BKeith

I don't use an Edge but the first thing I would do is take the screw out and see if there is a sleeze/bushing or the screw had a shoulder on it. NORMALLY, a properly designed pivot point will use something to keep the head of the screw from locking down on a moving joint. If there's a bushing, it's probably too short and needs one a little longer. If it's a shoulder type screw, you can probably add something like a small lock washer on the bottom of it to shim it out so the head doesn't hit. If they didn't do something like that, it's just a very poor design and I would put a couple drop of locktite 242 (Blue) on the thread and screw in but not lock the head down against the metal so I will back it back out or bind it. Be sure to clean the treads and the threaded hole good with brake cleaner or denatured alcohol good so it's bright metal or it will be useless to use the locktite.

I would just change the LU oil and check it again after using it a few times. It doesn't sound like you really have much of a problem. It is possible you might have a small leak, but not enough to worry about.. If the LU oil has never been changed, it could just be years of condensation. You should change the LU oil at least once a year. After using it a couple of times and the LU lube is not milky, I would run it and not worry about it. When changing the LU oil, take both plugs out and let it drain completely. Then add the new oil into the bottom plug hole until it starts coming out the top plug, Hold what you have there and put the top plug in, this helps keep it from running back out the bottom are you are trying to get the bottom plug in. WalMart sells a pump unit for about $10 that will work on most LU's that helps you get the oil in it.

I'm not real sure I'm following your explanation. It's very normal for black oil to drain out of the prop/exhaust. This is just exhaust oil/carbon that has built up inside the lower unit housing. When you drained the oil out of the lower unit, was the oil black or was it a milky color? Did water actually drain out of the hole you removed the plug from. I've know more than one person that got ripped by a repair shop, thinking they had oil leaking out of the LU and all they were seeing was the exhaust goo that comes out.

Actually, it woud probably create a more dangerous situtation, unless "they" mandated a 20 or 21 foot minimun size boat also. Part on the name of the game is being the first one to the spot they want to fish. "If" that were to happen, they would just back to the smaller boats rated at 150 hp like they used back in the early/mid 80's when they had the 150 hp rule. They had a whole lot more problems back then with boats getting sunk and stuff than they do now. There would be a huge trickle down affect from such a ruleing that would cost the boating industry billions of dollars. What the Pro's do, the general public seems to follow. There would be a huge decrease in large bass boat sales and would jack the price on the big motors up way more than they already are. The old term supply and demand comes into play big time. Production cost would go way up on the big mores because sales would drop out the bottom. Just think, what would happen to bait caster reels if they outlawed them on the pro circuit. The would probably all but disappear in just a few years. Ask the golfers how many square grove clubs you can buy now, since they were banded from pro tournaments.

Totally normal.

If it's a two wire connection, there is none no better than the Anderson SB-50 or the knock offs of it, like the one sold by Cabela's, BPS and a number of others. If you happen to have one the 12/24 motors that require three wires, you would have to buy a second pair of the SB-50's and only use one terminal in the second one. They do make a single terminal, but finding one might be a problem, and they are just not that expensive to just go ahead and get two pair. Note, there is not male/female, they are all the same in the way they work. It just takes two connector halves. The terminals in them are for #6 cable but be installed on smaller wires by bending the wire double or triple and then crimping or solder them in. I always crimp and solder. The one pictured in the above post that came from Cabela's is the Anderson SB-50. If you can buy from Grainger's they are probably a lot cheaper, just remember, those will be priced/sold as each and it will take two..

All the radio in my truck is used for is a clock. There is no way in h*** one is going to be played in my boat. If someone had one and turned it on, they had better know how to swim. Part of my enjoyment fishing is the peaceful solitude. On rare occasions I've had pontoon boats come into a cove I'm fishing with their music blasting, I crank up and move. Needless to say, I'm not a music person. A nice stereo and some good, easy listening, instrumental when I'm at home, just sitting back in my recliner is ok, but even then, I don't want to hear no singing in it. And that's the only time I ever listen to it and those times are rare.

That one has been around a few years. All I can say is it just shows what happens when an inexperienced driver gets his first high performance boat. It's very obvious right from the start by the amount of chine walk he was getting, he didn't know how to drive the boat or didn't have enough since to know he had a boat so ill handling he had no business driving it. Then he puts the icing on the cake when he tries to take that wake at a 45 degree angle fully on the pad. Understand, most all boats with a pad and riser hull will chine walk when fully on the pad, that's just a normal thing that just take a little seat time and practice on the steering wheel to keep the boat balanced (guessing which way to go. After all, you are trying to balance a six foot wide boat on a small surface at 70 mph, it's going to try falling off one side or the other. A boat not properly set up can be almost impossible to drive, causing it to chine walk in a way that can't be controlled.

