www.iFourWinns.com

Agreed. The boat has been stored in a heated shop. It will be stored in my shop which will be heated as well starting next winter. Everything is solid on the boat so I feel pretty lucky about that. New motor as well as the cobra outdrive was went through last spring by the cobra mechanic.

_________________
Todd
1988 Four Winns Horizon 200
AKA "Summer School"

UPDATE

Went and looked the boat over yesterday. It is in good shpae. There are some scratches in the gel coat. The floor is rock solid except the piece that covers the gast tank. It is springy. Are they all that way? Is there very little support under the cover? I wanted to have the motor and outdrive looked at by someone I trust and that is where the boat is now. I way 300 pounds and could not find a soft spot in the floor. Inspected around the motor, ski locker and seats. Just the springy board that covers the gas tank bothered me. Thanks so much for all your help.

Todd

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Todd
1988 Four Winns Horizon 200
AKA "Summer School"

OK I am going to try to save you some grief here! If they will let you, remove the bunch of screws that hold that cover down, and see what the structure looks like underneath. The cover itself is only 1/2 in thick plywood but they did put in 4 cross pieces to support the tank cover. My old one was springy, but the new one is rock solid. I did install a much stronger mounting system than FW had in there as OE.
The issue is that sometimes the structure that the cross pieces is mounted to (firring strips attached to the stringers) can be rotted. I'd want to get a look at that area if possible. The other areas that are prone to rot is anywhwere a screw went thru the floor such as seat mounts. Boat sounds good though.

If you want to see pix of what mine looks like before it was all put back together, go over to :
http://www.iboats.com
go into the restoration forum do a search under my user name Lou C and you will find some pics of what it looks like, or if you pm me an e-mail I can send you some. If the stringers are good, then at most you might eventually want to replace the support strips and maybe the cover too, it's not a bad job to do just that.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Thanks for the quick reply. I think while the mechanic is looking at the motor and outdrive I will ask him to pull that cover for me. Boat owners have been open honest about everything so far. They have not had one problem with me pulling things and looking. I have seen some of your resto pics on iboats. Looks fun. I am hoping to get into a solid boat that I can have and keep. I would eventually want to replace at least the deck any way so that it is glass instead of carpet and wood. Just don't want to do it first.

_________________
Todd
1988 Four Winns Horizon 200
AKA "Summer School"

Well you don't want to do what I did, unless you can help it! If you are keeping the boat long term, one thought is to get rid of the carpet, it comes up easy enough but the adhesive is hard to remove. No need to replace the wood deck if it's solid, I'd clean it really well, and see if it needs an extra coating of resin anywhere. If so, that's not hard to do. Then you have a couple of options, one is to paint it in a non skid paint, the other is a bedliner type material such as Durabak. Both can be done by a do it yourselfer. The other option is to have it gelcoated in a non skid gelcoat which is what I had done, but that was because I also wanted the shop to glass in the new deck I installed anyway. If all I was doing was a minor repair to the deck I'd have done the Durabak stuff. Much cheaper that way.

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II