Ben

You can tow with a VolksWagaon beetle if you do it in a smart manner. Add an external, auxillary trans cooler, don't tow in overdrive, and tow at a reasonable speed, and don't try to force the issue when going up or down hill. Start trying to run 70 - 75 mph, especially in OD, you're transmission will suffer at least a half life.

How much is he paying you to get the boat out of his way? Seriously, I would have serious reservations about buy an Old Chrysler. They were built as low end motors and had their fair share of problems. Parts for those things have to be hard to come by now The reason you don't see them anymore, Brunswick (Mercury) bought them out, painted them black and called them a Force. Still couldn't sell them so they added the name Force by Mercury. Still not much of a motor. Strickly sold as a low end motor so somebody like Bayliner can make a cheap hull, put a cheap motor on and sell the at a cheaper price to get the entry level buyers of new boats.

a couple of other things you mentioned. Most of the newer LCDs do pretty good at tracking the bottom while moving. At 70+ mph, I'm not looking a no flipping LCD to see what the bottom looks like so don't know if it's tracking or not. At 45 - 50 I think it does pretty good, but to be honest I'm not paying much attention to it, I run my flasher when I want to see the bottom in water I'm not sure of. Many of the newer unit's have gotten much faster so the boats not 20 yards past what's showing on the display, but the flasher is still much quicker. You will most like loose all signs of bait fish on the LCD once your moving even fast enough to get on plane. As for the speed sensor, yes it's fairly accurate but has to be calibrated. I calibrated mine with my gps at 65 mph and it's usually within a mph or two everytime I check it with the gps. The speedometer and odometer are about all I use mine for when running. Much above that on mine and the pad has lifted the sensor out of the water so it starts giving crazy readings. I think it's kinda neat to be able to look at the odometer and see I've driven my boat 980 miles since I put that unit on it about two years ago.

You can probably raise it a little, but before doing it, I highly recommend you have a water pressure guage before going up very much. Those you are reading about running 3" below the pad, you're missing a couple of key points. I think you will find just about all of those motors are on 6" or more jack plates, and most of those boats have a built in set back to boot, so the leading edge of their LU is sitting back 2 ft or more from the pad. The prop shaft is actually running deeper than 3". With the motor straight to the transome, I would think 4 - 4 1/2" below the pad is about the max you raise it, but like I said, messing with engine height without a water pressure guage is risky business. Could find that to be a very expensive 1 - 2 mph.

Start checking with Cabela's, BPS, Gander Mountain, Acadamy, Dicks Sporting goods and those places for sales on last years models, this is about the time they start introducing the new models. YOu can pick up great buys on nice units. I would not get anything less than 240 pixel, 320 or 480 would be better. Cabela's recently ran the a Lowrance X-87, 320 pixel with temp for $150, very nice unit, great price. You can find the Eagle 480's with temp for the price range you're looking at. Some like the Garmin 240, Some like the HB's. There is no such thing as a "BEST", it's all about what you think is best for your needs. As for quality, don't think theres much difference there either. Ones person my have had problems with one brand, and swears by another. While the next person will be totally the opposite Find one that has the features and price you like, get the most resolution you can afford and a screen big enough to see. Screen hight is something to watch for also, get one too small and zooming in gets difficult. As for where to mount. have the transducer mounted as close to where you're going to be fishing from as you can get it. YOu want to know what's either just in front/under you, not what you just passed over.

You really should run a breaker. If that cable shorted, or the TM control shorted it could catch the boat on fire without it. 30 amp is too small, it will trip it every time you run very far at max, you need at least a 40 and if your boat is wire with 6 ga wire, I would go ahead a put a 45 amp Please note: I did make one assumption, this is a 12/24 volt motor you are using, and not just a 12V. A straight 12 volt will require a bigger breaker

