FordsnFishin

I can't believe it, but literally none of the local stores have any bullet weights in stock. Im literally down to my last 6 right now in 1/4oz. So anybody know of any sites to buy cheap lead weights? Possibly even in bulk? Maybe like 100 pack or something? Looking to get 1/4- 5/16 oz. Thanks

The brace is a good idea. I've gotten tennis elbow in the past. I actually have a band somewhere. But yes the pain is directly in the elbow. Might possibly be a small case of tennis elbow. As far as my casting technique, i don't think it is that. I think it's more the fact that i fish alot of bottom contact baits, rod tip often at 9-10 o'clock position with my arm in a V.

I generally fish 2-3 tournaments a week. One of those being a 8 hr tournament. With working full time and the job can be physically demanding at times, these tournaments have started to put a number on my elbow becoming sore. Casting becomes painful towards the end of the day and looking to correct this. I suppose i could go ahead and retire young, but i dont think the wife would be happy with that... So anyone else experiencing the same problem? What are you guys doing to help prevent this?

I've got a field and stream nearby that i frequent for fishing gear. They actually have some good sales and keep a good inventory. Curious if this will change. Anybody know of a list of stores sold?

I've been blessed with 2 lowrance units ruined by water damage in the past year. Im done with them. I'd take a good look at garmin units. Been hearing nothing but good from them.

I wouldn't suggest lowrance. I've had two units go bad in the past year. From..... water damage..... I've been hearing a lot of good things on garmin lately. Id give them a close eye.

I prefer a slim trailer. I ve been using zoom split tail grubs. Spinnerbait/chatterbait trailers.

They're made of silicon. I love them. Really light, cheap easy to clean, and the main reason I wear it is because I'm an electrician. Aint no electricity going through silicon.

I love my streamlight. But I've been hearing people rave about olights

I've done two cycles of seafoam inside the fuel filter now. One time I ran about half a can of spray seafoam through the intake while light throttle on the lake. Hot soak, then run WOT for 5 minutes or so. She seems to be idling better, lots of smoke, and seems to have done some much needed cleaning. Even cleaned the carbon buildup inside the prop. About to put on the new plugs and index them. @Way2slow get you a can of ballistol aerosol. Works wonders on cleaning carbon from guns.

@Way2slow from what I've watched and read it's a must to have it at operating temperature. I think that's key. Sort of like you mentioning using water. Basically using the water as a steam cleaner. Just got a big tub set up to fill with water and run some seafoam through it. We'll see how it does. The company seafoam shows filling the inline filter with it. That's my plan of attack.

I believe ngk are factory. The 3 recommended plugs in the original mercury manual all recommend ngk plugs. @Way2slow seafoam is widely used to remove carbon. I had always done this on vehicles by pouring it into vacuum lines. Been doing some research, couple various methods for outboards. Directly spray in to plugs, turn over a few times to make sure everything is coated than let sit over night and take it out and run it. Dunks method, 3/4 gallon fuel 16oz seafoam in a little gas can and run the engine for 15 minutes with the heavy solution, let sit for half hour, than take out and run it wot. If you have a fuel filter, remove and fill 3/4 way with seafoam, replace and run for 15, let sit, run again. Still doing some reading on how exactly I want to do it yet.

As of right now, my plan is to try and decarb the engine. An throw some new plugs in the ol girl. I'll let you guys know what I get after that. For vehicles I've always used seafoam. I've seen good results on cars I've had. Tempted to use it for the boat and start pouring some in the fuel to treat it.

@Way2slow you been on b b c boards ? Through doing my own research on different things I've found a lot of good info on there. Will check out s&f, thanks

@WRB ngk izfr6j-11 spark plugs. There is another plug that can be used that's a bit cheaper. It's in the manual but forget which it is. I've checked gap multiple times and it's good. Think im planning on trying to decarb the engine and throw a new set of plugs in her as my next step.

@Way2slow @imbatman, hmmm the quarantine must be getting to you guys.

Im going to barrow a buddy of mine compression gauge just out of curiosity and see. Mine is a cheap one so I'll just about bet it's off. Especially with the numbers I got out of mine.

