ouch, this hurts to look at
 

Mariah Shabah Rebuildable on ebay

This literally brings a tear to my eye... :shakehead:

But, hopefully someone can bring her back to life with some time and a little TLC.

I didnt think they made a 16' boat. But yes that is very sad.:yikes: Looks like it is in a bone yard.

they don't know anything about it, and the description says they "guessed" on the size of it.

Yeah....almost made me cry to see the condition it's in since its a Shabah 180 like mine. I sent them an email to see if they would consider parting it out (i need the windshield glass on the drivers side) cuz the rebuild cost will exceed the finished value of the boat. The other thing mine doesnt have (like that one) is the two Mariah shields on the inside combing near the rear seats. :(

It’s like seeing a wounded animal, you just want to put it’s out of its misery!:shakehead:

It'll buff out... ;)

Seriously though, that is kinda sad. Looks to be a salt water boat as well. No doubt the engine (or what's left of it) is a rusty hulk.

They say they couldn't make out what engine it had because it was partially torn down and parts were missing as well as the missing outdrive. Between the complete interior replacement, likely having to replace or repair most of the electrics, repairs to the steering cable, roof canvas, motor & outdrive work needed and the exterior decals etc......i dont think i want that job.

Inspired
 

I recently purchased a 1999 18' Mariah that had sunk in Salt water. The boat I bought needs a lot of work, but not as much as this one. My engine runs, and the outdrive is still in good shape. I will be replacing the billows, gimble, u-joints, water pump, but over all it's ok. Motor must have been pickled right away because it runs great. The wiring and interior is another story. Yesterday I stripped the main wiring harness. I was undecided on wether I was going to replace ends on the wires and try to make it work, but I have decided to replace every bit of wiring in the boat. I have been looking on ebay, but so far, I haven't been able to find the whole deal. I have gages and switches, a new fuel pump, alternator, battery thanks to a friend with extra parts. I will also have to rebuild the interrior. The hull is scratched and has a lot of barnacle buttons on it. I am in the process of sanding the whole area below the water line. I will probably end up painting the hull from the water line down. Hopefully I can match the paint with the gelcoat above the rub rail. I will try to post some pics and some news as this project progresses. Thoughts? Has anybody been in my shoes and may have some pointers?

are you kidding, thats great, bet you can get it super cheap and part it out on ebay and make 10x your money
hell look what just the decals go for

Not I. I gave some thought to a project boat few years ago, (restoring my dads old Baja) but it was a similar situation to the Mariah here; Resto costs would have well exceeded the finished value of the boat...

You might want to PM user moodance100. I believe he has some experience with painting the hull.

borz170, sounds like you've got quite a project for yourself. I would suggest becoming a contributor on the site, as we've got wiring diagrams and all sorts of helpful things that would be really beneficial to you! Especially if you wanted to restore it to showroom condition with OEM parts & supplies. Click the Donate button for more info.

I would suggest trying to get in touch with Doug (moondance100), he had his gelcoat and hull repainted and it looks brand new.

I think we ought to pull together some members and go in on it together to create a custom restoration, "Mariah Owners Club style". :) Or we could just part it all out in the name of the club, before this boat becomes more trashed...

gawd...i dont envy that job at all. As for the wiring harness you will probably have to make up your own. I would suggest carefully removing the exisiting one after you have labelled each of the wires as to where they go and take a few digital photos of the underdash area etc while you are at it. Then you will have to buy the wiring & connectors to duplicate it. Without actually checking i'm pretty sure we have a wiring diagram in our collection of goodies available to paying members so you might want to click on the "Donate" button above to get the details.
Finding genuine Mariah parts for the interior will be very difficult as they were all made in-house and what ever shows up on E-Bay can be expensive. Gauges & switches etc can be found at third party vendors though.

There wasn't many parts on that boat that looked salvagable. :( Even the seats would require cushion foam replacement as well as recovering & that's not cheap. Just about everything inside looked like it was suffering from rot and i've never seen what looks like a 'rusty' steering wheel before.

I asked them if they would consider parting it out but they said they would prefer to sell it whole.

The salvor did say it would come with an "Alabama" title that would take a week or so to transfer so that's likely where it's from. The hull pics weren't clear enough to see if there was any damage underneath and i'm assuming they didn't show a pic of the engine bay due to the condition of what was left. That is a nasty looking project though and it is a 180 Shabah.

Looks like it was moving around during Katrina... :rolling_laugh:

I bought the boat for $800. I figured I could at least get $500 out of the engine and $600 out of the drive unit. Hopefully it won't come to that. I don't plan on putting the boat back into original condition, as that would prpbably cost more than the finished value. However I do plan to take as much time as needed to build the interrior to my own specifications so it at least looks like a nice respectable craft. I figure with a new trailer under her, I'll have no more than $3500 into it. Thoughts?

After I bought my boat that had set out (covered with its tarps) for 2yrs. I had it polished, new graphics, small amount of gel-coat work, and very minor work to bring it back to new look. It cost $3500+ so I would think this would cost much more than $3500, even doing your own work. Just my opinion.

Wow... yeah that really hurt to look at. At least the windshield looks to be in almost tip-top shape however! Hull seems to look good, interior.. well.

If I had the time, lotsa cash, lotsa free time, lotsa know how and D.I.Y'er kinda knowledge... I would love to have a project boat.

