Is this F41 Stryker a good buy?

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override

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Hello,

First post to the forums! I've creeped a little before (rcnitrotalk is my main forum) just checking things out. I have wanted to get into Gas Powered RC boating for a long time and I think I found my way in. I wanted some advice from some more experienced RC boaters as to whether or not this is a good deal? Should I make a lower offer?

The small damage seems easy enough to patch up and just repaint the hull but I have never done it so I don't know. Also since the motor doesn't have a clutch that would be my first investment. I know that right off the bat will be a minimum of $100 or atleast from the one I found on plumkrazyrcboats.com

This is the listing on CL...
http://austin.craigslist.org/tag/2405086917.html

I spoke with the guy yesterday and he doesn't seem to know alot about the boat. He is into 1/5th scale baja's and he told me he bought the boat off a racer out of midland. The guy has this setup with no clutch, and the 26cc Zenoah is modded but he couldn't say exactly what has been done to it. He did say that it would reach speeds somewhere near 70 mph with the 3 fin prop included. All it needs is a receiver, transmitter and fuel to run. He claims the motor only has a few hours on it and that the boat is worth around $900 or more.

Anyone have any advice for me? Also anything to look at or for when I go see the boat?

Thanks for any help guys! Oh and in the pics below he stated that the damage areas are all smaller than the size of a quarter.

Ok here are the pictures the guy sent me:

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looks to be in decent enough shape, the damage on the hull is where the gell coat is cracking and flaking most likely from either "hanger rash", a flip/crash when being ran, or due to the vibration of the motor. it can be repaired but the manner in which to do it depends largely on the damaged area, if it is a large area (which none of the pics show what i would call large) then use tiger hair (fiberglass reinforced bondo), if the area is small plain old bondo of course you would need to make sure to rughen the area so the bond sticks and then touchup paint the area. as far as what its worth, again not really sure but i have seen some nice gas boats with clutches, trim tabs, and custom paint sell for 600.00 to 1500.00, best thing to do would be to look on ebay for a similar boat in similar condition and look at the completed listings for those types of boats ;)
 
Thank you for the feedback lordraptor I was kind of thinking something similar as for pricing, seemed a little steep for the condition of the boat and age aswell. I told the guy that if would be willing to let it go for 4-500 Id take it but otherwise I wasnt interested. Will see what happens....

dazzlingjoe - that isnt my baja....
 
So why we are on the subject, it seems plum krazy boats is down or not currently doing builds as there site shows all to be out of stuck. Anyone know of any other good places that deal with specialty gas boats where you can buy everything you want as a kit and build yourself?
 
sorry override, i use to have my own designs made but the company that made them for me went out of business and unfortunatley no one else will make my designs and if they do they want an arm and a leg.
 
Ah no problem man, The sites I have found for a custom build want an arm and a leg for these boats...Plum Krazy for a RTR w/ a mild mod Zenoah wants $1745.00, no clutch included. Theres another that is cheaper but they only have two styles of boats and I don't like either of them.

Back to the F41 Stryker, the guy offered to sale it for $500 after I told him no, so I countered his offer with $450 and he said ok thats fine he just wants to get rid of it.

So this is my thinking...

I figure if I were to buy a hull ($350ish) and mild to mid mod Zenoah ($400ish) that puts me at $750ish and I still need the clutch, hardware, servos, fuel tubing, tank, pipe etc. So that would prolly set me back another what about $600? So IDK $450 seems decent as long as the hardware and motor are still in good condition. If the piston and sleeve don't have good pinch and compression than I figure that shouldn't be to expensive to rebuild. A quart of tiger hair is about $20 so heck I should come out pretty even on the deal or atleast it seems like to me.

I was also curious is there a way to gauge the compression on these motors?

What you think about my thinking? lol
 
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on these type of gas motors you don't have pinch like a nitro motor, you have a ring. if compression is low you pull the motor apart, inspect the sleeve and most of the time put a new ring and gaskets in, a total of about $20. if the cylinder is damaged then it needs replacing, putting it more around the $80-100 mark. really the only other thing that wears out is the crank bearings, and they arent that expensive. these motors overall can be pretty cheap to deal with in stock form, its when they are highly modded some stuff can get expensive.

as for checking compression, give the cord a pull and see how it feels. better yet, throw some 25:1 mixed gas in the tank and fire it and see how it runs. they will run with low compression, just be a little harder to start and have low power output. like i said, they are nothing like nitro motors.
 
you can actually buy a compression tester for the motor i have seen them on the tool bench of the small engine shops before and had one myself a long time ago when i was doing lawnmower repairs however it would have to be ordered. the spot i see on the hull lookl like regular bondo would suffice for the repairs although you would really need to paint the whole hull seeing as the red looks to be the orignal gelcoat and not a paint at all.
 
override said:
So why we are on the subject, it seems plum krazy boats is down or not currently doing builds as there site shows all to be out of stuck. Anyone know of any other good places that deal with specialty gas boats where you can buy everything you want as a kit and build yourself?
Click to expand...

http://www.marinespecialties-rc.com/
http://www.cc-racingengines.com/ind...n=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53&vmcchk=1&Itemid=53

The guy wants way too much for that rig as it's damaged and old.

