92 5 oh

that looks good. i really like the deck and storage space.

gotcha, thanks. that makes since about inaccurate readings at idle.

So about 2 weeks ago I called my friend and asked him to keep an eye out for a little motor - something like 8 or 9.9 with a short shaft for my jon boat. Well he called me about 30 minutes later and said this guy he works with is getting rid of a boat motor and he couldn't get it running and he's giving it away. well the first thing i thought was it needed a lot of parts or time to get it running, who would give away a good motor. He said it was thought to be locked up, but that's all he knew about it. That and the fact that it's been sitting outside under a tree for about 1 1/2 years. I wasn't really interested at the time, but i figured it couldn't hurt to look. So i went to this guys house and found a 2001 Merc 25 2 stroke setup for remote steering and it looked EXCELLENT. We threw it in the back of my truck, along with a homemade sawhorse motor stand and i took home until i could get time to look it over. So the otherday i started tinking with it, realized that it was in gear, i put it in neutral and pulled the cord - to my surprise it pulled really smooth and felt like it had good compression. Inside the hood was spotless, no oil/gas leaks or anything. everything was in great shape all the way down to the propeller, which has very minor nicks and scratches. Next I saw the wire from the starter relay was not connected to the starter so i fixed it. Yesterday I got a new tank and gas, emptyed the old gas and got a battery and cable to try and jump it. After about 20 seconds of cranking it fired right up. no excessive smoke or anything, the idle was a little low and it ran rough for a minute or two but that's all! even water circulation was great. ;D i still can't believe it. So now i'm gonna sell my little 12' jon and get something a little bigger more stable with remote steering. After i picked up the motor the guy said, it's about time i got rid of that thing lol. so here it is, the worse consmetic thing it's got is a small scratch in the sticker.

I'm curious to see what other things people have made for their boats. Other than decks. I've seen some pretty neat things, if theres anything neat you've made lets see em. cup holders, consoles, anchors, lights/lighting, bimini tops ect. anything. ;D

Hello, I got this new motor (new to me) and it's a 25hp merc 2 stroke. i pulled the plugs and the electrodes are in great shape but i noticed the plugs were a little darker than was a car's plugs would be. i assumed this was because it has gas/oil mixture. they weren't black by any means, i'd day a dark gray. does this sound normal? thanks steve

that's great. it's kinda what i'm looking for. i've had a few ideas how to build it. can some people post pictures of their consoles so i can get an idea what they look like? thanks! steven

i'm looking at upgrading my boat, ideally to a big jon or something in the range of 1652 with a side steer console. i'm having trouble finding a boat with the console already in it though. i've run across a few that have a tiller motor in the back. has anyone made or purchased their own console? if os can you post up some pics please. thanks steven

Thanks so much!!! i've been to that site so many times i was sick of looking at it. i guess i wasn't looking in the right place. thanks a ton

Hello all, A guy i know gave me his 2001 Merc Tracker OB 25HP 2stroke but didn't have the owners manual anymore. I see that it can be ordered through mercury but I haven't found it anywhere else. I'd love to download it in pdf If i could. anyone know if Mercury is the only place i can get the manual from? thanks a ton steven

well i found a yamaha 9.9 from 1986 for sale. needs a head gasket. not sure what else, the description does get into detail. i'm pretty well rounded with mechanics so im confident that i could do the work. any idea if parts for yamaha motors are expensive or if the motors are even any good. would this be a decent motor for $200 if all it needed was a head gasket? thanks again for all the help!!

i talked to a welding shop down the street and they sell an Aladin 3 in 1 rod that you braze. it uses mapp gas and it's sold usually by the pound and is roughly $20. the guy told me it would be more than enough for a jon boat, it has a tesil strength of 40,000 psi (depending what kind you get). i have a small hole from a rivet i'm going to fill in with it and see how it works. mines only a whole though, not a crack. the aladin rod is similar to this stuff called HTS2000. try a google search on it, they've got a neat video on their site about how to use and how strong it is. i think the HTS is stronger than the 3 in 1 rod though... or you could probably take your boat to a local welder..

that's great info. I never really thought about 4stroke vs 2 stroke either. So do most perfer 2 stroke? Some lakes around here have a 9.9 limit as well, which is another thing I thought about. sounds like 9.9 would be my ticket. and thanks for all the input guys!

oh wow, i guess i under-estimated the 9.9 lol. i also assumed that a V would do better because it would 'cut' the water and a flat bottom would plow through it. I've got a lot to learn. thanks for the info!

Hello, Hope this isn't a dumb question, but i'm looking for a boat motor for m y 12' flat bottom jon. I can put up to 15 horse on it and ideally i would like that but i'm having trouble finding a 15 at a decent price right now. I've seen a bunch of 9.9's for decent prices but i'm concerned if it will get the job done. I'd have 2 people in the boat and on very rare occasion i may have a 3rd and i was planning on putting in a small, basic deck. All the places i would go don't really have much of a current except 1 place. it's a brackish inlet that empties into the chesapeake bay, at times the current can be fairly strong. This is my only concern with a 9.9. I've been out there before with 15 horse during the tide change in friends boat and it did fine but he had a V hull... :-/

Northern Tools has some on their site. Maybe you've got a local store? some are bolt on and some weld on. Possibly Harbor Frieght, but i've never looked. I know around here lowes and home depot have some general purpose handles and gate handles that are galvanized that bolt on, i'm sure that would work well. steve

WOW that's quite a welcome. THANKS!! I don't even think the president of the US gets a welcome like that lol. last night i was bored at 11pm so i started stripping the old paint off the trailer, it looks like there's about 4 or 5 coats already on it :-/ it's gonna take a while to strip the whole thing lol.

Hello, I'm new here too and i was curious what others were doing to fix theirs as well. I was doing a little reading and from what i've been told if you use a welder you can blow out the hole. I found a few products like HTS2000 and a 3 in 1 rod called Aladdin (sp?) that is sold by the pound and with these rods all you do is clean around the area to fix, heat it up with a torch like mapp gas and the rod melts into place like soldering wire. a welding shop down the street said this would be more than enough strength for what i need and they sell the 3 in 1 rod for about $18 a pound and he said i'd have more than enough to fill a few holes and such. i think you can get a mapp gas torch setup for $20 - $40 too. Has anyone tried this? i've welded and brazed a few things, so i don't think this should be hard. Are there any other better products? Thanks steve

Hello, I'm new here, my names steve. I've been lurking around for a few day and there's a TON of great info on this forum. I'll have lots of quesions to come, i just purchased my first boat, it's not much but i can't wait to start working on it. ;D I've been looking for a boat for quite a while but the opportunity never came around until last week. My buddy was getting rid of an old trailer, asked if i would help him haul it off as trash. I told him if he was getting rid of it i'd take it off his hands...so last week i got a free tailor that held a 16' boat and needs some work here and there. I'm going to strip off the old ugly paint and repaint it, maybe with POR15 and get new bearings and runner boards. and on Saturday night i found a 12' aluminum flat bottom boat for $125. it's a little smaller than i wanted but i didn't want to pass it up for the price. it needs some work, going to repaint this as well. hopefully soon i'll get a deck in it and an outboard with some pics. i really wanted to put a nice deck in it, wire some lights and an electric trolling motor and maybe a livewell but i think it's too small :-/ Steve