If it runs on starting fluid, which in no way should you be using because it has no lubricant and quickly washes of what little is in the engine, leaving the bearings, crank, rings and everything else running dry, metal on metal, giving it a very short life span, it has to be a fuel problem. Is the fuel pump built into the crab or separate on that one? I would suggest getting a carb kit and if the fuel pump is separate, a fuel pump kit also and build both and do a proper cleaning. If there's an inline filter, replace/clean it. From now on, mix you up same gas and oil at a 50:1 ratio and use that in a spray bottle to squirt in the carb. DO NOT use starting fluid, if will destroy the motor.

I would suggest contacting these people and see about getting them cleaned/repaired. I've used them several times over the years on ficht injectors and secm with great result. http://www.dfitechnologies.com/ I'm not sure they do Mercs but they do a great jobs on the Evinrudes.

Smart move. You've probably got twice the battery you had, if not more. A group 27 is a good size battery for your application. A 12 volt 50lb thrust TM is going to make some pretty good demands on a battery. If you are taking it in and out of the boat each trip, that's about as much battery as you will want to be dealing with. Now, just be sure you charge it within a few hours of every time you return from using it, and try not to run it down completely when using it. You will get three or four times the life cycles from a battery that's charged at 50% than you will from a battery that run down to 20%. Oh, and a little word of wisdom, that date sticker is not the manufacturing date, it's only the date that the supplier put it in the store. The manufacturing date can be months before that sticker date. The only way to know that is by decoding the string of numbers imprinted into the battery case. Some shady suppliers will pick up a battery with several months shelf life, take that sticker off, place the battery on someone else shelf and put another new sticker on it for that date.

Take it back for a refund. Most likely it's already junk. Where I get my batteries, they give $10 off when you have the core, so I figure that battery is worth $10. Really, I'm not trying to pull you chain, I would have never considered buying a battery that has sat for a year, most likely it will never charge to capacity. Charge it at 10 amps with a manual charger, keep checking the meter on the charger until if quits dropping, probably about one to two amps, charge it for twenty minutes after it has stopped dropping. If it has caps, use a good hydrometer and check the specific gravity, most deep cycles will show 1.280 - 1.300. If it's a sealed top battery, and has a CCA number, take it to a parts store that has an electronic tester and have them check it. A good, new battery will usually read 15 - 20% more than the label shows. That's so they can sit on the shelf for a while and still be within specs of the CCA number on the label. One other thing you have to realize, that 2/12 sticker was the date it was placed in the store, it could have sat in the warehouse months before that. You would have to decode the manufacturing date imprinted in the edge of the case to get the exact age of the battery. I'm pretty sure you are going to find you just paid a bunch of good money for a battery that you will be lucky to get half capacity out of.

Again, not sure where you are getting your info for the math but that's not right. As one has already posted from MinnKota, their 101/36 Volt draws 49 amps. Logic should tell you that a 71/24 is going to draw a lot more than 35 amps and a 101/36 is going to draw a lot more than 33 amps. However, even when you do your math, it still shows you there is very little difference in current draw between the two motors so if he has been running fine with his current motor, there's going to be little difference with a 36 volt, other than possibley less current draw. Also, you can not do a direct calculation on runtime using the manufactors 20 hour rating on any battery. That is done with an extremely low current draw of 5 to 6 amps and when you increase the amp load, the battery Ah rating drops a lot. At a full load of 49 amps a 105 Amp hour battery is only going to be about a 65 amp hour so the run time would be more like one hour and a few minutes. It's apparent you know something about what you are trying to get across, but there's several areas you are missing the boat. Anyway, this is my last response so you can post what you like, I just hate seeing bad info being given.