If it was spotless and clean then maybe what he is asking.
 
Thanks again guys for the information! Gathering all the information between here and rcnitrotalk I believe I will go ahead and atleast go look at the boat for the $450, he offered to even meet me halfway so I don't have to drive as far. After the compression test I will judge if the $450 is still to high or not.

I asked him if he could give me a closer number of hours the motor possibly had on it and He told me later today that he called the hobby shop the boat was originally built at and they said that the motor had 8-10 hours from the first owner (employee of the shop) before it went back on the shelf to sell again. The guy he bought it off of said he had about an hour run time on it. The current owner said he only ran it enough to see it in action and it was way faster than what he wanted in a boat.

Thanks for the two links aswell...Marine Specialties are the ones who this motor was bought from or modded through. The cc-racingengines is a nice site, bought to go check it out some more.

Thanks again for the input on my question! Ya'll have been really helpful!
 
Well I picked up the boat today, pretty excited about it...Thing started up pretty easy, it doesn't have a primer bulb or a choke on it...Kinda strange but hey it still worked good.

I still had about an hr of daylight when I got home so I threw my receiver in it and took it to the dam up the road to see how it ran. Started up easy every time, but maybe a foot out from lauch it would die. The last time before it got to dark I just WOT it and it went about 6 feet and then died.

I know im new to this and these are probably noob questions but I don't have a clue on any of this stuff quite yet. Anyone have an idea?
 
well im not sure but here are a couple things you may want to check out anyway.


first make sure the coil doesn't get wet, it may cause it to quit running second, before going BTTW (balls to the wall) give the engine a chance to warm up some in other words set it in the water and start it up and let it run for a bit. that engine is watercooled and the water needs to circulate through it a bit, also you may want to look at the carb tuning as well.


what model carb is on it exactly?
 
override said:
Well I picked up the boat today, pretty excited about it...Thing started up pretty easy, it doesn't have a primer bulb or a choke on it...Kinda strange but hey it still worked good.

I still had about an hr of daylight when I got home so I threw my receiver in it and took it to the dam up the road to see how it ran. Started up easy every time, but maybe a foot out from lauch it would die. The last time before it got to dark I just WOT it and it went about 6 feet and then died.

I know im new to this and these are probably noob questions but I don't have a clue on any of this stuff quite yet. Anyone have an idea?
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nice lookin boat matey! :D i've always wanted a cat' with the twin engine set up...but the cost of buying one of those, even without the engines is stupendous. yours will certainly zoom along!

these things have a constant fresh supply of water, so they don't recirculate the same coolant around the head. to warm mine up i always start it on its stand out of the water, let it idle with a few blips of the throttle too for a minute or so, making sure everything works before it floats. it's direct drive too so just as i lower it into the water i will raise the revs a little and also give it a gentle push away to prevent it from stalling. the first time i ran the boat i just plonked it in the oggin, it cut out straight away :( good job it didn't go far away and i was able to reach it with long pole.

when i first bought the boat i was wondering where the primer bulb was, after some cursory swear words and wondering WTF, i found it in the end... the carbs are fitted upside down to what i was used to (on a car) lol.. and the choke was simply a black plastic slide, not sure if you've ever seen the black plastic style air filter box off an FG petrol car, same thing but only the back plate of the filter box is fitted to my boat, and within that is the choke and lever.

can you ask the previous owner what the carb settings were or what they should be? perhaps the lower and idle screws are a bit off the mark... does the engine sound very low as if it's struggling to idle when you first start it?
 
meant to say, the carb i fitted to my baja doesn't have a choke, so to prime it i cover the exhaust tail pipe with my finger and pull the starter 3 or 4 times, then pull the starter normally and it always fires up. you can just cover the carbs venturi and do it that way (at least you won't get a dirty finger then!!)

lookin at your photo, on top of the carb there's a 4-screwed plate, i'm wondering if that can be replaced by the priming bulb should you want to??...
 
Thanks again for the information guys!

Today I had some extra time so I figured I would fiddle with the boat a bit and see if I could atleast get it running and make sure everything is kosher.

