Help needed for picking outboard

[Aktmboyd]

I am still trying to get a picture to let you all see my setup, but hey i keep forgetting. Tomorrow I want to pop the boat off the trailer to do some trailer maintenance so maybe i will remember then and get a pic of this thing.

[Aktmboyd]

There is something else maybe someone can help me with. When the motor sits over night or longer and I bring it down to the launch I have to crank it over in the full up tilt position until it fires and then trim it down into the water. Its like the floats are set to high and the motor is getting way too much fuel during starting and flooding the cylinders. It just will not fire in the down position when cold But when the motor is warm it instantaneously fires in the down position when you hit the key, I don't think the starter turns the motor 180* before it has fired. There is no fuel leaking or even a smell of fuel coming from the motor. Any thoughts? Also the fuel economy is a whole lot better then what I was expecting so I know it isn't flooding out all the time.

[Karsten]

Interesting. I had asked about a jack plate when I had my Merc 150 Opti Hang and the guy was all against it but I am still thinking I need the motor jacked up a bit.

Post up some pic's if you can.

Karsten

[Aktmboyd]

So here are some pics of my ugly little set up. It wasn't all that bad a buy, I only paid $500 for the hull and $300 for a beat up old trailer. Now if i was in the south I probably could have found these for free somewhere, but I am not in the south so pickings are very slim. So it is what it is. I do think the only thing I have here that is worthy to be on Screamandfly is my motor and jack plate assembly, the boat is a work in progress. So far been lots of work and little progress. If you look in the far back ground of the side shot of my boat you can see there is still some snow, these pics were taken about an hour ago.


Karsten - about the jack plate "go for it" you will like it. It has allowed me to bury the prop and stick the bow down when the water is rough but also allows me to lift the motor up for better planing speeds, also the ability of lifting the motor up while trailering or beaching is a nice feature.

[Aktmboyd]

Here are some pictures of some bigger chunks of snow we saw on our fishing trip last Saturday. The first 2 were taken on the way out and the last on our way home. The weather had changed quite a bit during the day, as usual.

There is a big Udjuak(bearded seal) maybe 8-10' in the foreground, at first i thought it was a Walrus it was so big,
and a huge iceberg in the back ground


On the smaller bergs like these we will shoot a piece of and the piece that floats we will collect
and make 1000 year old tea with it(no pun intended). These bergs formed long before any pollution was around.


Big Nasty floating by there is only 1/3rd of an iceberg that is visible above water.

[Thunderduck]

Boat looks good. Trailer need work (??).

[Aktmboyd]

Well I have figured a couple of things out after a little time and also by reading some of the older posts here on S&F. First off I can now instantly cold start my motor by pushing the key in and priming the engine. I first thought that it was a too rich starting condition and by tilting the engine I was pulling fuel away from the motor but in fact it was the total opposite i was actually flooding it. Needles to say it made me feel like a complete bone head! Secondly I believe the foam under the floor is completely waterlogged, this hull is bloody heavy for a 16 footer. The water most likely got into the boat from sitting on the beach for 2 years being completely submerged at high tide and also being encased in ice during the winters. Thirdly I don't completely trust the factory 1 1/2" thick transom that is on the boat, it's what 30ish years old. I have been Nursing it pretty good knowing that the transom/hull was never intended to run a motor/jackplate combination that is currently hung off of it now. So real soon(as soon as my hydraulic steering hoses come in) is a complete rebuild of the transom to a thickness of 2 1/4"(3 ply 3/4"plywood), cut the already soft floor out and dig out the foam and replace stringers if need be and then replace soaked foam with Pink polystyrene (encased in epoxy) and make sure all limber holes are clear to allow any water to drain to transom I will also add much needed flotation under the rear deck and along the rub rail to hopefully if bad things happen, help keep the boat floating upright. So far it has been a good little boat.

[Aktmboyd]

Alright, so winter is slowly coming to a close. We are still frozen in here and probably will be for another 1-2 months, but it is time to start maintenance and thinking about prepping the boat for the upcoming season. One thing I really don't understand is Prop Slip, maybe someone can help me with this. I have a Merc Rev 4 prop on my boat and when I run these #'s through the calculator I get 6% slip.

Pitch - 21
Ratio - 1.86
RPM - 5500
Speed -55 Mph
Slip = 6% (is this good?)

Am I wrong in thinking that this little boat should be able to turn better speed then what I am getting with this motor/hull combination. I am thinking at the moment this boat is grossly over weight due to the foam under the floor being saturated with water, on a side note the boat does sit really low in the water at rest. As soon as our weather starts to stay above freezing I am going to gut the hull and find out. Pics will follow. Another question is would I be better off going with something different prop wise, I was thinking maybe a chopper II. Any thoughts

[Aktmboyd]

Was a super nice day today and most of the snow has melted around the boat so I decided to do some exploratory surgery to it, and to no surprise I found a mess. Pics speak for them selves

So the first pic is of the holes I drilled. The second is showing inside the holes I drilled facing the bow. You can see the delam from the stringer and all kinds of garbage, like the underside of the floor not being sealed and everything else, just a BULL**** mess.