Ben

Yep, having gotten married will probably take care of them anyway. Done seen too many bass boats to be the first thing to go after the wedding bells quit ringing. I wouldn't worry about the debugger bothering the boat, but I would make sure to take all my tackle, and lures and anything else I wouldn't won't to get the smell into. Are you sure they are yellow jackets and not the yellow guinne wasp. I've never known yellow jackets not to nest in the ground. Which I guess doesn't really matter, they both have stingers that hurt like crap when they get you and wouldn't care to be on the water with a boat load of either one when they got ticked off.

They are basically a good motor, but yes they have a tendency to have poblems. As the old saying goes, they are the straw that broke the camels back, and helped put OMC out of business, they did/do have issues. You need to make sure it has the mod required by the Coast Guard on the injectors. If it does there will be a single big metal bracket holding the fuel lines in and two screw fastening that bracket to the back of the injector. Without this update, the injectors were subject to leak gas and the motor explode. Bunches did that before the update and not all got updated. They are alsp prone to have ECU problems. What ever you do, never connect jumper cables, to the cranking battery, and never disconnect anything anywhere with the power turned on. Make very sure you keep a good battery that's well maintained in it. A weak, neglected battery can cost you over $1,000, simply because it was still cranking the boat ok and you wanted to get a little more use from it. This is one time you should invest in a onboard charger so it stays connected to the cranking battery. Connecting and disconnecting a charger can blow the ECU also. The biggest problem is most mechanics don't know how to trouble shoot and diagnose the true cause of an engine failure when it comes to these. It pops a piston, they fix the piston, say well, the injector caused it, might install another injector, or say lack of oil caused it and clean the oil injector, and put you back on the water again. Next thing you know, it's poped that piston again, but rest assured, it will be something else that made it pop this time, what happened last time had nothing to do with it. That mechanic is not going to eat that bill. There is a company called DFI Technoligies that does some major upgrades on the ecu and software updates, but it's not cheap Now, with all that negative info, heres some good. I know of motors used in commercial applications that have nearly 1,000 hours and never had a moments problem. The ones you hear about are those unlucky few that got one of the bad ones. Like everything else 10 people can have a problem, post it on one of these sites and say what junk they are and 5,000 will read it and echoe what junk the ficht is. At the same time 500 can post what great motors they are and that don't compute, those 10 had problems so the motors are junk. I'm running a 99, 225 that had 125 hours when I bought the boat at auction where it was repo'd. Boat and motor sat for two years with the injectors out. I talked to the original owner, he had a problem with intermittent skipping and took it to the shop for repair. About a month later they call him and tell him it needs six new injectors, about $1,500 for that repair. This was after just putting a brand new gearcase on the motor and carpet in the boat. When I start checking the motor out, it had sat for so long the injectors were gummed up so I sent them off to be rebuilt, DFI said they were pretty nasty from old gas. I purged and flushed the whole fuel system, install them and still wouldn't start or run on it's own. Finally figured out the ecu had a problem, sent it to DFI for all their updates and repair. We came to the conclusion the mechanic hung his ignition spark tester on the ECU when he was doing his testing and blew all six injector drivers. Original miss fire problem was caused by one connector not having dielectric grease in it. I've since put about 60 hours on the motor and luv it. Burns a lot less gas than my 300 hp hotrod motors. Forgot to mention, you can get the model and serial number, take it to a dealer and they should be able to tell you what the repair history has been on the motor.

A box full of new baits!! Uh oh,,,, I see a major problem coming on right off the bat. Too many lures that you don't know how/when/where to fish are only going to make you catch fewer bass. I would strongly recommend anyone trying to learn to catch bass to limit their lure selection. Learn to use two or three for the time of year you are fishing. Learn how, when, and where to consistantly catch fish on those, then add one or two more. Plastics are one of the staples, but learning them can be one of the toughest. For my first three years of bass fishing, my tackle box was a little metal pocket pack that had red, black and purple 6" Creme worns, some hooks and some weights. That was all I fished with and got dang good at finding and catching bass with them under all conditions and times of the year. One reason was that was all I could afford when I was a kid. When I finally did break down and bought my first lure, it was a Heddon Sonic, then I was scared to use it for fear I might loose it.

