Way2slow

Personally, I wouldn't try to drive it, think of all the rigging it would take. ? If it's one of those high dollar ones, I would get something like WRB suggested if your truck roof has provisions for attaching something like that. You can always add a center support to help make sure it stays in place. You see those things all over the highways around my parts. Second option would be flipped upside down and a regular roof rack, again, if your vehicle supports something like that. Sticking way out the ass-end of a pickup would not be desirable for a long trip for me. Just more potential for problems, especially when parking and having to leave it unattended. Trailering would be my least favorable option, that's just another major potential for problems. Those small tires really don't like to be spun at high speeds for long durations, especially on these hot summer days, then you have the parking and just plain aggravation of having to deal with a trailer behind you.

Then you always have to worry about how big of an idiot the local tax accessor is. I live on the other side of the Savanah River in Ga, and I'm doing battle with the counties new tax accessor dreaming up her own ridiculous values. Like a plain old 2005 Lowe 1436L with a 1973 9.9 Johnson and she says its' valued at $3,800, and a 2001 Pontoon boat with 90 Merc I bought for $1,500 that needs total restoration valued at $14,000, without the trailers because in GA, the trailers are tax through DOT when you buy tags each year. I got the notice for the Lowe first and asked her where she came up with such a stupid value and told her she could stick it where the sun don't shine. She didn't even know in GA, a boat valued under $7,501 was not taxable. Well, a couple of weeks later I get the one for the pontoon boat, I guess she figured she would make up for the one on the Lowe. I'm still fighting that one.

There's always a chance the TM can cause interference on your sonar display. Doesn't hurt the sonar but can make the display do strange things. Usually (if it does interfere with it) it will make black lines or dots across the screen when you run the TM. Getting a large enough battery would be the next concern if the motor is electric start only and keep it charged. Not a lot of fun after running the TM for a while to go to start the motor and the battery is too weak. Most small motors and older motors only have about a 15 amp charging system so it's not going to keep the battery charged if you use the TM much, don't care how long you run the gas motor, you will still need to charge your battery every time you come back home from using it.

All lead-acid batteries can die a sudden death from a shorted cell. More than one person has parked a vehicle that was starting fine, go into a store just to come back out and it's dead as a hammer. Usually the first hot day of the year.

Yes. The last few batteries I've bought have been Duracell from Sam's Club. East Penn used to have a warehouse near me in Macon and I got them wholesale there. When I used to work for a living, I had an account there and the manager was a friend, but they closed it and moved it to the other side of Atlanta, so no more wholesale batteries.

Battery Facts: A lot of it depends on who/where the battery is made and the quality of the battery. I try to avoid all imported batteries, which is very hard to do these days. There are only 4 or maybe 5 battery manufacturers in the US and only a couple of them that make high quality batteries. These are probably the two best, but don't think you are going to find them at Wal-Mart or other discount places. 1. Marine and RV Batteries | U.S. Battery Mfg. Co. | Since 1926 (usbattery.com) 2. Trojan Battery | Home These are good and sold under numerous names through a lot of places. 3. East Penn Manufacturing – The world's largest single site, family-owned lead-acid battery manufacturer They make a good battery and make lot of OEM batteries for different manufactures, plus Deka, Duracell, BPS top of the line, and tons more. Johnson Control used to be a major battery producer but they sold off much of their automotive style battery business several years ago. With so many of the other brands that use to be US manufactures, some of their top of the line batteries might still be made in the US, but many of them have changed to batteries made in Mexico and any place across the pond they can get them cheap and sell for big bucks under their name. Lithium's are starting to make a market in the Marine Deep Cycle world but again, it's going to depend on weeding through the lies/false accusations and sales BS they are using to market them. I'm still don't trust them enough to want to go that route yet. It's going to take time for the consumers to work out who's are worth having. For the absolute most run time out of lead acid batteries, it's going to take true deep cycle and service caps on the top. Those have the most amount of plate surface area but a probably the least desirable because of the maintenance required. The second in line would be the AGM Deep Cycle. One bit of info, True deep cycle batteries DO NOT have a CCA/MCA rating on them because they are not designed to give the high amp surges required for cranking. Now, how are you going to know if you are getting and US made battery or an import, you are probably not unless it's Trojan, US Battery or know which batteries East Penn makes. With the parts stores and companies that buy/sell rebranded batteries, it just depends on which quality battery you are buying as to where it might be made. For instance, Advance Auto Parts, sells batteries for five different manufacturers, depending on which one you get and the sales people don't have a clue. So, unless you have a list of manufacturers codes and can read them, you ain't gonna know.

