a PITA having to order all of the necessary stuff in preparation for a first trip. Kinda annoyed me, but I also never asked.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll check them out. I ordered 4 of the basic jackets and a throwable from Amazon just to get started and legal for my wife and I and maybe a couple friends to hit the water. Will check out the sports jackets from Academy.

 

I ordered two rolls of the CE Smith brand stuff from Amazon, 18' x 18", wide enough to go around a 4x6 in one shot. Will do stainless staples too. The old boards need to be replaced in addition to the carpet, so fortunately I won't have to worry about pulling staples, it's all going in the trash.

Got the impeller housing and slave solenoid replaced yesterday and went out for a shakedown run and to do some further trailer adjustments. I went alone in case of problems (reverse of normal, I know...), as I tend to do better problem solving when I can think quietly to myself vs having to try to tell someone else what to do or how to help. She did great! Other than a little bit of belt squeal when first accelerating with a cold engine, no issues. Will replace the belts before next outing. Did a full lap around the lake a close to WOT, measured 54mph on the GPS the one time I checked. Fairly busy so not a lot of smoother water to be found. Felt so good to be back on the water again!

Ended up moving the boat 9" further back on the trailer, which allowed me to also move it down about 3.5". I'm really liking the position on the trailer, and the axle centerline seems to be on par with the photos of 252's on custom trailers that I've looked at. Will go ahead with bunk replacement now, wanted to wait until re-positioning was done so as not to drill extra holes into the new boards. I loaded the boat onto the trailer twice with the new position, it went on easily and self-centered both times.

I was a little nervous about launching and loading solo, but I was faster by myself than about half of the groups that were there, so I guess it worked out ok

The list of updates/fixes is getting smaller:
Clean/Polish wheels
Replace starboard captain's call solenoid
Replace belts
Replace trailer fenders
Re-wire trailer
Replace trailer lights (except main stop/turn, they are pretty new)
Replace/rewire stereo (current radio works but who uses CDs anymore? Need bluetooth Also...it's wired into one of the Aux switches...weird)
Replace glove box latch
Replace bunks
Replace air/water temp probe
Replace anodes


Pics from yesterday

 

I've seen boat trailer manufacturers recommend 5-7% instead of the normal 10% for tongue weight. I don't know why the difference but there's huge liability in recommending a wrong value, so there must be some good (and safe) reason for the lower value. Also looked at a lot of pictures of 252s on custom trailers and I have mine positioned the same in relation to the axle centerline. Before moving the boat back I measured tongue weight at about 425 lbs, which was about 8% of my assumed total weight of 5300 lbs (4000 dry weight + 1100 trailer + 200 fuel). 5% of 5300 is 265 lbs, so I had some wiggle room. I will eventually weigh it and get exact numbers, but if my axle centerline is aligned the same as trailers that are built specifically for this model boat I don't see how it could be set up wrong.

I will check out your link for the dash panels, thank you. Other than the trailer (which will be looking a bit better soon), the dash panels are the worst looking part of the boat. I'd like to either refinish or replace them this winter.

 

New bunks, fenders, and LED lighting on the trailer. Part of me wants to try and paint the galvanized wheels with chrome paint, and part of me says just to wait til I need new tires and replace them with some nicer looking aluminum ones.

 

Finally got side skirts on. Sun ain't gonna get her again

 

They are separate from the cover, yes. Made by Carver, same Sunbrella material as the cover I bought. Not all Carver distributors carry the skirts, checked all of their online distributors and only a couple had them. Blue Gator Covers had the best price.
https://bluegatorcovers.com/Hull-Skirts_c_4407.html

They are designed to be used with pipe insulation and then just tucked between the boat and the cover above the rub rail. My boat had snaps put on it below the rub rail at some point, probably for a mooring cover or something. You can see the snaps in the 3rd pic I posted in post #10 above. I bought a snap kit on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00144AHUE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and installed snaps on the skirts rather than using the pipe insulation method.

 

Also finally got the anodes replaced. The old ones were magnesium, I replaced with aluminum since there's a possibility of the occasional salt water trip. Most of the old ones were probably marginal, but the one under the prop looked like it had been skipped last time. It fell apart on me before I got the bolts out. Whoever did the prop last time didn't bend the tabs on the nut keeper back down...eeek!

 

Man, the winter blues must have set in, not much activity here lately. We have another near-100 degree weekend in the forecast, will be out again Saturday (4th weekend in a row woohoo!)

What else....my compass was reading 180 degrees off, dug in and this must have been installed on a Friday. The bow arrow was pointed the wrong way.




Speaking of backwards, someone installed the trim tab switch upside down too. Pushing up on the port switch made the starboard tab go down, vice versa. I had a hell of a time leveling out the boat the first trip out. That was as simple as unscrewing the 4 screws from the dash and flipping the switch assembly over.