I would start by using the manual setting and reduce the sensitivity/gain. It's probably picking up echoes caused too much gain. Sometimes, espectially in the auto mode, in shallow water they start picking up echoes, this makes them think the water is deeper so they increase the gain more, causing even more echoes, and it keeps thinking the waters is getting deeper and deeper. This can be a aggrevating when you're in shallow water, the sonar says your in deeper water and the next thing you know the trolling motor is plowing bottom

DON'T depend on holes to relieve the pressure, this stuff doesn't do like a liquid or gas once it starts expanding and relieve it's pressure through a couple of holes. It's more like an expanding semi-solid, the only pressure a hole is going to relieve is for that that's directly under the hole. What's not under the hole is still going to push against what ever's restricting it until the chemical action has finished. If that's three inches more than the space it had to epxand in, some part of the boat is going to be out of place that three inches. You can pour too much in area under your deck with half the other side of the deck not having any, it can still bust the floor out when it expands up to it and still needs to epxand in that direction, even though theres a couple of feet it can expand to the other side of the deck. This stuff is wicked if you don't pay attention to what your doing with it.

You need to read the post I just made in the Experienced Angler question.

When bass are breaking the water, it's can hard to tell them from hybrids and stippers if you have those in your lake. Bass will school up and starting about 30 minutes after daylight for as much as a couple of hours they will push schools of shade to the surface where numbers of them will tear the water up for about 15 - 30 seconds. The short lenght of time they stay up like that is a good indication they are bass and not other fish. 10 - 15 minutes later they will do the same thing, maybe 100 - 200 yards from where they were before and sometimes there may be several schools working the area. Once you learn how to catch them, get good at figuring where they might come up again, have a very fast TM, and a setup you can make extremely long cast, you can have some of the best fun in your bass fishing life. During this time of the year, I always keep a 1/4 oz jig head with a white fluke (not the super fluke) tied on a 7' Medium action rod with a wide spook reel I can cast a long distance, ready and sitting on the deck. Then I also keep a 4" weighted popping cork with a fluke on a 3' or so leader, no jig head, or a Pop N Spot tied on a 7' MH rod, This I can cast a country mile. I know areas on my lake they are very subject to come up and I quit fishing just to go and check these area's out about a 1/2 hour after day light. I'm talking catching numbers of bass as big as three - four pounds at times just as fast as you can get them in the boat. The schools always have similar size bass, if your'e catching 12 - 13" bass, that's what they all will be in that school. If they are large bass, they will all be large bass.

The absolute best time is when they are feeding. This can be anytime during the day or night. I have this thing that if I'm not on the water at the crack of dawn, I feel like I'm late. If I quit before dark, I left too soon. I normally don't fish all day, usually during the middle of the day, I go in, eat lunch take a short nap and go back again three - four hours before dark. I have my milk runs I make while fishing. Water temps are in the mid to upper 80's here so bass have pretty much moved to the channels, under water humps and deep side of points. I will hit the ones I know produce fish every hour or so until we find them. That may be early morning, mid morning, mid day, mid afternoon or midnight. Sometimes we strike out but most of the time, somewhere during the time we are fishing we get into them. Fishing gets fast and fun then. Another fun thing is about a half hour after sunup we have some spots that schooling bass start busting on shad. Throwing flukes and poping cork rigs on those produce a lot of fun also for about a 1/2 hour.

Let me try this one last time. Once crimped, that makes a good physical connection, soldering the lug after crimping adds very little as for continuity, but it fills in the spaces in the lug so moisture etc can get in there and stay, causing corrosion. I have never in my life used 60/40 "ROSIN" core solder to solder copper pipe and have never known anyone that did, so not sure where you're coming from saying I'm reccommending he use copper pipe solder. In non drinking water pipes, "ACID" core solder is the solder used for copper pipes, this is no where near the same as "ROSIN" core. For drinking water and food grade joints you use the lead free solder someone earlier in the post was trying to get him to use for his application. So, I hope the hell ya'll either learn to read so you can understand what's posted, or learn something about what you're talking about before you start telling someone how he should do something because this crap is getting unreal. I know me having a degree and over 30 years experience in electronics (a lot of very advanced electronics at that) plus I currenlty work daily with batteries and chargers from 120 Ah to over 1,500 Ah and connections that carry upwards of a 1,000 amps don't mean mean much but during all that, I think I've learned a little about what I'm talking about. Even though I didn't go into the details of molecular structure of copper and solder and all the possible pitfalls associated with using the stuff. Of course that could be because it's tottaly not necessary for his application. Now, ya'll have fun, this is my last post on this subject.

