First time out!

[USAFaggie]

Well tomorrow morning the buds and I are taking the boat out for the first time (not including the little bit of time I had when I ran bought it). I can't wait! I just hope I don't find any gremlins!

As far as progress on the boat, all the electrical problems have been sorted out. I got some Mercury Hi-Performance gear lube in and I will change that out next week.... The trailer got a new winch, and it's getting a bath tomrrow before we go out :) The trim has a very very slow leak. I cant find any fluid leaking out, but it slowly settles when trimmed up on land. Is it just a matter of replaceing some seals or do I need a new hydraulic ram?

I did find that the wood on one of the seat cushions is mostly rotted out. Can I just take the vinyl upholtery off and cu a new cushion bottom out of treated plywood, glass it, and then restaple the upholtery onto it?

The trailer also needs some work. Some areas need to be patched up with new metal, and it needs to be stripped and re-painted. I also want to check the hubs.... I have no idea where to even start with all this trailer crud. Any good soucres of info or help?

[JW]

Trim: Eventually, all hydraulic trims fail in that manner. The worst part is it can take over $1,000 to sort it out. That's why most older inline engines aren't worth fixing, the hydraulics exceed the value of the motor. Your motor should still be worth fixing though. Your best bet there is to find a good outboard mechanic and let him evaluate it. Might be cheap, might be expensive.

The wood can be replaced, just be very carefull removing the vinyl. You might find the foam is rotted too. When you restaple, use SS staples.

For hubs, I find the best practice is to plan on replacing the bearings and races before you even start tearing it apart. It's fairly easy to do, and only takes a few hours even without the proper tools. If you've never done it before, have someone help that has! There's a few tricks you'll need to know when it comes to removing/replacing the races. It's a very low-cost job.

[175checkmate]

Good luck and have fun.
As far as the interior goes not a bad job. Be real carefully in removing all the old staples. Cut a new board to match the pattern. ( do not use treated, resin does not like to soak into it). I used regular plywood. If I remember right it was 1/2" Make sure to seal the wood real good with resin. Also another trick. The bolts that hold the parts to the boat. Drill a hole in the wood. Use SS cap screws. ( the ones with the flat head) Install the bolt through the wood and when you coat the wood with resin lay a piece of glass over the head of the bolt. This will secure it to the wood. Makes installing them a breeze.

[USAFaggie]

Well I just got back and it was a great day on the lake. We did some kneeboarding and sight seeing (at high speeds of course). This thing is begging for some setback! The speedo decided to magically work today and it was showing about 56. The previous owner said it was GPS'ed at 66 or so, which seems believable in a 18' boat with a 200 hp motor, but the high altitude were are at up here might have had something to do with it. Do I need to adjust the carbs? You can get it up out of the water, but probably needs to come out just a little more via some setback and a jack plate. Of course there was three of us in the boat with lots of gear and beer. Anyways, I was pretty impressed with the boat. Screw jetskis! One bad thing that did happen was one of the #@$@#% fenders on the trailer fell off. The trailer is really rusty around the fenders. I checked the actual structural part of the trailer and it looks good, but the fenders and steps are jacked. I almost want to try to find a nice galvanized trailer.... but this will have to do for a while. Guess I need to rent a welder. Also, when I puled the drain plug on the transom after taking the boat out of the lake, a lot of water came out. Not like gallons, but enough for me to take notcice. The bilge pump wasn't pumping any today, and the pump definately is functional.... What do ya'll think of that? Our ice chest did explode in the boat...

[USAFaggie]

The bolts that hold the parts to the boat. Drill a hole in the wood. Use SS cap screws. ( the ones with the flat head) Install the bolt through the wood and when you coat the wood with resin lay a piece of glass over the head of the bolt. This will secure it to the wood. Makes installing them a breeze.

Oh hey what kind of parts would you use this on?

[daren34]

always use stainless fasteners

use monel staples
(this is the same thing they used to make fuek tanks out of)

you can use a machine screw from the inside then a t-nut on the outside
this gives you a stud to mount the seat or trim

this is the way they put them together at the factory

lag screws will just wallow out and loosen up over time

if you don't use treated use a penetrating epoxy to coat both sides of the plywood and make sure that you coat the ends (where the cut was made)
or side extra to prevent moisture wicking

you do not have to cover the plywood with fiberglass

the factory uses treated for all seat wood

good luck daren

good luck with the power trim it could be the pump bypassing or a bad clyinder you can get a complete pump aftermarket

[USAFaggie]

Is it normal for the boat to pull hard to the right at certain speeds? I have the anode on the lower unit facing in such a way that it would produce a left hand turn, but maybe this htink just has so much power for its size that the annode doesnt help much?

[daren34]

the diplomat that i had pulled real hard to the right when the jack plate was all the way up

i only had single cable steering

dual cable steering is suposed to cure most of it

you can allways go with hydaulic steering

daren

[USAFaggie]

I'm pretty sure I have hydraulic steering.....

[xsive]

Is it normal for the boat to pull hard to the right at certain speeds? I have the anode on the lower unit facing in such a way that it would produce a left hand turn, but maybe this htink just has so much power for its size that the annode doesnt help much?


