Ski213

Good point above about checking on what your homeowners covers. I have a separate policy for the boat. It's around $50 a month. I dont think I'm required by law to have it but no way I wouldn't have it either way. I made a split second mistake on a dirt bike last year and if I hadn't had insurance I would have racked up enough debt in 9 days to buy a pretty nice house.

@portiabrat have you checked the voltage at the battery itself to see if it matches the unit voltage? May well be a bad battery but it could also be voltage drop from a bad connection somewhere between the battery and the units.

I never found anything wrong. I bled and bled using all the good advice I got above. I did finally get it. There must have been a air pocket somewhere. I'll give you a rundown of my final 24 hrs on it as I remember it going. I ran a clear hose from each bleeder to a single T fitting, from that fitting I ran a single clear hose to the fill bottle at the helm. I made dang sure that every connection between the fill bottle and helm was airtight. Filled the fill bottle (which was a clear bottle). Opened both bleeders and turned the wheel at a slow rate as suggested above. The hose running back to the fill bottle allows you to really move a lot of fluid through fairly quickly. One thing I had to watch was air bubbles getting in the fill bottle. Even going slow they would try to get into the helm. A couple times I had to stop and let them rise out of the fill bottle. The problem with this method is to some extent you are probably getting some of the air right back in even if you're careful and you run the risk of contaminating the fluid. I was definitely getting more out than I was putting in and was super careful to not allow any contaminants in so I kept going. I ran a lot of fluid through, a lot. I got a couple good size air pockets out. I stopped, left fluid in the fill bottle, covered the open end so nothing could get in and let it sit until the next afternoon. Every so often I would tap on the helm to encourage any air to rise out. Next afternoon I bled it exactly as @Way2slow advised at the beginning of this thread. I got a little more air but not much. That final bleed got the last little bit. Closed everything back up and that was that. If you're certain you don't have any leaks in the system you might give that a shot. Sorry for the lengthly post. I thought I posted on here that I got it and to thank everybody but I see I didn't. It's a lot late but thanks to everybody for the advice.

I have a CMC. Mine is older and is not the high speed actuator. It has been sufficient for my needs. It was on the boat when I bought it so I'm not positive on its age, although I would guess around 8 yrs old minimum. I replaced the relays in 2016 I believe and had an o ring fail about the same time. Technically the actuator is not serviceable so the o ring should've meant actuator replacement but I got lucky and was able to tear it down and repair. Even if that had been game over it went 6 yrs problem free. For the money I think they're pretty decent plates.

Good advice above. Personally I'd want something that I could launch by hand for sure. You could go the roof rack route, or small jon on a bunked trailer, or something like one of those pond hopper type plastic boats on a utility trailer.

It looks like a pickup for a speedometer to me.

Good looking truck!

Congratulations on the new rig. I think you have a decent list. @A-Jay has some great advice. The most important tool on the boat is the one between your ears. The biggest thing is safety. Water can be pretty unforgiving. Everybody is different in what they carry. I'd add a trolling motor prop, a couple towels, and some paracord. Probably good to have change of clothes as well. As far as tools I'd at the least have a knife, a couple screwdrivers and a couple different sizes of vise grips.

2 of my 4 trailer hubs grease has become fairly liquified and purple leaning towards black rather than red. I have what I'm pretty sure are Dexter ezlube spindles on my trailer. The little rubber plugs on the dust cap had dry rotted so I replaced them a couple weeks ago. When I did this I also pumped out as much of the old grease as I could and replaced it with new, as there had been some water intrusion. I used the Lucas red and tacky grease which is what was in them to begin with. The bearings were replaced and packed with the Lucas so I'm pretty sure I don't have a dissimilar grease issue. I've heard since that particular grease is not best for this application but I had no issues last season. I pulled a 600 mile round trip last week and checked the hubs for excessive heat when I stopped for fuel and didn't detect any but clearly there's something going on with those two hubs. Any thoughts or advice are appreciated. Everything I know to check without tearing them down is as it should be other than the grease condition.

No draw. Most everybody has their own partner. Occasionally there will be someone fishing by themselves due to partner illness. If I remember right you get one substitution a year so if your partner is out for whatever reason you can bring someone else for one tournament.

I wouldn't sweat it personally. I think you're fine. Give everything a once over to make sure it's as it should be for piece of mind. I would try to figure out for sure how it got that way though.

It varies somewhat year to year since I've been fishing with them. Generally every year we fish Cumberland, Barren, Green, Cave Run and Taylorsville. The last two years we have also fished Willisburg. Guist Creek was on the schedule once as was Dale Hollow and Laurel once. Usually they're day tournaments, this year we did have one night tournament though. Barren is always a 2 day tournament as is the Classic. There is typically one lake that gets fished twice but not always. If it's something you might be interested in I'm happy to answer any other questions. We typically meet in January to create the schedule and go over rules, etc.

There are several around. I'm in one out of Mt Sterling. We are relatively small. Decent turnout for us is around 15 boats. We fish 7 tournaments a year plus a classic. There is or at least was one based in Georgetown as well. I think it's Bluegrass Christian Bassmasters. I'm not sure if they're still going or not but they were last year I know.

Nice job. Congrats.

When my oem rope broke I used 550 paracord as a temporary/emergency fix. I have heard that paracord is a bad idea as it will degrade quickly due to u.v. That wasn't really my experience with it though and the paracord was working fine at a year and a half when I replaced it with a g-force setup. I believe there are a couple options other than the g force that are spoken highly of as well. If you have concern about your rope I would do something sooner rather than later whether it's temporary or permanent. When mine broke it was a real surprise. Nothing bad happened but I could see where the rope breaking at the wrong time could end up with the operator in the water.

I like cabin creek. I've used them for a long time as they are a local business to me. I generally t-rig them with weight.

That's the same.

I believe 0.030". Way2slow would know for sure though.

Not catching fish. There are a lot of things that can annoy me while fishing but not hooking up is the one that annoys me the most.

Last 3 letters of my last name and the numbers off my old ride. I don't miss much of my past but I sure miss riding this ole girl.

I believe it's fathoms on the left number and feet the subscript number, so a 2 followed by a 4 would be 2 fathoms and 4 feet deep. A fathom is 6 feet.

@Senko lover props for doing the Murph period. The shape I'm in it would take me a week to bang it out.

I'm not sure if you're looking for a pump with the switch built in or not but I don't think you can get those in a cartridge style. You can get a cartridge style bilge pump and add an external float switch though, or add a float switch to your existing pump.

Love the chicken thighs. They have great flavor. I have had good luck with whole chickens for the most part but I did completely destroy one a cpl yrs back by not paying attention. Those butts weren't done based on the condition of the beans. They would've darkened up some. Im no expert by any means but one thing I do that I think helps them get a good bark without being too dark is using turbinado sugar in the rub. It has a better tolerance for heat than standard white sugar so it will carmelize but it takes more to burn it. You have got to try brisket. It is fairly expensive but when it's right it's awesome.

Oh man that's rough to be eating Wendy's in the land of BBQ. I'm surprised there's so little q up your way. @River Dave that's some awesome color. I've never used cherry before. It's crazy how long it takes sometimes. I've never gone 16 hrs but Ive had to go 14 once or twice. Did a grad party yesterday & it took a full 12 hrs to do some relatively small Boston butts. I can usually get the smaller ones done in 9. This is an older pic, I don't do the chicken much anymore. Replaced it with brisket. I love me some brisket!