jpwhit

@gcam4 yeah I read Jeff's thread a couple of days ago. He did an impressive restoration and lots of good info in that thread. If I get fed up with the restoration I'll let you guys know :wink:

A real optimistic crowd here ;) At the lake where I have my lake house, I taught at least a dozen kids to start skiing the course last summer. I have 2-3 new ones already asking me to teach them the course this coming summer. I know of 4 families that are lusting after a ProStar now that they've been in mine. They all want to sell their surf boats and buy a true ski boat. I predict we won't see the end of the Ski Boat and at least 2 manufactures will always have one on the market for the next two decades. As someone that's come up through the technical ranks at companies that design, manufacture, and sell products. And ended up in the later part of my career having a lot of involvement in the business and strategy side. I tend to think that the big boat companies see some advantage in the diversification of having a ski boat in the product set. Especially in this day and age when there is lot of proposed regulation, or even outright ban of surf boats in some states / lakes. Sure, in the short term when supply chain issues limit the number of boats they can build, it's smart business to perhaps shift some build slots to the most profitable models. But in the long term, as long as they can build and sell ski boats for a profit, and I can think they can, it makes business sense to do so. And all this from someone that also has and really enjoys my surf / wake boat in addition to my ski boat.....

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply setting up an LLC itself is expensive. The whole arrangement is looking to be a more expensive way to go. Yes, in the case of an LLC, the insurer considers this a commercial insurance policy. At the moment we do have the boat titled in one person's name and that person carries the insurance. We were also able to find an insurer that would allow us to list the other drivers on the policy. But there is still extra risk for the person whose name is on the title. And the person whose name is on policy isn't willing to continue with this arrangement as the current set of boat owners is starting to turn over. We did ask a couple of our insurance agents what they would do in this case. And they all said form an LLC and get a commercial insurance policy. Yes, it's a fair amount more expensive, but still less per person that having your own boat insurance policy. And the whole arrangement is way cheaper than the cost of a personally owned boat and insurance.

We have a group that does this at our ski club. But getting the boat insured is a real problem that we haven't been able to completely solve. We're trying to solve it right now by forming a LLC to own and insure the boat. But it looks to be pretty expensive.

That looks like the classic touch screen failure of the Murphy HV700T displays. I hope it's under warranty because the screens are expensive. One thing you can try, is to make sure the screen mounting screws aren't too tight. If they are over tightened, they can put pressure on the touch screen. I'm talking about the screws that attach the HV700T to the dash. I've actually fixed a few of these, but the issue is lack of parts availability. The LCD display / touch screen assembly is a custom optically bonded part that can't be purchased off the shelf. So the only way to get that part is from a donor display that's had a logic board failure. I think there's a possibility to use entire displays or parts from other versions of the Murphy displays that are a lot cheaper to get, but I'd need to run more tests. What's holding my up on that right now is a need a copy of the Update***.tar.gz firmware file for the HV700T display for the 14-20 ProStar so I test other displays with my ProStar. I posted on MasterCraft Team Talk trying to get someone to send me the file, but so far haven't had any luck. Some people have the files because the dealers will send it to folks if they need to update the firmware and they are too far from the dealer.

@6balls and @thager thanks for the input on the dash options. Mine does have the fuse panel there on the dash and I agree that's a terrible use of valuable real estate.

Doesn't the 7" display have an engine diag screen that shows any engine codes? I realize it's not as much info as my Diacom setup will show, but it's a start. Beyond that, start with the basics. Fuel and Spark. You won't have one or the other. @Mastercrafter suggestion is a good start. Another quick way to determine if it's fuel, is to get a spray can of starter fluid. One burst into the throttle body, and if it's starts for a second, then it's not getting fuel. Easy and safe way to tell if you have spark is to get a cheap spark tester. Or use a timing light if you have one. If you're comfortable doing it, you can do the old screwdriver in one of the spark plug leads that is held about 1/4 inch from a ground. But you can get zapped doing that and if there are any fumes, they can be ignited.

No question that it'll have zero off. In terms of engine, I'm leaning toward something rather unconventional. By glass panel, I mean I may put in an HV700 display similar to used in most current boats such as my 2019 ProStar.

The interior is in really rough shape. But I guess I could follow the previous repair attempt of white duct tape. Thanks @gcam4, I'll check that out. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to restore it to originality or do a restomod. I'm leaning towards modernizing everything. Glass cockpit for example.

@VermontSkier the plan is for a complete restoration and re-power. I've been keeping my eye out for a boat in this condition for a while. One without a good engine but good bones for a restoration. I'm not sure the restoration will start immediately since I have quite a few other projects in the works, but then again since this is my first week of retirement, it may get started sooner than I'm predicting.