I just always make mine, it's not and overly difficult job to do. I would think most any upholstery shop that does boat seat could make you some. However, they are so uncomfortable, when I can, I usually swap them out for some of the newer molded to fit seats.

Be careful buying BPS discounted inflatable vest. Several years back they had some discounted and picked up three, thinking I was getting a deal. As I'm going through the checkout, I thought maybe I should check the expiration dates. One was expired and two only had a month left. I politely told the cashier, thank you, but no thank you, I wouldn't be getting them. I've found a lot of times when they are discounted anywhere, it's to try and move them before they expire, and with most, updating them wipes out the savings and then some. I'm like Glen though, if I'm moving, I put a good vest on over the auto-inflate vest. Those are just for moving around in the boat while fishing.

Most of the time, once you get past the basic stuff like making sure it has fresh gas, clean filter/water separator, spark plugs etc, EFI motors require hooking the computer and diagnostic software to them to troubleshoot. If he doesn't have that, it might be getting time to bend over and grease up, because it's coming.

Another option is not buying the high-priced kits. You can buy a number of the bobbins, cylinders and pins separately for less than the cost of one kit. Just one word of caution, the bobbins have an expiration date so make sure you are getting fresh ones and not some near their expiration date or past it when you think you are fresh new ones. This applies to the kits as well as just the bobbins. Nothing like getting a $75 Mustang kit to find it expires a couple of months after getting or has expired when you first receive it.

I agree with others, putting strong chemicals on gel coat is not a very good thing to do. Once word of caution, be careful on how much you sand if it has metal flake. The clear gel coat over metal flake is fairly thin and if you sand through it, every little flake you hit is going to take the color off and will be a silver. Also, once you go through the clear, the finish deteriorates in a hurry, starts getting a roughness to it and will never stay smooth and shinney.

Trust me, I'm not blaming him for wanting a starter. Back in the early 70's I bought a brand new 25 Johnson with a starter and no charging system and never had problem. If was just the simple matter of putting a starter on my 25 Merc, I would have done it 20 years ago when I bought it but no ring gear was the butt kicker. Another flywheel for electric start was very difficult to find and, even used was more than I paid for the motor. Not counting all the other stuff it needed. It just was not worth the cost. That's why in my first post I commented he may be getting into more than he bargained for, but if his has the ring gear and the starter will bolt up and work, I would do the same thing.

I looked at putting a starter on my 85MY, 25hp merc and decided it wasn't worth it. I think on mine, the flywheel, even without the charging system was not compatible, it didn't have the ring gear on it. The guy I got it from had converted it from tiller to remote control and steering, and still had the tiller, so I took all that off and put the tiller back on. (I bought boat, motor and trailer for $200, just for the motor and trailer and trashed the boat). Putting it on my jon boat, I looked at adding stick steering but figured if I was going to have to get up and go back to start the motor every time, I had just as well stay back there and run it. Mine starts easy enough with just one short pull of the pull cord (after the initial cold start) that I can do while sitting on the bench seat at the back. Want to add remote control and steering, I might be willing to get rid of that stuff I took off mine, if I can find it now, that was a lot of years ago.