I guess I missed a lot of what you are saying while I was getting my degree in electronics, which I happen to have. Some of what you are saying is so, but then you start mixing things with personal thoughts that make no since. He has not said what year model and type boat but six gauge cable has pretty much been the standard for year of any size, some have even installed four gauge. However, I won't disagree that it wouldn't hurt to verify he has at least six gauge, but when you say 8 gauge would be "fine", that's totally wrong. He would have way too much voltage drop with that small of wire, even with the motor he has now. 8 gauge wire will not handle 50 or so amps through approximately a 50 foot circuit, which is close to what would be in the boat (you do understand it's the total length from the battery to the motor and back to the battery). 6 gauge is the minimum and four gauge would be even better, but I would not spend the funds to upgrade to four if I already have six gauge, you would probably only see a one volt or so increase in motor voltage. I still don't know what you are talking about when referring to the RPM being the determining factor? Load is the determining factor. As for the additional load the 36 volt motor placing on the circuit, again not so. As you increase the voltage, the motor becomes more efficient. If you compare a 36 volt and 24 volt motor of the same torque, the 36 volt motor will use considerably less current. Anyway, we don't need to hijack this post discussing electronics. The motor he has and if he's upgrading to a 101, 36 volt, both will have approx the same current demands and both will need at least six gauge battery/marine cable, for which most likely he has if he's dealing with any boat of size made in the past 20 years.

Lets see if I can explain things a little better. First a 115 Amp hour using the 20 hour rating basically a useless number. They are only using a very small, five to six amp load when testing this. The reserve capacity is a much more useful number because it is usually based on how long a like new, fully charged battery will run a 25 amp load. However some companies use a smaller load like 20 or 22 amps to make their numbers look better. The reason I say the 20 hour rating is useless unless you are only running a five amp load, as you increase the load on a battery, it's capacity to deliver current decreases. That's why you can't use the math saying a 100 amp hour battery will run 50 amp for two hours. If you put a 50 amp load on a 100 Ah battery, it will be much closer to 65 Ah battery, so instead of two hours run time, you get about 1 1/4 hours run time. That's why it's always better to run two batteries in parallel than running one until its quits and then connect to the second. The two in parallel half the load so drain is half, making runtime longer than running one at the time. Also understand, not all batteries are made the same and some plate materials will handle heavy discharge loads better than others. That's why you can put a Trojan and a Wal Mart Maxxium side by side, with the same Ah capacity or Reserve minutes, with a heavy load and the Trojan will usually run a little longer under the same load.

Like I said, if you are already running a 71 pound 24 volt and if you go to a 101, 36 volt, the only thing you will need to do is add the upgrade your battery system. Three new, like batteries and the additional interconnect cables. The current draw for the 71, 24V is going to be very close to the current draw of a 101, 36 volt. If you happen to only be running a 50 amp breaker, I would also recommend upgrading to a 60 amp. A 50 amp will even cause problems with the 71 pound as the batteries age or start getting weak. BUSSMAN makes the circuit breaker shown above and you can buy them at some auto parts stores. It's been three years since I bought one but my last one was $45 at the Bumper to Bumper warehouse I get my parts. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bussman-60-Amp-Circuit-Breaker-Waterproof-184060-/180531043810 Here's one on ebay cheap Understand, current draw is what determines cable size requirement, not voltage. Your current draw is not going to change enough to amount to anything.

Somebody had confused the crap out of me with all that fancy voltage talk and voltage related to rpm stuff. Increasing the voltage will reduce the current requirements for the same thrust. The motor efficiency is going to be greatly increased so it will run longer on the same thrust. If you're wire size has been good for a 71 pound 24v motor, it will be just fine for a 101 pound, 36V. I don't have the figures or done the math but I seriously doubt there is very little difference in the current draw between the two motors. It has be a while since I looked them up and I'm sure someone with come back with the right numbers just to say I'm wrong, but I think it's something like this: A 12 volt motor using 1.5 amps per pound of thrust A 24 volt motor using 0.9 amps per pound of thrust A 36 volt motor using 0.6 amps per pound of thrust Like I said, I'm sure these are not the exact numbers but this is very similar to what the results would be when you upgrade. As for the batteries, yes, they must all be the same make, size and age, or you will be having dead battery problems until you do finally replace all three. A common practice, though I don't recommend it, is to use one as the cranking battery. That way you still only have to have three batteries but if you happen to run them down with the TM, you're screwed because the big motor is not cranking.

It's mainly going to depend on the type bolts you use. Grade 5's are approx. 60 Grade 8's are approx. 80 18SS are approx. 50 Check a standard torque spec table for the exact numbers. I always install 1/2" thick, 3" wide SS plates on the inside of the transom. You can buy fancy ones with somebody's logo on them or just get a piece of SS bar and make your own. When mounting a jack plate is also use only Grade 8 bolts, even if going to be used in salt water, I just complete seal them in silicon. I just don't trust the strength of SS bolts to hold with much offset.

