sneaker

I had a 85 HP chrysler on my Bayliner bass boat and it was an excellent engine. But I think your 78 model is a 2 stroke engine as was mine, so don't forget to add oil to the fuel as it is the only lubrication for the power head. Check you manual for the correct oil/gas ratio. I think mine used 1/2 pint per gallon of fuel, or a quart for each 4 gallons of fuel. If the engine has been sitting for a long time, the crankshaft seals between each cylinder will be dried out and will leak. This results in a engine that does not start or idle well. If you are lucky a few hours of operation they will swell to provide the needed airtight seal and you might get several years of use out of this engine. Mine was as reliable as a stone and even when the water pump impeller failed miles from home, the motor would remain cool if I moved along at 25-30 mph, fast enough to create enough pressure at the water intake to circulate thru the engine. Sure did irritate the harbormaster when I blew in thru their 5mph water. He also cooled down when I told him about the problem.

I have been playing around with props on my MK40 for a while. My boat is a kayak kit that should be very similar to your canoe. Here is what I have found. Most props on trolling motors are designed to provide max thrust and not much speed. They have a pitch of 4 inches (they move 4 inches thru the water for each revolution) and are very effecient for this purpose. The motor driving the prop is a constant rpm / volt motor. All I have tested are 150 rpm per volt. So with 10 volts on the motor it spins 1500 rpm, and with 12 volts its 1800. It doesn't matter if the prop is in the water or out of the water, it always spins at 150 prm/volt. Trolling motors are rated in lbs of thrust (when the boat is not moving) and draw about 1 amp per pound of thrust. 30 lbs of thrust sounds much better than 1/2 HP and it will draw 30 amps when generating it rated thrust. Kipawa offers an aftermarket 3 bladed prop that looks attractive. I called them and could not find anyone that knew what the pitch or diameter of their prop is. So it is hard to estimate if it is right for me. I think they wanted about 45 bucks for their product. I now run a Nissan 3 blad prop from their 3 hp O/B. It has a pitch of 7 inches and at 7 1/2 inches is about the right diameter. With this prop, at full throttle my motor draws 28 amps (yours is rated for 30amps) and the boat speed is 4.3 mph. My objective is to have the motor drawing its rated current (40 amps) at full throttle on my boat. So it is not quite big enough for my motor, but is about right for yours. At 3 mph this prop draws 25% less current than the stock prop, so it extends my run time if I don't get in a hurry. Incidentally I have tested this and other props on a 28, 40 and 50 lb motor and all provide the same top speed, because they are all turning the same rpm. Also all draw the same battery current, because they are all doing the same amount of work. The upper limit is set by the current rating of the motor. So the 50 lb motor could swing a larger prop safely, but offers no advantage over the 30 lb motor with this particular prop. The down side is the tohatsu prop has a 1/2 inch shaft size and the MK shaft is 3/8ths. So a bushing is required to make it fit. Aslo the tohatsu motor doesn't have a prop nut (it uses a pin to retain the prop), so the prop must be machined to provide a recess for the MK prop nut. The tohatsu p/n is 3FO641010M. These can be found on line. I made my first one using a hand drill and don't recommend it. It is hard to get everything perfectly centered and an off center prop will cause the motor to vibrate. So if you are good with tools and have a drill press, you might make this work for you. Good luck

All lead acid batterys have a limited number of discharge-charge cycles they can tolerate. The number of cycles depend on how discharged the battery was when charging began. So a battery will tolerate fewer cycles from %50 discharged to full charge than %30 discharged to full charge. Cranking batterys have thin plates with lots of surface area to allow them to deliver lots of amps to the load. Deep discharge batterys have fewer but thicker plates that deliver less current to the load, but tolerate more discharge/charge cycles. And there are some batteries in between. A typical deep discharge battery will give 100-300 discharge/charge cycles in its lifetime. On the other hand if you are using a cranking battery to operate your trolling motor, you can expect a shorter battery life bacause of the greater depth of its discharge/charge cycles. If you are just 'topping off' your cranking battery with a trickle charger so it will be in top shape when you want to fish, you are probably doing it no harm. In fact some of the battery 'life extenders' continuously take a small ammount of power from the battery, and pump it back into the battery again in endless cycles, and claim this process extends the life of the battery. You did not mention why you want to put a charger on the battery. Usually the alternator on the motor quickley replaces the energy needed to start the engine. If your battery is losing its charge when the boat is stored, you need to find the responsible unit causing the power drain and fix it. If your alternator is not recharging the battery after starting the motor you need to find the cause. If the battery just won't hold a charge, it should be replaced. Good luck...