I think you will find there's a whole lot more to it than just putting a starter on it. Pull rope motors don't have a charging system, electric start motors do, so they have a different flywheel, the stator, the rectifier and wiring. I think you are going to find out, it would be cheaper to just find another motor.

Your biggest concern should be battery power first and by the time you get enough battery for a reasonable amount of run time, especially if you go with lithiums, you will have a few grand tied up in batteries. If you go with lead acid, you will a huge amount of weight. I'm making the assumption your TM is 36 volts going by the size of it. If I was going to take this journey, my first action would be to start with six,12v batteries and see what king of run time you get, then build from there. There used to be a web site for electric only boats that had a lot of good info for what you are wanting to do. Might do a search and see if you can find that. I've seen people running four TM and half a boat full of batteries back before lithium's. Some even ran electric fork lift batteries.

Single or dual cable? Single cable, I haven't seen many of those you can adjust so the steering wheel doesn't have free play at the helm. Some used to give you and adjustment on the helm, but it's been so many years since I've even seen a single cable, I wouldn't have a clue what they do now. Dual cable is not a problem, you just adjust the housing where they attach to the motor. I would first make sure it's the cable itself and not something else. I've seen a lot of them the motor mounts and cable connection points have a ton of movement. One other thing, make sure it is cable and not hydraulic. I had a guy ask me one time if I could adjust his cables because he had a lot of free movement. When I looked at it, told him that was not possible, but I could bleed his hydraulic steering system for him and probably take care of it.

If all this was done on muffs, I'm surprised you didn't blow it up. For starters, you should never run a motor at more than 2,000 rpm when not under a load. Two strokes can go into runaway just like a diesel engine. Doing that on muffs, the muffs on a hose most likely were not supplying enough water. I run them in a 120-gallon stock tank so the water pump can provide the water needed and even then, when the prop is turning, the water turbulence will let it suck air into the water intake ports. Since circulates the water through the block, it exits through the exhaust so you should be seeing water coming out of those holes. Water pumps impellers should be replaced a lot more often than "many years". Three years is pretty much ther recommended standard. If the motor has ever been run in salt water, and has sat for long periods, it's a good chance the corrosion has clogged the cooling ports in the block. You not knowing anything about a water pump, I'm not even going to get into the mix on diagnosing your problem. Besides that, I'm not overly familiar with Mercury motors anyway to get into specific/detailed trouble shooting. One thing I forgot to mention, that hole you referred to on top of the lower unit is most likely just the access hole for a speedometer supply hose. When they provided that feature, there is a plastic nipple screwed into the leading edge of the lower unit and that's an access hole to get the tube down to it. Not having a plug in it has absolutely not affect on the water circulation.

If you want it to last more than a couple of years exposed to the elements, make sure it's a 600 denier.

Power cables are usually not a problem to extend. Since most units will draw about one amp or less, you have to get pretty long with 18 or 16ga cable to cause resistance as long as you are careful what you run the cable next to. All that extra tape and plastic conduit does is protect it from wear, it does nothing to keep induced RMF out. A metal shielded/braid is required to prevent that. Transducer cables, you pretty much have to buy a manufactured extension cable to go longer. One note: if your transducer cable is way too long, roll it up into a round coil no less than eight inches in diameter. Since it has a pulsating signal, it can do similar to AC current and create a magnetic field which can cause interference if coiled too small.

To explain what caused your problem. The starter requires a very high current, especially when first starting up. Leaving that large ground cable off, it was pulling a ground through one of those smaller wires not capable of handing the current needed. It's like putting a huge resistor in line. Not getting the initial current needed, the starter would not engage fast enough to kick the Bendix up into the flywheel to engage it. Had it actually engaged it, it would have probably just stop spinning and possibly caused that small wire to overheat and start smoking, it for sure would not have started, because the motor has to be spinning at a couple hundred rpm for generate enough spark to fire the plugs. This is why a weak/bad battery may be cranking the motor over, but it won't start, it's not cranking fast enough to generate a spark.