Can't help you much on the Merc, other than to say no, just because it's 22 years old should no make it any harder to start than when new if everything is like it's suppose to be. Since I've never worked on the 9.9 I'm not sure if they have to rubber seals around the reed housing like the 25 has or not. On the 25, these have a tendency to get old and leak, causing them to be hard to start. The next thing would be to check the carb out real good. Sounds like you're not getting the fuel to the motor during the initial start and it's taking a bunch of pulls to get it primed.

Most flotation foams support about 65 pounds per cubic foot. There is not enough in the average jon to make it float level if has a motor or heavy battery in the back. It will float, but probably bow up with the motor under water. If you get true flotation foam it comes as a two part liquid. You mix them in equal parts by weight, blend them very quickly (you only have about 10 seconds before that start expanding) and pour them. The hotter the the area is and the better it's mixed makes it expand more. They expand 10 fold so if you pour too much into an inclosed area, like under a deck, they will expand and bust something out, the deck, the hulls rivets etc, but something is going to give. Added weight I probably about two pounds per cubic foot. It's better to use too little and have to add more a couple of times than to try getting it right the first time and getting too much, then you're in trouble

With the proper type lights, there is no need to disconnect them, if I had to do that, I would do some upgrading before my next trip to the water. Same with the trailer light wiring harnness, properly done all connections are water proof and you don't have to worry about corrosion. I've been backing boats in the water since 1965, when I bought my first boat on a trailer, and I am yet to unplug my trailer lights to do that.

Yes, having two gels makes a hellava difference. What ever you get, make sure it's programmable to gel batteries. Not just any charger will work on them, they have a totally different voltage map then other batteries and a standard charger will damage them. You might want to make sure it can be reversed programmed so if you ever get rid of the gels and go another type you don't have to replace charger again. Another problem you're probably going to run into, most chargers like for batteries to be all of the same type, ie gels, AGM's, flooded cellls etc. If you're running gels for TM and flooded cell for cranking, you migh run into a problem their. You need to verify you can mix them up and still use the same charger. If not, you will need a 2 bank for the gels and a single charger/maintainer for the cranking battery.

Being intermittent, it's going to be hard to check. Most likely candidates are the starter solenoid, slow pulling in, or the contacts in it not making good initial contact. Could also be the starter brushes not making good contact when you initially ingage the starter. Could just be the key switch contacts not making good contact. To isolate the problem without shotgunning parts, you really need to be able to take some voltage readings when it's doing that.

Folks, ya'll are trying to make this sound a whole lot more complicated than it is. He's not working on some highly sophisticated electronics device, he's just making a set of cables for his TM. 60/40 rosin core solder has be the standard solder for general electonics for many, many years, and as I stated earlier, it will work for his application just fine. About the only time you use a lead free solder is in water lines or must have a food grade connection. I think in my first reply I said to crimp before soldering to make a good mechanical connection. Granted using a chisel is not quite the same as my $750 Thomas&Betts crimp set but will make more than good enough crimp for his job. I've done the same thing in a pinch on terminal lugs used at over 500 amps, with no problems and they were not soldered in conjunction with the crimp. As for not letting it move, the crimp is going to do that. Over heating the cable???? He's applying the heat to the terminal end, do you really think without hold the tourch directly to the cable, he's going to over heat the cable to the point is going to hurt it, the solder would be blowing out everywhere. For terminal ends, if you can buy from Graingers, get some 3LL41 (1/4"), 3LL58 (5/16"), or 3LL62 (3/8"), just depends on the size bolt holes you want If you can't buy from graingers, many auto parts stores have the full copper lugs for #6 wire. If not most of the welding supply houses have them. Finding them with the right size bolt hole is sometimes a problem, most of the time they only have the 3/8" This is a very simple process, don't try to make it sound like it's rocket science.

60/40 rosin core is the standard (non corrosive) solder used in electronics work. It's perfectly safe for doing his battery carbles and any other electroncs circuit or wires he might want to use it on.

What you're talking about is the primer solenoid. The two smaller ones go to the intake manifold to prime the engine when you press the key switch in. The red lever is the manaul primer valve so you can manually prime the engine by flipping it up and squezzing the bulb. The schrader valve in the center is so you can do fuel pressure checks and inject decarb treatment. You can take the four small screws out holding that piece on and get a new top section to replace it. The whole solenoid is expensive so don't consider buying the whole thing. You could have pulled the large line off and plugged it to stop your leak. I'm at the lake right now, when I get home later I can give you a part number, I think it's about $20 for a new kit. Thought there was a kit but didn't see one. Here's four parts you will need 341071 Cover 175158 Valve 341297 Gasket 331365 O-ring

Stickwith the 60/40 solder rosin core. We're not gonna worry about possilbe lead contamination on battery cables. Also forgot to mention, get you a small amount of denatured alchohol and a couple of acid bruches and clean the resin off after soldering. $3.50 per foot is way too much but I would also have to question the $1.00 per for stuff you ordered. If it's the fine strand used for battery cables then you got a great deal on it. Usually, $1.50 - $2.00 per foot is the going price for it.