Nope, Don't know anything about them Retired from the Air Force, as a Ground Radio Communications Equipment Repairman, Now make my wifes spending as a road service Tech for a Clark Forklift dealer. The reason I say "wifes". we made a deal when I went back to work, she gets that check, I get my retirement check. Gives me about $2,000 a month "fishing money" that I don't have account for a singe dime of. I don't have to ask "honey, you recon we have enough left over this month for me buy a new reel etc". My whole married life (37 years, wow), the family has always come first with me, now it's my turn. Actually, a lot of the equipment I work on is run on batteries (GREAT BIG batteries). I may be messing with 12 volt cranking battery, then six volt golf cart batteries the next and 4,000 lb 48 volt batteries the next, and the general public and people using this equipment doesn't have a clue about how to care for the batteries. I went to a place that as we were walking back to the lift, the man was explaining how it would charge up in about 20 minutes, but would only run about 45 minutes before it was dead again. I told him it just sounded like the batter was low in water. He gave me this dumb look and asked, "are you suppose to put water in them"????????. He'd had this lift for over three years, probably took over 20 gallons of water, I spent a long time with a hose pipe filling it. An $8,000 battery totally fried. Having deal with and make recommendations to people on what equipment, what battery, what charger, how they should maintain the batteries etc. has kinda forced me to learn more than I really ever wanted to know about them. I always buy my TM batteries in pairs. I've never had but one to fail when less than two years old, which kinda blows the not using a new battery with a battery that has been charged more than 25 time slap out of the water, hell, that's only about two months for me. I also replace my vehicle batteries every four years, don't mater what the warrenty says. The heat a vibrations under a car hood is hell on one and after three years you are running on borrowed time so for what little they cost, peace of mind is a better than being stranded, waiting for AAA or looking someone that can give you a boost. One thing, when buying batteries, check the date code, I will not buy a battery that has been sitting on the shelf for three months, which is common for low volume places. Even in Walmart, if they have too many batteries at the end of the season, some may sit there til the next spring.

I think I would try another prop shop or send it off to one of the big tuners. That motor makes a lot of torque and heavy bass boats load the crap out of the prop. If they are not using top quility hubs and properly installing them, they won't stay under that motor. Bass boats cause a lot more prop problems than most other boats because they are built to run so dang fast and need a high pitched prop, but the boats are also heavy, and heavy boats usually run a much lower pitched prop. Those 3.3 Fichts are torque monsters but they don't eat hubes as fast you saying yours is.

I see a couple of problems I would recommend getting away from right of the bat. You should not be running your Lowrance off the TM batteries. If you are running one of the fully varialbe speed trolling motors, like the Minkota Maximizer, they can damage the depthfinder. The 12/24 motors that have to five or six speed positions are not as bad but still not recommended. If you're batteries are dropping to below 12 volts on the depth finder, that means you have one of two problems or possibly both. You have a bad connection or your batteries are junk. Most of todays deep cycle TM batteries will show approx 12.8 VDC when good, fully charged and let set for 24 hours after charging. A ball park rule of thumb is the battery is discharged approx 10% for each 0.1 VDC drop. Remember I said ball park, it's actually a little less than 10% but were not gonna split hairs. I would put me a good digital volt meter across the battery terminals. You will sometimes get a couple of tenths extra drop when the TM is in the water running on max but no way should it be dropping below 12 VDC. A battery is considered totally run down when it's below 11.9 Now as for the reading you LCD is showing, is it connected at the TM end of the cables or the battery end. If at the TM end, you way have too small of cables coming from the battery. You could also have bad/dirty connection at the battery. That's why you should first check it with a DVM on the battery post. If you get good readings on the battery post, then take every connection between the TM and the battery appart and clean them good, positive and negative. Not sure what make and model 115 you have but many have less than a 10 amp charging system. That's hardly enough to charge the battery if you run it all day, even if you don't have any other accessories going. With a small motor/charging system, you should definetly be charging your battery everytime you get back from lake.