@MISkier yeah, your reaction is similar to mine after seeing the name on the back. I was a little afraid to dig too deeply through the boat in fear of what may turn up.

Thanks for the pointer to the boat for sale. It took a while for me to make it to NY to pick it up, but it's at it's new home now. If anyone recognizes the "The Guarino Bambino", I'd love to know more about the history of the boat. It was originally purchased in NJ, then spent a good part of it's life at a YMCA camp in NY. Now it's starting the next chapter of it's life in NC.

This is somewhat relevant to this thread. Because the original ZO, which it appears this boat has, will need to either have the firmware on the original Garmin pucks updated, or be upgraded to the latest single puck ZO. The original ZO, with the puck firmware supplied by ZO, sort of works, but doesn't work correctly at this point. That's because the GPS 18x pucks have a bug related to the GPS Week Number rollover that happened on April 6, 2019. GPS Week Rollover Garmin GPS 18x Firmware Issues and Updates The bugs caused accuracy issue with the GPS data. And the accuracy varies based on which and how many satellites are in view at any point in time. This manifests in Zero off behavior that ranges from just being somewhat out of whack to totally not working and surging badly based on the the position of the GPS satellites in the sky. I've also seen cases where the ZO diag screen reports one of the pucks is not working because of the bug. Unfortunately, updating the puck firmware isn't a simple process. ZO doesn't provide a built-in firmware update procedure for the pucks. Additionally, it's a two part process. The actual puck firmware must be updated, which completely resets the configuration of the puck. Then the puck must be re-configured precisely as ZO expects. Otherwise, ZO won't recognize the puck. I built the required cables, figured out the configuration of the pucks that ZO expects, and have updated our club boat. I've also heard that Perfect Pass was doing the updates for folks at one point. ZO's official "fix" is to upgrade to the new single puck GPS system.

Part of why I mentioned that, is some people still want to just fix their older ZO system and may be trying to get Garmin pucks. The chip needed for the Garmin puck is no longer being made, but you can still get them if you really need one. So I didn't know how to read you comment. Are the new single puck upgrades in short supply, or are you referring to the short supply of the original Garmin pucks.

The latest ZO single puck GPS is made by ECI, not Garmin.

I'm in NC but have never tried to do this before. When you say save receipts, how does that prove the gas was used off-road? Or do the receipts have to be from somewhere like a Marina? If that's the case, it's not worth it for me. Or is it just to prove you at least bought that much gas and you are declaring by submitting the form it was used off-road?

Here's a tip for U-ship. Make sure you take bids for at least a week. Longer if you can afford the time. Ignore the first ones that come in, they tend to be way high. It takes the folks that'll give a descent price some time to collect up a good set of jobs to make a trip worth their time with a good price to the consumers.

I think it changed between the MV8 5.7L (red) and the Ilmore 5000MPI (blue) flavor of 5.7L engine.

When I see a boat that's been clearly neglected, I assume the engine has been equally neglected.

It's also worth noting that the optional shock tube arm on the Wakeye works much better than the default arm that just the rope passes through. It's also significantly more durable.

Are you guys re-inventing the wheel here? Wakeye already has a feature for this issue on the later models. It's an adjustment that let's you offset the pivot point of the camera from the center point of the pylon. That basically causes the swing angle of the camera to be non-linear relative to the rope angle. Said in another way, as the angle of the rope gets greater when the skier is out near the ball, the camera angle is even larger, meaning the camera turns even further towards the buoy. I understand it's a little different than making the mount spring loaded, but it solves the same problem and I make heavy use of it since the goal of my camera setup was to be able to zoom in well on the skier. I do think the spring loaded idea does have some merit, but it will also introduce an unusual camera movement as the mechanism "snaps over" as the skier crosses the center-line. I worry that will be problematic since watching for stack as the skier is behind the boat is fairly important. I also have a ski-doc, and I tried it out because I do think the ski-doc is much more durable. But I ended up going back to the Wakeye specifically due to this one feature.

ok, got it on what's typical in Utah. Note to self: don't move to Utah. I guess I'm just spoiled. All our lakes here in NC have plenty of depth. I have absolutely no issue being able to find smooth water with 35-60 feet of depth. My favorite cove for watersports has a large section of deep water where we surf. And then we have our slalom course at the back of the cove after three 90 degree turns from boat traffic that would create rollers. Here's a picture from a recent weekend. I'm at the lake house during the weekends, I ski at a private lake during the week.

That also tells me there is a lot of interaction between the wave and the bottom up to 25ft of depth. Which makes me wonder if you'll have changes in the bottom of the lake over time if you're less than 25ft.

I asked because I've been doing some controlled testing and what I've found is 25ft is a key depth. Between 15 and 25ft the change in wave is pretty linearly better. After 25ft, the increase is much less significant.

How deep is the wake lake ?