New boat purchase
 

Thinking about purchasing a 1996 Z 235. How are part to find? Is this a good boat to take overnight on lake Powell? What would be a good price for a well kept low time boat? Any of you guys know if there are any alligators in this boat?

Thanks and looking forward to getting to know some of you, Mark

Re: New boat purchase
 

I'll try to answer your questions one at a time

1- Read this post

2 - Its a trailerable day boat with overnight capability.

3 - Prices vary considerably. Check NADA

4 - Alligators were optional on the Z235.

Re: New boat purchase
 

Thanks a lot. NADA says about 12K for average retail but I’m wondering if this is akin to nada saying a Airstream trailer is worth 10K but they sell all day for 20+. Oh yeah and most importantly, any suggestions on what to about the wife? ��

Re: New boat purchase
 

There is no one source out there (that I'm aware of) where you can get an exact value on a boat. NADA tries to price in regional differences as well as optional equipment and seasonal variations in their valuations. Since there are not many of these boats around you may simply have to Google search a Mariah Z235 and see if any others pop up for sale. You might want to search a Mariah Z225 also as it was a similar (18" smaller) cuddy cabin boat and/or a Z255 which was a couple of feet longer.

As for your wife ..... I wont go there.

Re: New boat purchase
 

I bought it for much less than asking price. If it all checks out I’ll let you guys know. I took a early retirement after 32 years as a Captain with United. They wanted to stick me with a B Gates needle. I won’t be using my positive space world wide travel, so we will just hangout at the lakes until they shut that down.

1996 Mariah Z 235 Talari

Re: New boat purchase
 

Well I got the boat home and it’s doing some strange things on the dash. If I turn the NAV lights on it pegs all the gauges if I push the cigarette lighter in it makes the gauges go to half. If I turn the accessory on at the same time it turns the radio of. Any ideas?

Re: New boat purchase
 

Sounds like a bad ground. With everthing off. If you attach the black lead of a voltmeter to the negative terminal of the battery and the red lead to the ground terminal of the back of the tach under the dash, you should only see a few millivolts. Now when you turn the nav lights on, you should only see a small change, maybe a few hundred millivolts. If you are seeing volts, you either have a missing or bad ground. Trace the ground wire from the back of the gauges back to the battery. Another option to prove a bad or missing ground is to run a temporary wire from battery neg terminal to the ground on the back of the gauges. Happy hunting.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

Re: New boat purchase
 

Thanks a lot Steve. I talk to the previous owner and he said he’d never had this problem. But he also said he never use the NAV lights because he never went out at night. I did find one ground wire that came loose from the fuse panel that’s located behind the throttle quadrant which was a common ground to the Electric seat and also the VHF radio. So maybe something like that is the culprit. I will certainly try what you suggested and let you know.

Re: New boat purchase
 

OK Steve I have been tracing wires and hooked up the meter to the back of the tach like you said and Shazam I have a bad ground somewhere. In the course of fooling with the wiring, primarily the ground wires from the battery to the gauge cluster, I must’ve move the ground wire that was loose because everything started working. I found that once the ground wire was making proper ground my NAV lights could be turned on and the gauges did not move. Also the dimmer switch now controlled the back lighting whereas before I had absolutely no back lighting. The problem, shortly after mysteriously fixing the problem, came back. So I think I’m on the right track I just need to figure out where it is. I will let you know what I find but since I found the loose common ground to the VHF radio and power seat, I’m thinking that something got jarred loose and it’s just not making good contact. Thanks again for your help.

Re: New boat purchase
 

Hey guys just to give an update on my electrical problem. I took the side cushion panel which is located just above the throttle quadrant off and found a fuse panel located there. There were some loose wires and grounding issues found. I tightened it up and everything seems to work good on my electrical issue. I thought it was a strange place to put a fuse panel but at least it was easy getting that long cushion board panel off. You just lift it straight up and it comes right off. Can’t wait for summer about you guys.