Actually, you need to check the CG Data Plate, I think the boat is only rated for a 90. With a 100 on it, if you have to insure it, they may not do it. Also, some states will fine you if they happen to check it and see it's over powered. As for value, being a F/S, I think that would be on the extreme high end. If the boat has always been garage kept and looks almost new, it might be worth it, but I would consider offering $1,600 and maybe meet in the middle.

If you're on a small budget, get a small boat. Find you a 1232, forget about trying to do a bunch of mods to make it something it's not and enjoy fishing out of it. You can put a small platform on the front to mount a tiller handle trolling motor, a short 6" pedistal near the inner edge that turns with a small seat on it, sit kinda sideways with one or both feet in the bottom of the boat and have fun. You don't have to be standing on an elevated deck to cast or catch bass. Because of my back, I sit 80% of the time and I can cast, flip and pitch sitting just as good as standing. When fishing out of a jon, I'm almost always sitting because the only time I like getting wet is when I have hot water, a rag, soap and towel to dry off with. As far as I'm concerned, to use anything smaller than a 1232 in a jon, I would just save my money and use a wash tub, it would probably be about as stable and easy to control.

If you even consider a deck, the minimum would be a 1448, anything smaller or narrower would be very unstable if you tried to fish from an elevated deck and will still be very useable with two, though a little crowded. While probably too large for just you and small waters, for two people, a 1648 or even a 1652 would even be much better. A 1652 will look like one big jon when you first look at it sitting on the ground or on a trailer for the first time but when you get it in the water and start fishing out of it, it will seem like the water made it shrink to half size. For just me and an occassional other person with no decks, on small waters, I like prefer the 1436, for two people and no decks I like the 1442.

Gas is why my 4WD, 350 Chevy mainly is only used when towing the big boat. I mostly use my 93 Toyota 4WD pickup towing the jon boats. I've ported the head, raised compression and did a few other mods and it gets 32 mpg on the two lane roads where I keep it under 65. On the interstate it still gets 26 @ 75 and about that just running around. The chevy gets about16, and 13 running 70 with 3,200 pounds of boat behind it, but I haven't been into that motor "yet".

Very nice! I'm just mighty glad I don't have your payments and insurance bill.

I never use carpet glue. I use Weldwood original contact cement http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100139723/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=weldwood+contact+cement&storeId=10051 It's much easier to work with than carpet glue and will hold a lot better also. Somewhere on here you can find a fairly extensive instructions I've posted on installing boat carpet if you do a search. There are a number of things you have to watch out for if you want to make life easy. Here's one I posted back in 2011 on doing the lids. I didn't find the one for the whole boat but this should help When I cover a compartment lid, I lay the carpet out, upside down and draw some arrows on it for what I will consider the front of the boat, making sure I also keep the lids in the proper orientation, so mark the insides of them with an arrow as you take them off This so I keep all the cuts in the same orientation, very important. Then I lay the lid upside down on the carpet and mark around it. I then add how much it's going to take to fold over the outer edge of the lid and up into the inner edge. Say if that's 1 1/2 inches, I add that to my lid piece all the way around. Easiest way to do that is to cut you a strip of wood and lay it against the lid, them mark along the edge of the strip. I cut it out around this line. I then lable that piece and draw an arrow on it in the direction of what would be the front of the boat. When I'm ready to cover the lid, I use small paint roller and role DAP, Weldwood Orginal contact cement on the top of the lid, it's inside and outide edges and the carpet. AFter proper cure time, I carefully sit the lid on the carpet, lined up with the first set of marks I made around the lid itself and press it down. I cut a square notch from each corner, just don't cut all the way to the lid, stop at least an 1/4" from the lid or you will leave the metal corner exposed when you fold it around the edges. Fold it around the edges and rub it down good to make sure you have good contact. Using contact glue, you don't have to screw around with clamps and waiting for indoor/outdoor carpet glue go dry. Just remeber, it's called contact glue for a reason, no oh craps allowed. The reason I stress maintaining proper orientation is if all pieces are not on the same bias, they will look different colors when the light hits them or looking at them from different angles. Also remember, if you have flush mounted lids and they go down into a recess when closed, if you use a heavier carpet than what's in the boat now, you will have to shave the inside edges of the lids to get them to close properly.

Well, if you really wanted to see something. In 1965 I bought a new 14' Glass Master, runabout with a 65hp Merc on it, and pulled it with a VW Karmann Ghia. Boat was twice as big as the car and had a fairly steep ramp to load and unload on. I had one time the ramp was a little slick and I started back with the boat, when I went to stop, it almost didn't, dang near put the back end under water, it did get the muffler and part of the motor but not the carb and it stayed running so I could pull back forward some.