To a certain extent.. Yes. On a boat like your adjust it so the tab is straight and leave it. You typically only adjust those things on boats with no power trim. The rule of thumb for these non-power trim units is if the boat wants to make a right turn, move the rear of the trim tab to the right. As a matter of fact some propellers with big rake require that the tab be removed and a flat plate installed.

You will find that as you start off with the motor all the way down there will be torque on the wheel, as you trim up it will go away at a certain point and as you trim higher you will develop some wheel torque. This is normal.

What prop do you have on that boat? Sounds like you would benefit from a bit of setback and perhaps a prop with more lift.

[xsive]

the diplomat that i had pulled real hard to the right when the jack plate was all the way up

i only had single cable steering

dual cable steering is suposed to cure most of it

you can allways go with hydaulic steering

daren

Dual cable steering will not cure torque on the wheel. What it does is provide a greater safety factor because there are two cables and with the adjustability of the two cables you can take most of the play out of the system, which will help minumize chine walking.

[USAFaggie]

You will find that as you start off with the motor all the way down there will be torque on the wheel, as you trim up it will go away at a certain point and as you trim higher you will develop some wheel torque. This is normal.

Yes this is exactly how it is!

What prop do you have on that boat? Sounds like you would benefit from a bit of setback and perhaps a prop with more lift.

Yes this is exactly what I need! Right now it has no setback or jackplate and it has a Quicksilver 23P SS prop. What kinds of speed should I expect with that? The speedo which magically started working said 55.... the previous owner said 66 or so GPS. Remember it has a 200 BlackMax too.

I want to get a higher pitched prop for speed, a nose cone, and a jack plate. But I don't want to do anything untill I get this trailer fixed since the )(*#Q$*Q fender fell off. I either need to just find a new one or somehow (and I have NO IDEA how) get the boat off this one so I can de-rust it, re paint it, fix teh fenders and steps, and put new rail brackets on it.

[xsive]

Sounds like you have a regular old 23" stainless. A tempest plus or trophy plus would be a good prop to try. I would wait til you have a jackplate plate and then buy a new prop to go with it. Would a dealer in your area have one to try out first?

As far as a nose cone goes...Don't waste your $$$$. You do not need one unless your boat goes more than 80MPH. It will bring you more grief than it is worth. The bondo never stays on right, and you can actually loose speed due to increased drag.

what RPM are you running with that prop?? There are several sites with prop calculators. You should have a 1.87:1 gear ratio. Try this one..

http://www.byuboyz.com/boats/prop.htm

[USAFaggie]

Well I'm no high speed boating expert yet, but I was trimming for best speed, and the speedo maxed out when I was trimmed pretty high up at about 5000-5500. How high should you trim? If you trimmed to gigh you would lose speed, but you throw a cool rooster tail! Looking back over my should, at best speed, it was throwing much of a rooster tail, but water was spraying everywhere. It's hard to describe, but its also what I see on our 23' fishing boat when its trimmed up high. If you trim down more, there is no water splashing, just a nice tight wake.

What the deal with prop slip? Obviously it has to do with the propellor spinning too fast for the amount if bite it can take, but how do you calculate that?

[xsive]

Use 10% for prop slip and you are in the ball park. With that motor you would Want to prop it so that you run about 5800RPM with a light load. To do this it is important to have a reasonably accurate tach that you can trust. Comparing it to a known shop tach is the best. You were losing speed as you trimmed up because you were losing bite and it wouldn't carry the boat.

Ideally you want your boat set up so the driveshaft of the motor is running perpendicular to the waters surface while carrying most of the boat out of the water. If you are throwing a roost much higher than the top of the motor you need to work on your set up. Probably a 6" jackplate and different prop would help. As far as pitch goes, as you raise the motor up you tend to gain a few RPM due to the decrease in drag. You can go too high where you won't be able to carry weight well. I would suspect that if you went with 6" of setback and set the centerline of your propshaft 3-4" below the bottom on your boat that would be a good starting point.

Altitude will affect engine RPM and HP and hense speed. What altitude are you at?

[USAFaggie]

We defiantely had a full load. I weigh 175, so does my one friend, and the other is probably 220 or so. Not to mention we had beer, and anchor, kneeboard and all its associated junk, a full set of tools, and the list goes on! We are at about 4200 feet above MSL up here. So yeah, pretty high! Should I re-tune the carb? I hope it's not running too rich.

[xsive]

I would definitely speak with a dealer regarding your altitude and jetting. Even jetted properly you will not get the same performance as you would at 1000'. Do you plan on using it at that altitude all the time? If you do jet for high altitude and you go back down to a lower altitude you will have to adjust accordingly, otherwise it's BOOM!!!

Be careful!!

[USAFaggie]

It will be at this altitude untill April. Why boom? Boom as in roasting the cylinders due to overly lean conditions??

[xsive]

I believe, if my memory serves me that stock jetting is OK to 5000'. I believe the factory service manuals have charts for this. If you leave the stock jetting alone it will run richer at 4000' than at 1000', hense if you jet for high altitude and go to low altitude without changing your jetting back it will potentially be lean at the low altitude. Thats when boom happens from being lean.