Got another round of parts on order too:

New wheels (stole this pic from an Amazon review)


Ordered a Lowrance LST-3800 depth/temp gauge. My current temp gauge doesn't work and the depth gauge has bad LCD segments (is that 7 feet deep or 1, who cares right??), on top of the cracked screen overlay. The LST-3800 comes with a transom mount transducer. I would really prefer not to drill extra holes below the water line, so I called Lowrance today and we found a shoot-through transducer with an external temp probe that will work with the gauge. P/N PDRT-WSU in case anyone is interested. The transducer will go inside the hull under the engine, and the temp probe will mount outside like the original one did.


Since the temp and depth functions will be combined into a single gauge I have an extra hole to fill...ordered an Autometer marine fuel pressure gauge for that slot. If I squint just right and ignore the chrome bezel I can almost convince myself that it almost matches the factory gauges



Also found that my alarm buzzer/beeper thingy (the 1-2 second beeeeeeep when you first turn the key) is not working. Found a set of 2 replacements on eBay for $18 shipped, so that will be fixed here this week too.

I think that's about it for now...will post some more pics when I get some of the new parts installed.

 

OH!! Almost forgot, pulled the trigger on the swimplatforms.com deal too. Since they are local to me, I'm going to have them install it. Should be done by EOM.

 

Awesome connection! What types of extras were on your boat?

I have been emailing back and forth with a guy named Art, but will see if I can find Scott and pass along your message when I drop off the boat for installation.

 

Blender would be awesome! Hah!

Got install scheduled for Oct 26 for the swim deck. They cut me an off season deal, $200 for installation. Can't beat that.

New wheels and tires on the trailer. Looks better and pulls better. Went from a 215/75-14 to a 235/75-15, supposed to be 2.2 inches larger but measures out to about 3" larger diameter. Keeping an eye on inner fenders for rubbing, seems ok after our trip today but may need to move fenders up a bit. Went from 3" clearance to about 1.5". Looks closer in the pics due to the fender lip, but that falls outside the edge of the tread.

 

I can't remember which threads I've updated, but it's been a busy couple of months. Got the swim platform done, repainted the drive, added some reproduction Bravo decals, added a Simrek drive shower, bought a polisher and had another go at buffing out the hull, got my new depth finder in, added a cheap GPS speedo to fill the extra dash hole, replaced inner seals and repacked bearings on the trailer, got the engine and drive oil changed. Probably forgetting a couple things but wanted to post some more pics.

 

Few more updates....got myself a new prop for Christmas, Revolution 4 21" pitch.


Ordered Seadek for the factory swim platform, factory non-skid is worn down and we've had a handful of slips. Haven't received the pads yet but the dry-fit templates from a '99 model year 252 match my '95 except for the location of the ladder holes. I had the ladder holes deleted completely since my ladder is gone.



Also got some new bearing caps, the ones I bought from Amazon kept leaking water. These ones are designed for oil bath hubs but work well for grease too. Since the caps are transparent I can keep an eye on grease condition without taking anything apart.

 

Got a TPMS system for the trailer tires


Added a small amp and 10" subwoofer



We did a 4 day trip to Lake Havasu at the end of December. Finally got a chance to check out the LED docking lights I installed, they are great! Super bright.


The Amazon LED tail lights I put on the trailer were starting to go out, took them apart and they are definitely NOT waterproof as advertised. The seller sent me a set of replacements for free, which was great. I sealed up the plastic joint with 5200, hopefully these ones will last longer than 3 months. If not, I'll have to bite the bullet and order a nicer set from a reputable source instead.


Decided to try and vinyl wrap my faded dash panels. Got one done this past weekend. It's far from perfect but looks a lot better than the original faded panels. I'll be interested to see how it holds up in the heat. Spent a grand total of $45 on material for the whole dash and $23 on a heat gun, I figure for a total investment of $70 and a couple hours of labor it's hard to go wrong, even if it doesn't hold up long term. Also, since I have to take the steering wheel off to do that panel, I decided to steal Rob's idea and replace my steering wheel with the exact same one he used. His turned out great. Have not received it yet, but hopefully it will match the vinyl color on the dash pretty well.

 

I did two winters in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, that was enough to last me a lifetime. I'll gladly take the 110-115 degree summers in exchange for mild winters. Heck I get cold when it drops below 70, and the mornings in the 40s are...yuck. It's been unusually warm here this winter, normally we are supposed to have highs in the low 60s this time of year but it's been low to mid 70s almost all winter so far. Only downside is very little precipitation in the south west, doesn't bode well for water levels in the local lakes this summer.

Glad you got the seats out, looking forward to seeing them finished up!

 

Got the dash panels finished and SeaDek on the swim platform