May the Force...

Continuing on with our 

freebie craigslist hunting theme...

Who could resist a free running outboard!?

There's always a catch...

We were eating lunch when this popped up.

I immediately recognized the boat as a Whaler,

just like ours.

On the back hung a Force 85 hp.

The boat was a recent purchase,

it had been on craigslist for a month.

The new owner wanted a repower.

When texting he recognized our boat.

Somehow he had found our whaler rebuild online.

This typing finally paid off!

There's a funkiness to Force outboards,

apparent in the wild graphics.

Holey chit who came up with the digi #'s!

Even for late 80's that's pushin it...

Under the cover was pristine,

thanks to the dry Palm Springs air

and fresh water use.

Why would Steve not want to run this?

The Force brand has never had a good reputation.

Online there's a ton of bashing,

tough to defend when bench racing.

The 3-cylinder engine is a solid Chrysler design,

updated with Mercury electronics,

really a bulletproof setup.

The problems being they were the house brand 

for Bayliner boats,

(kinda the entry level)

and also the cheapest outboard on the market,

usually stripped to the bare necessities.

Most failures were probably a result of first timers not flushing the engine,

bad 2-stroke oil mix,

over-revving etc.

Tough to knock that bottom barrel stigma.

Man wouldn't it be fun to make stacker pipes?

And burn through San Diego bay on the whaler!

For now all I did was repaint the oversized cowl,

numbed up in basic white,

keeping the small Force emblem incognito.

This is the perfect engine to swap on the whaler,

in case of a fire sale,

then build around the yamaha 90.

Or find a stripped hull,

and build another boat.

Yeah another project...

Thanks Steve!

TP