Well.. I figured I would toss up some info and pictures of my winter project.
Here she is as I picked it up. Inspecting the boat and talking with a few friends that live in the area that are big checkmate fanatics too, I was able to track down 95% of the history of this boat. Was good too because it gave me more faith in the purchase after seeing the condition of some of the parts with the previous owner. The paint job on the boat is probably an 8/10. The 2nd owner of this boat ran a body shop in glen burnie, md and I would have expected more with it being his personal boat at the time. While the paint is laid nice and doesn't have orange peel/runs, he definitely just masked everything off and painted around it, not even taking the time to remove railings and the such. This is noticeable on a few small spots, but overall the average person wouldn't even notice or have an idea if it wasn't mentioned to them. I'm just kind of anal about that type of stuff and hate when people cut corners.
All the gauges were replaced when he repainted it, and from what I've been told he actually was in discussions with checkmate about updating the interior.
It's not in terrible shape, but doesn't match the boat in any way shape or form. The paint really made it look like a newer boat, and the old school interior is just blah with it. We will be updating it with a white/red interior from bow to stern. I'm kind of leaving the design portion of that up to my wife to keep her involved with it.
The boat was originally equipped with a 454, but that got swapped out for a 502 magnum. Unfortunately, it seems that the ex of the girl I bought this from wiped the motor out before going back to her, or it was hurt already. I'm kind of leaning towards operator error on the damage, as most commonly when I've seen damage like this it was low oil level resulting in decreased pressure further from the pump. When I first got the boat, there was no dipstick in the engine, and when I sticked it with some filler rod it was bone dry. I did get the engine running after replacing the starter, but there was a noticeable knock, and opening the oil filter confirmed it was internal engine problems. I discussed the problems with the girl that was selling the boat and we came to an agreement on it. I'm thankful she was trusting enough that she let me take this after giving her a deposit, because I had suspicions with what I had seen, and it saved me alot of money in the end. I would probably be a quite bitter person at the moment had I paid what she was asking and then found these issues.
Here she is as I picked it up. Inspecting the boat and talking with a few friends that live in the area that are big checkmate fanatics too, I was able to track down 95% of the history of this boat. Was good too because it gave me more faith in the purchase after seeing the condition of some of the parts with the previous owner. The paint job on the boat is probably an 8/10. The 2nd owner of this boat ran a body shop in glen burnie, md and I would have expected more with it being his personal boat at the time. While the paint is laid nice and doesn't have orange peel/runs, he definitely just masked everything off and painted around it, not even taking the time to remove railings and the such. This is noticeable on a few small spots, but overall the average person wouldn't even notice or have an idea if it wasn't mentioned to them. I'm just kind of anal about that type of stuff and hate when people cut corners.
All the gauges were replaced when he repainted it, and from what I've been told he actually was in discussions with checkmate about updating the interior.
It's not in terrible shape, but doesn't match the boat in any way shape or form. The paint really made it look like a newer boat, and the old school interior is just blah with it. We will be updating it with a white/red interior from bow to stern. I'm kind of leaving the design portion of that up to my wife to keep her involved with it.
The boat was originally equipped with a 454, but that got swapped out for a 502 magnum. Unfortunately, it seems that the ex of the girl I bought this from wiped the motor out before going back to her, or it was hurt already. I'm kind of leaning towards operator error on the damage, as most commonly when I've seen damage like this it was low oil level resulting in decreased pressure further from the pump. When I first got the boat, there was no dipstick in the engine, and when I sticked it with some filler rod it was bone dry. I did get the engine running after replacing the starter, but there was a noticeable knock, and opening the oil filter confirmed it was internal engine problems. I discussed the problems with the girl that was selling the boat and we came to an agreement on it. I'm thankful she was trusting enough that she let me take this after giving her a deposit, because I had suspicions with what I had seen, and it saved me alot of money in the end. I would probably be a quite bitter person at the moment had I paid what she was asking and then found these issues.
It looks like a good platform to build off of and should be awesome when you're done! 
