On Labor Day weekend, we went to a friend's place on Lake Coeur d'Alene. We did some surfing that weekend behind both their boat and ours. They have a Malibu Wakesetter 23LSV and the wave we were able to get out of that boat was considerably better than what we could get out of our Mobius LSV. I half-jokingly told my wife, "I'm going to sell our boat and get one of those!" Fast forward a few weeks...
I didn't want to spend very much money, but it had to be a 2004 or new 23LSV. Of course, that means anything I find is going to be a project and what I found is exactly that. This is a 2005 Malibu Waksetter 23LSV with a rough interior, oxidized gelcoat and a blown motor, which I picked up for $6500! My plan is to have it running and ready for fun on the water by spring.
The interior, while there are many areas that are sun faded, there are not many rips, holes, tears or seams coming apart. My hope is that I'll be able to restore the vinyl with a product called Rub 'n Restore. It promises to fix sun faded vinyl and warn leather to like new condition. Since it will only cost $250 to get enough material to do the whole boat, it is where I plan to start.
The blown motor is simply a cracked block. It actually runs right now, but the internal crack will allow water to mix with the oil, which is not a good thing. It has an Indmar 383 Hammerhead, which is the biggest motor they offered at the time, 400hp. I plan to get a brand-new GM standard bore block which is already clearanced for a 3.8" stroke crank and swap all the parts over.
One of the other things I really wanted, but was not a hard requirement was the MLS-4 ballast system. That consists of 4 hard tanks spread throughout the boat, 2 under the floor in each rear locker (200bs each), 1 under the floor in the middle of the boat (500lbs) and one under the front seats (350lbs). I plan to add 2 bags to the rear lockers to get almost 1800lbs more.
The only problem is, the boat is currently in Pheonix! Fortunately, the current own is willing to drive it up here and meet me at the DMV so we can do the paperwork for only $1500. So, all in, I will have the boat in my shop in about a week for $8k! After fixing the engine, interior, adding a stereo, updating the bimini top... I should be into it for less than $25k.
