3007 Carver survey soon - What Items are big ?

C

cruisepilot

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Jan 9, 2008
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29206
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I am about to have a Pre-Purchase survey done on a Carver 3007. Volvo 150hp TAMD40 Diesel . Westerbeke 7.7

1/ I was advised rib cracks in Long & Lat
stingers or bulkheads are common with the
Carver 30-32.
2/ The Volvo TAMD40 Diesel has a bad
overheating problem, and the external cylinder walls
should be checked with a infrared thermometer and
190 temp or above would be a major problem.
3/ The V-drive trans have problems and the
straight drive is best.

Is this all as bad as it sounds?
Can you suggest anything else to watch out
for ?

THX
 
well if you suspect problems with stringers and bulkhead, you know what to look for and see if there is a problem and then decide whether or not it's worth surveying.

"cylinder walls should be checked with a laser heat gun" ??
what the heck is a laser heat gun ? did they mean an infrared thermometer ? you can't check the cylinder walls, or liners ?, for temp... and it woudl be far higher than 190 !!

before doing a survey and spending any money on a survey, do a sea trial. IF the engine overheat wait till the seller address the problem before spnding $1000 on survey and haul out.

an infrared thermometer is cheap and a nice tool to have, you can check the coolant temp for instance, usually on the Tstat housing to check the gauges. you can also check exhasut manifold temp. and quickly see if one cylinder is weak. BUT... BUT... sometimes they can give you inacurate reading depending on distance and also on teh reflectivity of the surface... ex... shiny surface will no reflect like a dull rusted steel surface, affecting the readings. so yeah, great tool but use with care.

from your post, it seems like the source of your info was not very reliable...
 
The 3007 is an aft cabin and would have straight drive transmissions...not V-drives. I haven't seen any of the stringer problems you mention on any of the 3207,s we've sold over the years, but we are on Lake Erie..so in other parts of the country...maybe they do happen
 
While its irrelevant here for the reasons Ram mentioned above, I'd like to know why people moan so much about V Drives. I've never owned a boat with straight inboards, and the V drives have been very reliable for decades of service!!!

The only trouble I ever had with a V drive was when we hit a floating object in the Hudson early one season and unbeknownst to me it bent the damn strut about 20 degrees out of line. So can I blame the V drive for failing AT THE END OF THE SEASON after I ran the hell out of the boat for months with a bent strut? I don't think so...

For those who have concerns, the standard V Drive on older Carvers was the Walter model RV-20. It has been replaced with the RV-26, which is a beefier unit. That is the type I put in my old 2895 over a decade ago and never had a problem with them...

My current 2896 has the older RV-20s, but they are still going strong as far as I can tell...
 
i think part of the problem is that there has been some issues with a small number of Vee drives, including the infamous Merc Velvet drive installed on nearly all small inboard boats from 98 trhu 01 or so, including the two that failed on my 98 maxum 37...

I think there were some issues with larger ZFs a while back too...

otherwise, if installed properly they are not a bad solution, even though they do shift the boat CG further aft. and yes, the stuffing box is under the engine which doesn't make for easy maintenance... compromise, compromise.

it's like saying all sterndrives are bad because they can sink the boat, which is tryu on many mercs. well... wait a minute, people say that dont' they ? :-)
 
The biggest issue with Vee drives...is basically remote vee drives like the Walters...With that system, you have multiple alignment points, and some people don't have alignments at all, let alone aligning 2 points. This causes things to be out of sync, and causes the vee drive seals to fail
 
When we had our boat surveyed (1995 Carver 325), a small bit of tabbing that holds the forward stringer to the hull was found to be bad - maybe about 3".

When I looked at it, the particular stringer was not structural, it simply was part of the base structure that attached the forward seating area to the hull, and not connected to the main stringers running along the hull. I am not even sure if "stringer" is the appropriate term for this piece.

We found that the failure was because there was an air pocket under the tabbing - so it failed due to not wetting out the tabbing fully, and not due to any stress. I can accept broken tabbing due to not properly wetting it out vs. stress.

We had the tabbing repaired and have not had any re-occuring problems at all with it.

Pascoe himself says that broken tabbing is the #1 common hull problem he sees. Sometimes it is not structural, and of no concern, but other times its indicative of a serious issue. So the use of a surveyor is essential in my mind for determining the condition of the boat.
 
Be sure to have your surveyor check the swim platform. Mine was rusted through and about to fall off. So happy he caught it. Seller paid for the extensive repair.

-Greg
 
The survey went good . No stringer or bulkhead cracks or tabbing.
The complete vessel structure was sound, dry without soft spots.
Swim platform was good.
The TAMD40 checked out and temp was steady at 175F .
Yes the it has a straight drive which also checked out.
The only items found were small replacement accessory items that I will have fun to fix / replace.
If the oils sample results come in good, we will close this deal.
Thanks for all your input. Forums like this really help, over the old days when you relied solely on the surveyor. Now you can perk him up when you have a check list of items you want inteligent answers to. I was lucky to have very good surveyor too.

Thanks again fellas
 
Terrific!

I'm still paying for repairs on my boat. Nonetheless, wouldn't trade it for another. Wonderful wessel!

-Greg
 
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