I use the 10 amp chargers and they are just fine. However I would recommend a charger with an ampmeter (not a voltmeter) on its panel. When the charger is initially placed on a discharged battery, it will charge at a 10+ amp rate and then fall back to 10 amps. This indicates the battery can accept a charge at a 10 amp rate. As the battery approaches full charge, the ampmeter will indiate a reduced charge rate. It will slowly drop to near zero charge, an then just bounce the meter a little as it operates in what they call a 'float charge ' or trickle charge mode. An old battery nearing its replacement time will not accept a 10 amp charge and may never get to the Float Charge mode. Most will indicate a 3-5 amp charge for more than 24 hours. So with the ampmeter you get some information about the condition of the battery by noting the changes in the charge current conditions. Chargers with voltmeters on the panel do not provide this info.

Initial stability is as the name implys the boats tendency to tip as you move the load slightly off center of the boat. If the load (you ) continue to move toward the gunnel, will the boats tendency to tip become more pronounced (rolls more than the initial tipping) or does it resist further tipping. That is secondary stability. Then as the gunnel of the boat nears the water, does the boat suddenly flip? That would be the result with a boat with poor final stability. You are most concerned with initial stability as you will probably not be operating your craft in very choppy water. So the flat bottom boat will be most stable. However the V hull will give you a much nicer ride back thru the chop if the wind comes up, as the v hull will part the oncomming waves, while a flat bottom will pound them.

Noise filter- Any filter you buy should have 3 components in it, a capacitor followed by an inductor, then another cap. It is called a filter-isolator. Unfortunately no mfgr I have found published specifications for the filters ability to attenuate noise. So it is kind of a crap shoot. I have been using a filter made by Pyramid, model NS-10. Cost is 5-10 bucks and it is easy to install. Just type pyramid ns-10 into your browser and get one on-line. Keep an eye on their shipping/handling cost. :-/

I have a 21 ft trophy for salt water fishing. It does the same thing, hit the starter and I have to restart the FF and radar if I'm using it. This is caused by the battery voltage drop when cranking the engine. If you have a new battery and all connections are tight, it may not happed. But as the gear gets older, the voltage drop can increase until other equipment is affected, in this case your FF. I installed a small motorcycle 12 v battery that powers the FF and GPS. It will run these items for a week or so before I have to take it out of the boat and charge it again. It eliminated the shut down problem, and the ff is far better than when it was on the main power. I can now get a clear view of the bottom and fish while running at 10 mph. I believe this is is due to less battery noise caused by the engine.

The 10 gua wire will easily handle 50 amps so you don't have a problem there. The change in guage will have no effect for this application. Keep the 10 gua wire short, under 6 ft, to reduce voltage drop across the lighter wire. Trolling motors draw current in large chunks and are notorious electrical noise generators. This noise on the battery voltage will often interfere with fish finders and radio gear. So TM mfgrs recommend a dedicated battery for the motor. However you can but cheap (under 15 bucks) noise filters for the battery that you can insert in the fish finder power feed that will do an adequate job of cleaning up the battery noise. It should be rated for 12v at 1/2 or more amps. I wouldn't use a fuse in the motor battery lead. If you blow it, a replacement may not be handy. You can find a type 1 circuit breaker(manual reset) at any auto store for less than 15 bucks. Type 2 C/Bs are auto reset and are not recommended because the TM mfgrs want you to clear the problem causing the breaker to blow, usually weeds on the prop or fishing line wrapped around the prop shaft. On a jon boat with 2 aboard the motor will draw 50 amps only briefly if you use full throttle accelerating from a stop. Once the boat gains a little speed the current will drop to 30-35 amps, less on a lightly loaded boat. Mine draws 28 amps at max speed.

Your motor choce will depend a lot on what kind of boat it will go on and what kind of use it will be put to. A heavy boat will need more thrust to motivate and move against the wind. A canoe has little room for extra batteries and can easily get by with a 30 lb 12vmotor. There are two types of motor speed controls. One is a 5 speed forward, 3 in reverse, the other is a continuously variable (cv) throttle. The 5 speed controls the motor speed by switching in resistors to the power lead to slow the motor. At half speed, the motor gets only half of the battery power, and the rest of the power is wasted in the resistor. On the other hand the cv controller converts the 12 v battery to 6 v and all of the 6v power is applied to the motor, wasting none in resistors. You get at least twice the operating time on the battery when operating at low power settings. At full throttle both motors use the same ammount of power. So if you are going to do a lot of trolling, the motor with the cv speed control is worth the money. The MK motor has almost no metal in the motor hardware and will have less corrosion problems if you are going to be in salt or brackish water. Both MK and MG have salt water versions of their motors, but the additional cost is significant. If I had to choose between a cv speed control, and a salt water rated motor(each have about the same incrimental cost) I would choose the cv motor and make sure I washed the motor off with fresh water after every use.