No. The leads will connect to each batteries positive and negative post. A 12 volt battery is still just a 12V battery, doesn't matter how they are connected. The combined total of series connected batteries will change by ever howmany you have in series ie. Three will give you 36VDC (actually 38.4 VDC) but each battery will aways be 12 volts. I only have two cables (+ & -)going to my TM and have my batteries connected in series also. I have a covered AC plug at the rear of my boat, I come in, flip the cover up, plug the drop cord in and walk off and foget it. I do raise the lid, to check and make sure the charger comes on. Forgot it too good one time, headed down road and saw my 25 ft drop cord waving in the breeze, still plugged into the boat. For max battery life, you want to leave who's ever brand you get plugged in all the time. Unless the charger goes bad (never known but one to and I think it was actually a bad battery that caused it), it's not like most of your cheap home chargers, it will cook the battery if left for long periods, just the opposite, it helps them. While loading you down the geewiz info, let me educate you a little on deep cycle batteries and charging them. The recommended charge rate is approx 10% of it's rated AH capacity (105 AH battery, charge at 10.5 amp)and should never be charged at more than 25% of it's rated AH capacity. A lower charge can be used but needs to be at least enough to make small gas bubbles rise from the plates. This is necessary to keep the electrolite the same from the top to the bottom of the cells. A battery should never be discharged more than 80% or below approx 12VDC. This also damages and shortens the life of a battery. It should also be discharged by approx 20% before charging. A battery designed for 300 charge cycles at an 80% discharge will last less than 200 if run down to 10%. I may last over 500 if only run down to 50% and even more if run down even less. That's why it's important to match your batteries AH capacity to the way you use them. Don't buy the biggest, baddest batteries you can get and then only use 10% of them each trip. At the same time, don't buy little cheap batteries and run them down to below 12 volts (each) everytime you go out. Never install a new battery with at battery that has been recharged over 25 times. This can actually damage the new battery. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER let a battery sit with less than 80% charge. Not even overnight. Permenant Sulfation will start, this is sayed to be the main cause of battery failure on over 80% of the marine batteries checked for the reason they failed. The only way to remove it is with a Pulser. This is a little device that zaps the battery with a high voltage, high frequency signal the breaks up the Sulfation. It will restore a battery that has been left totally discharge for months, as long the plates have not started coming apart. Will also keep your batteries at peak capactiy for the life of the battery materials. WOW, got a little long winded, think I'll quit. Well, figured I'd better add one more thing on sizing a deep cylce battery. The amp hour capacity can be hard to find or not even on some batteries. A good thing to look for is the Reserve Capacity. This should be how many minutes the battery will last with a 25 amp load on it. Ah or reserve capacity is important when comparing batteries. Take a Trojan SCS200 (group 27 size) has 200 minutes reserve, an Interstate SRM-27B (note the B, that's their bigger 27) has 180 minutes and their AGM OPTIMA on has 155 minutes. Ain't no battery, don't care who's it is, is going to run any longer than somebody elses with the same reserve capacity or AH capacity if rated by the 20 hr rating. Make sure alway compare apples to apples when shopping and use the same rating. A 130 Ah battery at 20 hours is only about a 105 AH battery if rated at 5 hours. If they give the reserve capacity, it's usually always the minutes the battery will last with a 25 amp load. So, no matter what they claim for run time, the same rated battery will not last any longer than another. Now there is great difference in the life of the battery based on materials used and if it's flooded cell, GEL cell or AGM. AGM's and Gel you don't have to worry about Sulfaction but they normally won't have the run time the flood cell batteries give. Some of the cheap batteries won't give you any kind of ratings because they don't want you know know that it's only half the battery many others are a just a few dollars more OK, now I'll quit, about done wrote a book

Get a three bank. As been said, unless you make long runs, your motor will not keep your cranking battery fully charged, even if you have a 40 amp charging system. Unless you do make long runs, don't waste the extra bucks on one that charges all the batteries from the motors charging system. It doesn't start charging the TM batteries until the cranking battery is fully charged, and as mentioned, the motor has a hard time just keeping the cranking battery charged. That's why I run the biggest, baddest, cranking battery I can get. As for chargers, do your home work. You will hear lots of hype about Dual Pro, Quest and all those other transformer based chargers. Good chargers, but old technology, slow and don't do the best for the battery. If you realy do you home work, you will find those made by ProMariner the best for the money. They also make Cabela's brand and BPS brand. The 10 amp per bank PM chargers will charge a battery three times faster than a 10 amp bank in most other chargers. They use three step charging process, where the others use a two step. They also go into the float mode that keeps the ideal maintenance voltage approx 13.03 on the battery and should be left connected and on at all times when not using the boat. This will give max battery life. Some of the others just cut off and then turn back on when the battery voltage drops approx 1 volt, not very good at all for long battery life. You will also hear all the hype about the great service the other brands, provide. I've been running PM's for seven years and have never had but one go bad. It was three months old and they had me another at my door the next day, so don't think you can knock that for service either. Unless you run your batteries way down, and have to have them fully charged in just a few hours, you probably won't need a 10 amp per bank charger, unless you get the Dual Pro, Quest etc. They charge no faster than your little $30 10 amp home charger, so you can use that as guide as to what size you will need in on of their bands. The difference is the technology. A three bank PM @ six amp per bank is really a bigger charger than that. As soon as the cranking battery is fully charged (which normally is not very long) the current to it is transferred to the TM batteries so they are charging at nines amps instead of six. It also maintains that full nine amps until the battery reaches 80% charge, then cuts back to a lower rate. With the other, a discharged battery will start off being charged at 10 amps but as the battery gains charge, the charge rate drops, taking much longer to charge. So, as mentioned, do your homework.

