Greetings all, I have found myself in a predicament. I have been working on my 1979 26’ reinell Flybridge for about 5 months now. I’m down to the bare bones just going through everything, doing things right. My transom is toast, it needs to be replaced. I have my engine pulled and I’m taking the bell housing/gimbal/inner transom plate off to prep the transom to be torn out. My first question is, what is the best strategy to tear out all the old transom wood? Secondly, rebuilding a transom from scratch to fit the outdrive seems like A LOT of work and I’m debating if switching to an outboard set up would be easier after the transom rebuild. Luckily I have a rebuilt 1969 Chevy 350 V8 L88 corvette engine with numbers matching that will fetch a pretty penny to give me a budget to get an outboard. The way I see it I have 3 options, I can sell the engine and get an outboard set up, sell the engine get a v6 that is more efficient, or I can just keep the engine. What would be best from your view? If I were to go with a v6, any recommendations on a good small block? Also anyone looking to sell a 200hp+ 4s outboard in good shape PM me. Anyone interested in that 69 vette engine PM me. Cheers all.