Your carburator probably has a fuel drain plug near the bottom of the bowl. Back it out and fuel should pour out. If you get fuel, try pumping the fuel line bulb and the carb should drain more fuel. If you get more fuel, you may have an ignition problem. Starting fluid fires with a lot less spark than gassoline. You might try changing fuel and then the spark pluggs.

Hi surfer Well 15 mins per mile is 4 MPH so we are not different by much. I do run a higher pitch prop. I took one of the 3 bladed 7 inch pitch props from a Tohastu 3 hp motor and machined and bushed it to fit the MK40 electric. The MK40 with the 3 blade prop is about is about 25% more effecient than the same motor with a 2 blade prop on my boat when running at 3.5 mph. It also provided far better boat control when in reverse than the 2 blade prop. It is worth doing if you have a light boat. For speed I use a GPS which gives the mph to +- 1/10 mph. But you have to run it at a constant speed for a min or so to allow the gps to average out its calculations. I get the effeciency by comparing the motor current between the 2 props. A bit of work but worth it. Measuring motor current is not difficult. Turns out that the resistance of a 12 inch piece of #14 gau wire is .001 ohms. I insert (solder) it into the negative lead of the motor and monitor the voltage drop across the 12 inch wire segment with a digital voltmeter. The dvm is set to the 3v scale and indicates the motor current at 1 millivolt /amp. With this set up you can learn a lot about how well you motor /prop is matched to your boat. You can get an inexpensive dvm at radio shack for about 25 bucks. Most trolling motors use a larger diameter (10+inch diameter) 4 inch pitch prop to provide more static thrust. So if your boat is tied to a dock, the MK40 will generate 40 lbs of thrust. The 7 inch pitch prop generates only 28 lbs of thrust on the same motor because its diameter is only 7.5 inches. But when the boat is moving, the forward motion of the boat reduces the remaining thrust from the motor. Imagine being towed by another boat at 5.6 mph and your electric is running at full speed (1500 rpm). The thrust of the 4 inch pitch prop turning 1500 rpm would be 0, because the water flowing thru the prop is already moving at the same speed as the pitch x rpm of the prop and the prop is not accelerating the water at all. If the prop had a pitch of 7 inches, It would accelerate the 5.6 mph water to 9.9 mph generating about 10 lbs of thrust. If the hull speed of the boat is 4.5 mph, the additional 10 lbs of thrust will add only a few 10ths of an mph to the boat because it takes a lot of power to get a boat over its hull speed. However at low speeds where the drag of the boat is low (3 mph) the motor with the 7 in pitch prop can turn slower and thus use less power. This scenario only works on a light boat with relatively low drag. On a heavy boat thrust requirements are much higher and the 2 blade prop with lower pitch will be more effective. Since trolling motors are often used on heavy boats (bass boats ect) the 2 blade prop is a good compromise. Calculating the drag/thrust/pitch/diameter effects on the motor and boat is beyond my abilities, so I have to do the work of changing the prop and make the measurements. There is no ideal prop for all boats, so I have to tinker around looking for the best solution for my boat/load situation. When the fishing is slow it gives me something to do.....

