[quote=Edchris177]Thanks Philip. Other than the top, the rest is still "shiny", so I think I'll leave it as is for now. Good advice to find parts that "are no longer available."
Gray, the only downside to your setup is that it doesn't appear to be the captive ball system. The newer ones have two holes drilled through the base fitting. A pin is inserted into these holes, & engages below the centreline of the ball, thereby locking the mast base to the ball.
This lessens the chance of the base popping off while raising or lowering the mast. The manual is pretty explicit about keeping a foot firmly on the mast base to hold things in place while raising/lowering the mast. I think Andrew also ties a short piece of line around the mast & DS.
If you step your mast once a season it's probably no biggie, but if you are trailering each day, the $160 might be money well spent.
I'm a newbie also, so take my advice in context. Some of the more experienced guys can tell you if the captive system is worth the extra cost.
I've gone over my 5.7 pretty closely, so far the spreadsheet says I've spent an extra $400 on overhaul. I guess that really isn't to bad for a 1984 boat, since a good chunk of it was to convert to roller furling.
<!-- editby --><em>edited by: Edchris177, Mar 25, 2010 - 08:04 AM</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)