I think in 1997 Tracker Boats were still running Johnson Motors. The reason it says do not strike the starter is there are permanent magnets inside it an if you crack one, you just bought yourself a new starter. It sounds like the Bendix is sticking. Spray everything about it and the shaft good with WD-40. There are some steel balls inside it that are supposed to kick out and engage it when it starts to spin. There is also a spiral shaft that makes it move up into the flywheel when it starts spinning and spring the pushes it back out of the flywheel when it stops spinning. If that spiral shaft is gummed up or that balls inside, it will not engage the flywheel. I generally take the apart and clean them but it doesn't sound like you have the knowledge to do that, so if you can't get it to engage, you might have to buy a new one. You should be able to take a screwdriver or something and lift the Bendix up to spray the spiral shaft. I just had another brain fart. Double check and make SURE you did not connect the battery cables to the battery backwards. I don't know how many times I've seen people do that and if you do, the starter spins backwards and in no way will it engage the flywheel spinning backwards.

If they explode, it's because the light has an air leak. Before I started running LED lights, unless it was a very steep ramp, I never unplugged. If one shattered the bulb, it's usually there is an air leak in it. On occasion, if you have a really steep ramp and/or back in too fast, it will let water splash up into it from the bottom, since the bottoms are usually open and pop the bulb. If I found a shattered bulb, I used some silicon to seal the light housing. Now, if you put the lens in with silicon, you probably won't get it back off in one piece for the next bulb change, but if you put a thin, even coat of silicon on the gasket, let it cure, and then put it in, it usually seals fine and doesn't glue the sucker in. Even with the bottom being open, it won't let enough water in to reach the bulb because unless it's leaking air, it can't displace the air to let water in. Backing in too fast and especially on a steep ramp will make scoop up the water and splash it up on the bulb. As I mentioned before, I've probably had to replace as many bad LED lights as I have incandescent. I've replaced few bulbs over my 58 years of owning boat trailers, but rarely the whole light.

I'm totally confused. From your initial post, it makes it sound like you've gone 40 years and never pulled the hubs off to service the bearings and replace the seals, something any prudent boat owner would do every year at the beginning or ending of the season. I'm amazed this has not been one of those trailers you see on the side of the road with the spindle on the ground and the wheel somewhere on in the bushes along the road. Hubs don't wear out, the bearings and seals are what wear out and all that needs to be replaced, unless you fail to service them, and they destroy the hub and spindle and ruin a fishing trip. As for the lights, if they go under water, I would go with the LED. I've probably had to replace as many LED lights the went bad as I have incandescent because I buy those cheap things from Northern Tools, but they do have a tendency to be more waterproof, and you don't have to worry about trying to get a rusted in bulb out.

A lot of the Bullet guys run a 14" jack plate. just get you one of those. It's not a lot of trouble to make your own. I would do it as cheap as possible because I'm pretty sure you don't realize the problems you will create and find it will probably be wasted money. Some heave aluminum angle and a couple small pieces of 1/4" aluminum plate and you can make all the setback you desire.

You are probably one of the very few that would want such a piece, so I seriously doubt anyone makes what you are looking for. When most people are wanting that much setback, it's to make a boat with a big motor go faster and not many with a 50hp motor are concerned about going faster. You start getting that much setback, you are putting a serious strain on your transom and the jack plate. If someone made a 10" setback for a small motor, some idiot would try to put a huge motor on it, trying to save a dollar, and companies would not want to be liable for it, because some lawyer would try to make them when that idiot killed himself or destroyed his boat and motor with it. Another concern I would have with a huge setback is the flotation of the transom on a 16' boat with the motor setting way back and the weight of shallow water anchors and I'm sure you are probably running three batteries in the back. You could very easily end up with a boat that will take water over the transom when sitting in any kind of choppy water. The more setback you have the more leverage the weight of the motor has to push the transom deeper in the water.