I fish out of an electric kayak and have a 40 lb thrust 12v motor. My boat will go the same speed with a 28 or 50 lb thrust motor. The reason has to do with how the motors are made. All trolling motors are permanent magnet motors and their speed (revs/min) is only a function of voltage applied. Thus the motor will run at the same rpm with the prop in or out of the water. In a light boat (mine is 250 with me in it) the 28 lb motor will get it up to hull speed (4.2 mph) with the motor drawing 28 amps. The 50 lb motor on the same boat also has a max speed or 4.2 mph and also draws 28 amps. This is because both motors have a prop with a 4 inch pitch ( prop moves 4 inches thru the water with each revolution) and both are spinning at the same RPM. Thus both are doing the same ammount of work. The battery current draw was the same for each motor at hull speed (4.2 mph ). I use a 40 lb motor because at full throttle it is operating at about half of its rated power and it will last longer than the 28 lb motor. A heavy boat may not reach hull speed with a smaller motor due to prop slippage in the water, and the bigger prop of a 40-50 lb thrust motor will help. Of course the bigger motor will draw more battery current at the higher boat speed. Hull speed is determined by the length of the waterline of the boat. It can be calculated (in MPH) and is 1.54 times the sq root of the water line length (in feet). To push the boat at twice the hull speed requires about 6-8 times the power needed to get it up to hull speed. Thus going faster consumes a huge ammount of power and depletes your batteries quickley. I think your boat will move along at 4-5 mph with one passenger and 3-4 with your partner aboard. going faster will consume more power than it is worth. When choosing a motor you can help a lot by finding one with a continuously variable (c/v)throttle. Some call it a 'digital throttle' and others have another name. The motors with a 5 speed forward/3 speed in reverse scheme, control the speed by inserting a resistor in the power lead to slow the motor. A lot of energy is wasted in these resistors. For example at half speed, the C/V motor will use half the power the 5/3 motor is using. And at slower speeds the advantage of the c/v motor is even greater. Both motors will use the same ammount of power at full throttle. Unfortunatley the incrimental cost of the C/V motor is almost $200.. The advantage of a 24 v system is that you get the same power a 12 v system offers with half of the battery current. Of course you need 2 batteries. Not much help there. However motors are available with increased static thrust in 24 v versions and the voltage drop across the boat wiring is reduced due to the lower current. It will help a heavy boat, and make little or no differenct to a light boat. Keep in mind that it takes about 750 watts to equal one HP, and a 50 lb motor will consume 11v x 50A = 550 W at full throttle, or about .75 HP. This estimate is based on a motor that draws 1 amp per lb of thrust, which is typical of 12 v motors, and a 1v drop in the boat wiring. So there is not a lot of power to work with, and you will have to adjust to life in the 'slow lane'. One way around this is to use a gas motor to get you to your fishing hole and an electric to fish, but you indicated you fish in an electric only environment. So what to do? A 24 volt system will require 4 batteries if you want to go out on one set and return on the other. Batterys are about 50 lbs ea. Thus a minimal 24 v system will have 200 lbs of battery, where as a 12v system will be 100 lbs, but will go half as long. Batteries are rated in ampere/hours (A/H) . A 100 ah battery will deliver 100 amps for 1 hour, 50 amps for 2 hrs, 25 amps for 4 hrs and so on. It sounds like your boat will use 40-50 amps at full throttle, so you might last 2 hours at full throttle and travel 2 x 4.5mph or 9 miles before you start rowing. With a c/v motor you could reduce your power to 1/2 and run for 4 hours, and your boat would slow to about 3.5 mph(not 2.25 mph). Your range would increase to 3.5 x 4 =14 miles. So operating at full throttle will save you a little time, but cost you a lot of range. Well this is my experience in operating an electric boat. My little kayak has a range of about 20 miles and I have not yet used up a full battery charge in a day. If I run at 3.5 mph and paddle assist, I can almost double that range. Keeping the boat light is the best way to go further. I hope this has been helpful to you. :-/Good luck and carry your PFDs with you.

There are several videos on utube of various electric powered kayaks, mostly home made. Just type 'electric kayak' into the search panel and you will get them. The Kingfisher had the motor integrated into the boat, where as most of the others found ways to add a motor to their boat.

Been fishing bass for many years out of waders to bass boats. Each have their advantages. Waders have the cost advantage and are very portable. BBs go like mad and you can cover a lot of water, but the monthly payments and now fuel costs are a downer. A kayak is a good start but most need more dry, accessable storage and an electric motor. The motor can provide precise boat control when there is a breeze blowing or current flowing, and it comes in handy for the long paddle back at the end of the day. No such boat now available so I built one. The object was to be able to control the boat with only ones feet providing control of start-stop, fwd-reverse and of course left-right, and leave the hands free for other things. Paddling along with the motor assisting is WAY better than the paddle and no motor and greatly increases the fishing range of the boat and paddler. Fishing from a kayak is a slower paced fishing with time and stealth to see much more than I ever did from a power boat. With a foot controlled electric boat there is no paddle flashing in the sun alerting wildlife to your presence and when you are detected you do not have a threatening appearance. So otters come by just to have a look, ducks are not disturbed and spawning fish sometimes bump into the boat. Shallow water is fun to explore and you can access water a trailered boat cannot get in to. After the fishing trip the boat just hangs from the rafters in the garage, taking up no floor space and it remains clean for the next trip. Fishing a class 2 or 3 river is not for the inexperienced paddler. There are many hazards to look for and the threats are ever changing as you drift along in the current. But you will not soon forget the feeling of hooking a steelhead that feels like a freight train that can jump. Here boat control is critical as you deal with the fish and the river hazards. Usually it is necessary to beach the boat and land the fish. This is probably not an option in your part of the country, but these boats are small enough to take along on a vacation to such places. So electric kayak fishing is a unique way to enjoy our lakes and rivers. I am no longer in need of a continuous adrenalin rush (way over 40) and the peace and wonder of fishing in complete silence seems to fit. You may not be inclined to build your own boat, but when looking for a boat these are the features I most wanted, and was willing to make the effort to get them. After 4 years of fishing from a boat like this, I regret not having done it years ago. Good luck and be safe...