I come up at 1/4" intervals, watching the tach, gps and water pressure. Be sure you do this with your normal load, not a light, empty boat. The key things to watch for are, if the tach shows an increase in rpm and no gain in speed, water pressure drops below factory recommendations (making sure you check this in turns also) or the boat start loosing bow lift and blows out easily when triming up. When any of these points are reached, drop the motor 1/2" The SE Sport 300 Hydro foil (I thought they recommend a 200 for your motor) helps hole shot, no matter what size boat/motor you have. Looks dorkey as all get out, but they improve hole shot and greatly reduce bow lift. I've never run the smart tabs because I've never had a need to, but a lot of bay boats and boats that need to get on plane in shallow water swear by them. I do run the Sport 300 and probably always will, even though I can get up and going with absolutely no problem without it. Another thing that will help some and stop some backwash it to use a piece of thin metal and make a cover for the bottom of your jackplate. This keeps the plate from draging water when starting off and scooping up water when coming off plane.

If your running it hard, it will probably come out black. I change mine every six months and it's black everytime. Creamed coffee color is water. If the motor has been sitting for a while when you drain it, it's not uncommon to get that little bit of gray. That's where the metalic seddiment has settled to the bottom case and comes out first. Also, if you have a water leak problem, after it sits long enough to get the gray first, you will usually get a little water out when you drain it. Some of the water will separate from the oil and come out as water.

On a two stroke, you should also have the trottle wide open and make sure your battery is fully charged. You will also probably find that if you take all the plugs out, the starter bendix will keep kicking out every time it hits on the cylinder with the guage in it. I most cases, you will find if you only remove one plug at a time and put you guage in that hole it works just fine. I usually like to make six hits on each cylinder I'm checking.

First, there are too many different kinds to answer this without knowing the motor's Make, Size, Model Year. I will say LU's are not cheap and are not just changed out ever so often like they are a disposable item. As one has already asked, why. You should change the gear oil at least every fall and change the water pump, and grease splines every three or four years but unless it's making strange noises or your getting lots of metal flakes/water when you change the oil, not sure why you would want to change it.

I'm feel the same a LBH. First off, I don't even listen to the radio in my vehicles, so not much of a music lover to start with, ain't about to have someone turn one on in the boat with me. If so, they had better be on headphones and I don't hear even a wisper of the noise coming out of them. Bass fishing is hard enough as it is, I'm sure they would just love to get down and boggie to the tune of some hip hop, or rap, boogie right on out of that area.

It should be in the FAQ section. From what they say, it's even easier now than it was before. Before you had to add them to your personnal web page, or a hosting site and then to here. I think they say you can go straight to this site now. I still just use my personnal web page, post them to it and then to here. Use a photo editor to downsize the pictures to a reasnoable size. Most IP's offer free web space There is free sofware you can download and use to setup you personnal web site and transfer pictures to it. Once you get them there, you can add them to just about anything that will let a picture be added. None of this is actually very complicated if you have a basic computer understanding.

As GamblerHO stated, put you and extra cooler on it. There is one I like much better than all others but can't find the brand name, It looks more like a minnie car radiator than the ones that one that look like a zig zaged piece of tubing going through the cooling fins. They are very thin and much smaller than the those cheaper tubing things for the same BTU rating. Making them much easire to mount because it should go between the AC condensor and the radiator. Next, DO NOT tow in overdrive and limit your speed to 60 - 65 mph if the roads are fairly flat and a little slower than that if constantly going up and down even small hills/rises in the road. If you're running the five speed manual, don't tow in 5th gear. If you will abide by these, you should have no problems, but trying towing it fast or in overdrive and you will greatly shorten the life of your tranny. Coming from Az to Ga with my Javelin R20 on a dual axle trailer, I found I got better gas milage in my 98 FWD, Chevy truck with a 350 towing in 3rd than in Overdrive. My transmission is highly modified so I can tow 6,000 lbs in OD all day long, but when coming back I was getting 12.4 mpg at 65 - 70 mph in OD. Towing in 3rd at the same speed I got 14.6 mpg. Taking that extra strain off the engine let it breath easier. Even in my truck with a bigger engine and an extensively modified transmisson, I still mostly stayed around 65, 70 on long flat highway and less in hilly country. Lot of that had to do with gas mileage as much as anything but the transmission was still much happier. I tow 93 miles one way every two weeks or so, I still don't use overdrive and speed is approx 62 mph, (55 mph speed limit). There is almost no level road during that trip.

