saildrive
Todd, I have a '79 with the saildrive. If it is in good condition, you should be all right. This is my first season. First time out, something clogged the water intake and the engine overheated. did the same coming back in. the next time, whatever it was had fallen off, disintegrated, whatever, but no more cooling problems. I did have a throttle cable problem but replaced it with some difficulty. My engine is rough, pushes the boat at around 5mph (I'd list knots, but I'm using gps, and starts relatively easily. There are two zinc assemblies, and one is at the bottom of the powerhead and it is a pain. The previous owner hadn't replaced it in a couple of years, and a lot of it wasn't there (pencil zinc). The other assembly iss at the bottom of the drive, like an outboard. The other problem, as I understand it, is that the impeller requires unbolting the power head inside the boat and lowering the drive unit. So far, so good. I don't know if I have a heavy duty alternator, but it does a good job of charging the batteries between 1/4 and 1/2 throttle. Any questions, feel free to email me at wlcoxe@hotmail.com. Good luck, good sailing. Bill Coxe, O22 Closure, O28 Aroundtuit
