on the engine
Looks like you have a lot of aluminum parts, if possible I would start cleaning the areas that aluminum and iron come together right away, looks like you have aluminum crystals forming already, if you can't get to it right away, at least hose it down with fresh water as much as possible. all in all, it actualy looks like a good cleaning will set you right. There are lots of sites on restoring old boats that will have good info on repairing the deck where the cleat pulled up, looks hard, but realy the hardest part will be in reaching the backside. Have to do the same type repair where someone cut an oak tree so it fell in the water and accross the bow of my boat, took out my rear stantion, luckily I had the gate open, or it may have caused a lot more damage. You're in better shape than I was when I first bought my boat, it had water in it enough that the engine oil was a scum line all around the inner hull, Found two fantastic cleaners for everything, castrol super clean, and purple power, both are pretty much the same stuff, purple power is about $2. cheapewr per gallon, put a quart of super clean in a two gallon garden sprayer, filled the rest with water, sprayed everything down climbed up to grab my scrub brush, and the bilge and everything else was spotless when I climbed back in, only had to realy scrub the area under the cockpit, I make sure I grab that stuff whenever I have anything nasty to clean now. some pics here: www.geocities.com/merc2dogs Haven't updated for a while, but she looks MUCH better now, only way you'd know it was the same boat is the color. Yeah, most people told me I was a fool for buying Her, paid $1000 total, but came with the cradle and registration etc, much less than yours, but more work too, and I wouldn't consider it a mistake. Ken