Finding decals for a Johnson motor that's more than a few years old is going to be tough. Many times, if the decals are still in good shape, you can heat them (just being careful not to use too much heat) with a hairdryer and use a sharpened putty knife to remove, save and reuse them. It works best with two people doing it, one lifting the decals without streching them and one working the putty knife and hair dryer. Stick them on a piece of release paper until ready to put them back on. Sometimes though, no matter how hard you try, you just can't get them off without destroying them. If that's not an option, before removing them, take the cover by a grahics shop (that has the capabilty to make them) and let them get the font, size, colors etc, before you remove them and get a price. Unless it's something like the Stripes around a Venom, it may not be as high as you might think. Probably even cheaper than what a dealer would want for a set if he could get them. If it's the raised letters, they can be removed rather easily, just heat the cover from underneath rather than on the decal, I've removed and reused those on several covers

I need to clearup my post. I made it sound like there's no way I would take my four sons fishing (if I had four). Totally the oppsite, I would get more pleasure teaching them and letting them fish than fishing myself. My dad is about the only one I fish with, unless my 9 year old granddaughter wants to go. If she's in the boat, the whole trip is catured her having a good time and catching fish. When I see a probable hot spot, I will always tell her to make a couple of cast to it before I try. I buy her good tackle (Curado reels and nice rods), so she ain't out there trying to fish with a $10 Zebco combo junk trying to land big bass (5# bass and 12# stipper are her largest so far), and she can cast the crap out of a baitcaster at 9 (10 in April) years old. A lot of times I let her have the front, run the TM and just do her own thing, she's pretty good at it too. She also gets to drive the boat, just have to keep reminding her to slow down. She also drives the truck to and from the lake (about six miles of county road) most of the time. So, needless to say, she enjoys going fishing with her pappa. Also, needless to say, her pappa enjoys her going.

If it's a house radio, you will need and inverter with a continuous output rating large enough to supply the radio, but you TM battery is not going to last as long. Not real sure I would want 115 Volts AC in a small boat though. It could lite your eyeballs up. If it's a portable and has a vehicle adapter to plug into the lighter, you can use that, with adapter made to connect to the battery.

If you take all four fishing at the same time, ya'll probably don't really get to do much fishing. Not that it would take a deck the size of an aircraft carrier for all five of you to have room to cast but that's four times as many hangups your gonna have to chase down. I think one in a boat is best, two if you want to take a friend or family member and three's aggravation. Any more would be a nightmare.

Just wondering how many people actually let the Barometer, moon phase, temprature, weather forcast (except maybe a hurricane), solar calender and all those other factors that's suppose govern when the fish bite best or worst determine if they go fishing or not. Not me, I go every chance I get, regardless of what the conditions are. Yea, if all the planets line up and the moon is just right and conditons are just so perfect the fish are jumping in the boat to get your bait, that's great, but if none of those say it's going to be a good fishing day, I'm going anyway. I've still caught very nice numbers of fish when all those things say the fish have moved into the next state. Been ignoring those things for 45 years and still catch bass. There is one thing I've grown to luv over the years and that's to see wildlife when getting close to the lake. I find if I see deer, rabbits, turkeys and most other wildlife in any kind of numbers, the fishing is alway pretty darn good when we first get there. Same when I'm fishing, if I start seeing wildlife feeding, the fishing gets better also.

You know, Many years back they came out with those self draining plugs that you could just leave in, kinda like a rubber flapper vavle. A friend of mine bought one and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. That was until a stick hung on a piece of fishing line got stuck in it and held it open. Bad part was he didn't discover it till the next afternoon. He had the boat tied in the boat house in about 7 ft of water. When he went out to get in it, it was gone. Had his neighbor ride him all over that part of the lake to see if they could see it. Finally called the county cops to report it stollen, when they came to investigate, the deputy saw the rop he had it tied to hanging in the water, shined his flashlight in the water and asked my friend if that would be his missing boat his light was shinning on.

For most yes, but you need get the trolling motor base adapter for it. I think they are less than $10, been a while since I bought one. It's just a curved piece that's mounts onto the motor with a large clamp and has the two ears on it to mount the Xducer on.