2005 74' Viking Enclosed Bridge

Where do you find one if you want it to have a Tuna Tower on it, or fish rigged to start with in freshwater? Most Florida SF are VERY well taken care of, and repaired properly.....I'd prefer to buy a FL Sportfish.....maybe would prefer a freshwater motoryacht but not sportfish......

The 396 series engines are on their last leg and most major components are re-mans. Third world navy's are hoarding most of the parts to keep their patrol boats going and in the yachting segment
They're being pulled from boats on a regular basis these days after W-6 plus, plus On the clocks as owners have come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to re power verses the crazy $$$ of rebuilding as the parts are getting thin and that's true especially on the electronic controls. There's a couple of people in the states that are making excellent livings specializing in CPR for the MTU 1800 Hz alarm -control systems from the old 80s technology .
22,000 $$ for a air charge cooler core? 16,000 $ for a fresh water pump? They were both re- mans also. I do like your sense of humor Kiwi
about any new production of the 396? Pound per HP they couldn't be beat in their day but I would run as fast as I could from any listing that included 396's.

So are the German tool kits.

I have heard the same things. Not to mention, smoke on startup and for the first 20 minutes from them will CLEAR OUT a neighborhood.

We never turned the pre-heaters off on 396 and 595's and didn't have start up smoke issues out of the norm.
MTU stopped production of the 331 / 396 in 1998 so it was a good run from the intro in 1973 and yes, you can purchase some "Barn Finds" of the 396 with zero hours ( very few world wide) from surplus or warehouse consigns of the 396 that have sat on pallets for years. Funny thing is that the majority of 396 production went to rail locomotives and large mining trucks & Gen plants. Heck, Even the Eifel Tower has three 12v 396 TB 92's in Gen. configuration for back up power so the tourists can take that iconic night time photo. A great site to visit is the diesel engine traders.com site for an interesting snap shot world wide to look at the availability of any manufacturers production runs.
BTW Capt. J, I always enjoyed the very identifiable exhaust smell / smoke of a Multiple Trouble Units (MTU's). As it kept the no -seeum's and skeeter's away!

So what's the deal with Sea Deuce? I've followed Bamboo's posts and have looked at the listing and that battle wagon looks like the best deal out there. The listing makes it obvious that she's been very well maintained and upgraded. Is it just a case of a boat being 26 years young , 1692's with slim tankage etc? I've looked at listings for the last five years with several different brokerage houses that have had the central & they had her priced from $229,000 to $299,000 depending I guess on the before and after DD rebuild & other upgrades. Maybe the other main eng. that hasn't been majored makes potential buyers pause? Dunno, but this boat looks like a good buy if it surveys well. Something doesn't add up here or this boat would have sold months ago. Could be un- educated buyers @ this price point thinking that if it sound or looks to good to be true... After following bamboo's posts I would certainly put Sea Deuce on my short list for survey.

That's true, but block heaters consume a lot of electricity which usually results in not having enough energy for everything else on the boat if on shorepower. If you leave the block heaters off, it would take a good 8+ hours for them to get any real temperature in the motor if turned on.

Capt.Holli- That end of the SF market is just dead. The cost of maintanence compared to the cost of the boat is so high. Also that size market is rather dead in general. All of the custom builders have 2 year waits but they're only building and selling 75' +. Viking is also having great success with that size range and it's carrying the rest of the line.