I think they need a boat show similar to that "Trucks" show on Spike TV where they take an old heaper and get it going to show room condition again.

" Overhaulin' " ... but for boats! :D

Oh they do have a boat repair show, "Ship Shape TV", but it's always doing some insane project on some 53' Monterey boat that no one around here could afford. The show is heavily sponsored, and the projects always seem to revolve consistently around the sponsors.

Believe it or not, I actually emailed them regarding a project I've been doing on mine explaining about Mariah going out of business and trying to replace this part, asking for any help or potential leads, and of course, no reply. I've also noticed since then, the contact button has disappeared from their website... :shakehead:

They need just your average boat on there. Not something that is worth more then my house... lol.

Agreed, it would have been nice to have seen a Mariah get redone. But unless they have the bling factor, not many would tune in.

I remember watching Ship Shape TV a while back and always thought it was nothing more than a series of advertisements for their sponsor's products.

Anyway....back to the Shabah in Florida. I'm hopin' that those E-bayers who are bidding on this boat are members of our club and intend to part the thing out. I see the vendor took my advice & provided pics of the engine area so now we know it's a 3.0L four pot. Maybe 180diablo needs a spare engine for parts? ;)
There seems to be some interest in the parts off this boat (as well as those "valuable" Mariah emblems) and the trailer itself should bring in a little $$.

I hope not ! Well ok "spares" would be good to have, but not a spare engine. I dont think it would fit under the rear jumper seats... :p

Yeah I wish I had the original Mariah emblems on the port/starboard sides. I just cheated and bought new style ones.

Trailer I wouldnt mind having tho :)

It Sold !! for the $1500 asking price to an Ebayer named "Wolfgangmove05". His profile says he is from the UK though.

oh, well. At least the vendor said he would pass my name & email along to the buyer in the event he is considering parting it out.....

I would be very surprised if his info is legit. "Wolfgang" and "England" somehow just dont go together. I did ask the vendor to ask the buyer where he was from & if he was a member of our club. I'll let ya know if i get a response.

I suspect whoever the buyer is could have actually bargained the price down a little and we may never know what it actually sold for. But the cost of shipping & repairs would far outweigh the value of the finished product....unless of course he's gonna paddle it over the big pond to Blighty.:)

All we can do is hope that it's a member who's willing to part it out.

Take a look at his feedback. :shakehead:The boat will be up again very soon.

uh boy.... i hope the vendor got cash from this guy. Looking at his other transactions......wetwilly may have called this one right.

I just got a message from the vendor.....


Dear mikeandterri1987,

The buyer was fraudulant. We have another guy who offered $1000 and we may take it or relist it in a week.

- butlerautorecycling



The spidey senses were definitely tingling with this guy...

What an interesting turn of events on that Ebay sale ... lol.

Good call by the Super Mod... :wink_thumbup:

Apparently this boat is going back on E-Bay later today. The first 'purchaser' was a fraud artist & i guess the back-up buyer changed his mind.

She's back up on ebay this morning!! With 3 bids already

I checked on this one last night and saw a couple of bids of just over $1250 and now i see this morning the high bid is at $900 (which is still good). Must of had another couple of fraud artists in the bidding ?

If anyone else is interested in parts off this boat (I need the drivers side windshield glass) i would suggest sending the vendor an email expressing your interest in whatever part you are looking for and ask him to pass on your information to the purchaser in the event he may just part the boat out. The vendor (Mike) said he would do that for me...

Restoring my 1999 18' Mariah.
 

I'm glad to see all of the interest in this boat. Mine is in much better shape, even though it needs all new interrior/wiring, etc. She sunk in salt water a while back. Drive and Engine work properly. I finally got her running. Had to hot wire the coil, but she ran great with old plugs. Had to put a ign coil in and a new cap/rotor. I will send you guys some pics and keep you informed if you want. I kinda have a feeling that I'm gonna get ripped apart when you see and hear about how I'm going to put her back together. Like some of you have mentioned, putting her back to original will cost more than the list price. I plan to do a nice job rebuilding the interrior, but due to budget constraints, it will be a slow process and it won't be original. I am going to do a lot of research and look at a lot of pictures before I start construction. I am thinking of building the bow rider storage covers out of starboard/delron or something hard because I have dogs that love to go boating. i will also make cushions for the bow area so it will be comfortable. I'm not sure what to do in the back. I am leaning toward rebuilding it the same way it was from the factory, but the sun pad area won't be as extravagant. I have an in with a maring upholstry company. I should be able to get good deals on supplies, but I won't be able to afford to have them sew and cover the pannels for me. If anyone has a pic of a 1999 18' Mariah, I would love to see it. Also, I'm nor sure what model mine is. Is there a way to track it based on the stamped hull numbers?

Thoughts?

Have a look in the gallery: http://www.mariahownersclub.com/gallery/index.php

There are pictures of a couple of 18' 1999 model year boats.

Hi Borz

As Z202 pointed out there are a couple of similar boats in our gallery and we have manuals etc available to contributing members. As for the restoration of your boat, you dont have to re-make it as it was originally. I mean i understand the desire of most of us to restore as original but in your case you have some budget restraints (dont we all..), marine dogs and other issues so restore it so that you can use it. You can always pick away at little things over time when the $$ are available & you come across a good deal on the original parts. A Mariah on the water is what we want to see!