After doing the WOT test appears they're burning pretty well. All seem pretty identical.

@Way2slow cans of what? Im confused where you're saying to spray it? I did approx a 3 min WOT run yesterday and pulled the kill switch. About to pull plugs now and will post results.

The guy I bought it from did do alot of idling. Lake Barkley and Kentucky . However I have owned this boat 2 years now, I do a fair share idling around looking at graphs. Most of my high rpm runs don't last but 2 minutes, and at most 10 minutes. I've always ran stabil 360 marine in the fuel. What can I do to help fight carbon? @imbatman not that I'm doubting you but when I tested the 25p @ 4.5 prop to pad and took it down to 5.5 and it did better. Wouldn't you think it would have done the opposite if taking it to 3.5 would do best? Sorry if that's confusing. I agree the guardian monitor system on these seem pretty legit. Thankfully it's only warned me once. Been running through shallow muddy water and had a constant horn telling me overheating. Found a little rock had gotten sucked up and blocking pee hole. I also tried indexing the plugs. Of course only 1 of 6 would get into the "good" zone. I did try swapping around with no luck. Thought I read somewhere you can get indexing washers, which would allow you to change thickness to get them where needed?

@Way2slow @imbatman So compression while cold was all 90. Today I put plugs back in and let her run for approx 2-3 minutes to warm up. I opened up the butterfly valve partly during test. Pulled plugs and ran another compression test. Everything checked out at 90-91 lbs again. Cylinder 6 plug looked a bit wet as I pulled it. I dunno, maybe it is my gauge that is off? Im happy to see that at least they all read the same. What you guys said about the battery makes sense. Was just something I read and noticed, just didn't want it to be something I overlooked. It's always started right away, and while running typically maintains around 14.4 volts. I've never had the cover off while running it. Luckily I did this. As I noticed a water leak pointed by my finger in photo. Actually prior to running it, I noticed water spots on the motor in this area but just figured it was from the lake.

Okay maybe a weird question. Or maybe it isn't, but im not sure. But could a undersized battery cause the issues? I've been going through manual and doing research online. An I just realized I've been running a very undersized battery. It calls for a 800 cca or 1000 marine cranking amps, an the one I've been using is way under that

@Way2slow you're cooking with gas now bud. Soot on the plate. Shined a flashlight down in the cavity and I can see a pool of clean blue oil laying in the bottom. I tried getting a photo of the pool of oil inside, but can only get a phone and flashlight so far in. Lol So any thoughts on what could cause this? Id love to fix this myself. But not sure if this is beyond my limits yet and best of taking to a mechanic. So prior to finding this, earlier this year when I was getting boat ready for the year I found that the oil pump had a minor leak. Doing research I found it was a common issue. Early on in these motors the fix was to replace the whole pump. Now people have taken them apart and have found the culprit to be a .50 cent o ring failing inside. Possibly this would be the cause for this issue as well? Not sure what pitch it's supposed to go but id say it hits 80 degrees

So just removed the plugs and did a compression test. Which now as I type this I realized I messed up and did not run the engine prior and warm it up. From what data I did recieve, it did not appear to be off by but 1 lb on any cylinder. Working on removing air silencer now to look at throttle plate. I stuck my finger in to see its position, and feels like it's covered in suit. It's only letting me do so many photos right now, I'll post ther other plugs later

@Way2slow @imbatman I do agree, something is not right. Id slow to go over the boat with you way2. Im eager to learn more about the mechanics of boats and always enjoy self diagnosis. Knowledge is something nobody can take from you. Im bat, I do not know for a fact that the tach is accurate. However when ther motor was installed it also got a mercury smart gauge which id assume is fairly close. The motor has a built in rev limiter @6250rpm so it doesn't appear to be going over. 2 questions. Judging from my prop and the guys I used. Mine has much more soot inside the prop from the exhaust. Maybe 1/32" thick and hard to remove. While his was essentially clean. Other question. How much affect does the performance exhaust ports on the prop make? Mine has 3 locations, 2 of which are completely removed. When I bought the boat I remember it struggling to get on pad at first and I took them out finding it made a big difference on hole shot, but I have no idea what it did to my top end.