I made this little do-dad for $10 at my local hardware store:
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So I hooked it up without the motor running and cracked the water hose ever so slightly until water just started coming out of the port holes. Water leaks at the exhaust coupling where it meets the manifold but all else looked good.

So I killed the water hose to start the motor and the motor was very hard to turn over. I pulled the plug and there was a small amount of water on the plug and inside the cooling head...(Gasket leaking maybe) I don't think there is supposed to be water in there. Cleared the motor and put the plug back in, tried to turn it over and water spit out the exhaust pipe...So I tipped the boat to the exhaust side and a bunch of water poured out. Is this normal?

Ok so I got the motor started and let it warm up a minute and then cracked the water hose. As soon as the water started coming out the port holes the engine idled up higher but was running good. The HSN was about a half turn to rich which put it one turn out. It would rev up full speed with only a little lag in the motor (prolly still a little rich) and I noticed that with half throttle bursts the pipe would spit out some water.

So thats what I got so far!
 
If you are getting water into the engine DON'T RUN it you could hydraulic the thing and blow the head off. Replace all gaskets!
 
yep, that's a sound piece of advice there - don't run it! i'm not entirely sure how your engine is designed, but on mine the water jacket surrounds the top of the cylinder head (the hottest area on an engine) and is its own entity too, so there's no gasket, the flowing cooling water does not make contact with a gasket, just flows around the aluminium head, in one side and out the other into the exhaust to help cool that too. thankfully it's not like a cars engine where a gasket seperates the flow of water from the combustion cycle.. so if water were to appear in my boats engine, i know the water jacket would be cracked :(

when you had it running, as the compression pressure is greater than the water pressure from the hose then no water will enter the cylinder, until... the piston is going back down (the 2nd stroke) and it will suck in water through the crack or the bust gasket. lookin at your photo's, is there just two machined head screws holding it on (either side of your spark plug?) remove the head (it's so easy) and let us know what you can see, take a pic!

best of luck mate, let's hope you get it sorted out cos that thing'll really shift along and give you hours of fun!
 
t2boats said:
yep, that's a sound piece of advice there - don't run it! i'm not entirely sure how your engine is designed, but on mine the water jacket surrounds the top of the cylinder head (the hottest area on an engine) and is its own entity too, so there's no gasket, the flowing cooling water does not make contact with a gasket, just flows around the aluminium head, in one side and out the other into the exhaust to help cool that too. thankfully it's not like a cars engine where a gasket seperates the flow of water from the combustion cycle.. so if water were to appear in my boats engine, i know the water jacket would be cracked :(

when you had it running, as the compression pressure is greater than the water pressure from the hose then no water will enter the cylinder, until... the piston is going back down (the 2nd stroke) and it will suck in water through the crack or the bust gasket. lookin at your photo's, is there just two machined head screws holding it on (either side of your spark plug?) remove the head (it's so easy) and let us know what you can see, take a pic!

best of luck mate, let's hope you get it sorted out cos that thing'll really shift along and give you hours of fun!
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Ok, so I don't plan on running the boat anytime soon. I just spend over $2300 this month getting into an apartment, buying furniture and stuff so my funds are pretty low for RC right now.

I do however plan to tear the boat down and start doing repairs to the hull since that seems to be pretty cheap. As for the motor goes, I plan to break it down aswell. I will pull the head off and check for bad gasket or cracks and post pictures of that up. I'll also try to find out what carb I am running, I am going to see about putting a primer bulb on it. Also want to get a servo/radio box as the one thats in it is crap. It will probably be awhile before I get any pics or updates up on the boat as I work 14 on/14 off in the oilfield and my next hitch starts this coming tuesday. No worries tho, those big paychecks will get me back where I need to be and hopefully I can go full stride on getting this boat back on the water asap!

Thanks for all the useful advice guys I appreciate all of it!:D
 
Hey guys hows it going?

Well I pulled the cooling head off today and there are two gaskets. The bottom gasket is good but the one that seals the top is pretty warn out...Its flattened flush with the inset on the cylinder. Now upon looking at things, that gasket flat or not shouldn't allow water to get into the piston because the spark plug screws directly into the cylinder making a complete seal (or atleast I assume it does). So I believe the water is getting in there through the exhaust manifold cooling area. I have not taken that apart yet but I believe that is the culprit. That will have to come at a later date though got company coming in tomorrow until tuesday.

A few questions I do have though for some stuff I need to order....What is a good recommended servo box that seals without having to use tape?

The plastic tube that is in the shaft to connects the prop to the motor...What is that called? What is that shaft called aswell?

Also the rubber boots that you put on your servo box and boat to seal where your rods have to go through. What are those called? any recommended ones to get?

Ill post up some pictures tomorrow of the head and other stuff...

Thanks guys,
override
 
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