fs 81 sportfire with 86 xr2 150

[Needafunboat]

My first checkmate!

Yup - it's home now. Very happy with it - thanks for taking the time to take me out in it Curt - fun ride.

You weren't kidding about the trailer wagging - probably doesn't move your one ton around as much as that little suv we had. Looks like the axle is easy enough to move back a bit. Any suggestions how far (probably the wrong forum to ask in - sorry!).

Anyhow - I look forward to learning some stuff here and maybe making MY kids a little scared of the boat!

Good luck with the bigger checkmate Curt - I'll keep an eye out.

- Anthony
-- brand new/1981 sportfire w/ XR2 150!!

 

[kct11]

if you are talking about moving the boat back on the trailer that will take away what little tounge weight there is. if that will make matters better or worse, i have no idea. i could sell you my truck also. lol

 

[Needafunboat]

The boat I can afford - that truck is a bit out of my price range! (that fancy lexus we were drivng is a development car my buddy borrows from work...)

I was talking about moving the trailer axle towards the back of the trailer to increase the tounge weight. I just actually pulled the 2 bolts that hold each axle and was messing around with my bathroom scale to get an idea of how far to move it back. If I move it back the whole way, I think I can get close to 10%, which should do the trick. (it only had 70lbs!) Just have to drill 4 new holes and that's it. It's a cool design, the whole axle assy is on a single piece of angle iron so the bolts really just keep everything in place.

Speaking of weight, what do you think the whole rig weighs? 300# for the trailer, 500# for the motor - maybe 1200# for the boat??

Already had some fun showing it off to the neighbors, may take it out on tuesday... I guess I should try dropping the motor a bit, but it really felt fine today - that little bit walk isn't too bad. How fast were we going?

 

[kct11]

if the axle is that easy to move back then do it, mad at my self that i didn't give it a thought. i am not realy sure about the weight of the whole package, my guess would be 1500 lbs. the speedo said 63 with the 3 of us in it. good luck with the trailer and have fun on tuesday.

 

[Acer2428]

Best thing with the trailer is to make it square. Just use a tape measurer and 'X' everything out. Be sure to observe the trailer when towin gif you move the axle back. Sometimes if it's too far back, it'll try to start bouncing around on ya at highway speeds.

 

[Needafunboat]

Moved it the whole way back and now have about 140lbs on the tounge (with the sanbag in the bow). So it shouldn't sway, but I'll watch the bounce - thanks for the advice Acer.

I was looking and I think you can pull the tounge out a bit too. But the way you hvae it set up is nice because the boat and trailer are really short - fit in my normal sized garage just fine. Was kinda weird when i looked back on the highway and the bowlight was about a foot from my buddy's rear window!

I'll GPS it if I get out tomorrow (work may not let me), and let you know how accurate that spedo is. My guess is it's pretty close, felt like we were movin...

 

[Needafunboat]

trailers fine

Well I forgot the GPS and little ake chemung was way too crowded (plus had fam with me) to do a top speed run. But the trailer mod did the trick - very stable at 85mph with a couple of intentional swerves and no bounce.

Boat was really fun and is way more stable in sideways waves / wakes than other boats I've been in. I suspect the carbs need to be cleaned / adjusted. But no complaints - real fun boat. My 3yr old loves the closed bow "house" as she calls it, and 6month old laughed the whole time we were running - he cried when we stopped!

Haven't spend a better $2700 in quite a while - everyone needs one of these...