3.0 OMC looper, but only after I get through building it. Stock form, they have issues. Properly built they are almost bullet prof and have 275 - 312 hp at 6,200 - 6,500 rpm, depending on the build, over 290 pounds of torgue at 4,500 rpm and will run for ever at that. I built one several years back the has over 700 hours and still kicking those other brand's butt. You can get more hp but then it don't work well on heavy bass boats. New motors, straight out of the box, Evinrude E-Tech.

Nothing wrong with your memory. Yes the real, technical name for soldering paste it is flux. Get so used to calling it by it's slang name, forget not everyone knows it's real name. Can't even post what the slang name for the white thermal joint compound or heat sink compound is.

Don't know about the guru part. A guru is suppose the be an expert. The only thing I claim to be an expert at is staying in trouble with my wife. Just go by a Radio Shack, electronics parts store, or Graingers and tell them you want a small 8 oz spool of rosin core solder, and some paste to go with it. The paste will usually come in a round flat plastic container and look like a very thick grease. If all the solder they have is those little plastic tubes, might want to get a couple of those but for what they charge for those little things you might want to go up to a 1 pound spool.

Not expelling water out the pee tube is not really an indication the pump is not working. Dirt dobbers love ready made holes and those pee tubes make good nest. If they are a problem where you live keep a nail or something in the hole. As for visual indications, that's what water pressure guages are for, I don't run without one. Well, except for my 4hp merc, 9.9 Johnson and 25hp Merc tiller motors. If the motor has a steering wheel or stick connected, it has a water pressure guage and Tach. Two manditory items in my boats. I've never known one to go bad in two years unless, that why I swap them that often. If you run in a lot of shallow water where it sucking sand and silt into the motor, that will eat one up pretty quick and cranking one up dry will fry one in a heartbeat but other than that, they usually last the two years. As for what to look for, just not much too the things, and if you get the kit, they usually have everything needed to make it like new again unless the housing itself is damaged in some way. As for what a bad pump looks like that's still pumping and hasn't come apart year, the blades will have dryrot cracks in them if you bend them a little extra, or the tips will be rubbed/melted off or made real thin from wear or heat. The blades are also no longer pliable, they get so hard they keep almost the their full bend when you take them out of the housing. Plastic housings you want to check for being melted and cranks.

Don't know of a resin core solder, you DO want to use a ROSIN core solder and don't use acid core. As long as you keep the heat on the lug and not up on the solder, it will melt and flow into the lug just fine. Beside, if you crimp it good the way I mentioned, the crimp alone is good enough, the solder is just extra insurance. It also fills in any spaces to help contamination (moisture, battery acid etc) from getting in a corroding the connection. The self sealing heat shrink is also just another layer of protection and not tottaly necessary. You can just wrap them good with 3M 33+ electrical tape and be just fine.

First off, you will need a Benz-O-Matic tourch, forget trying a solderning iron. Next is some rosin core solder. Paste will help the solder flow and bond, but not 100% necessary.. Now, I prefer to crimp the connectors before soldering them. Mainly because of the basic rule of soldering, make a good mechanical connection before soldering. Crimping is going to create a problem for you, I have a $600 crimper I use, kinda doubt you have such. They also make a crimper that's nothing but a block with a wedge that you place your connector in and smack it with a hammer, I think those are about $10. Another method that will work is to take a 3/8" chisel, grind the sharp edge off so it's somewhat rounded. Hold the chisel with the edge inline with the cable in the center of the connector where you would normally crimp it and smack it a couple of times with a hammer. This will fold the center in similar to what a crimper would do. Then you solder it. If you have paste, apply it to the cable and inside the connector before crimping. To solder it, use your tourch to heat the copper lug, (I do hope you're using full copper lugs for #6 wire), while holding the solder on the wire and pushing it into the back of the lug. When it starts melting, keep feeding the solder until it's full. If it starts getting too hot, back the tourch away. If you have small solder, twist several strands together until it's about 1/8" in diameter and at least a foot long. It makes things go a lot quicker, it's going to take a lot of solder. Once you get done, get you some heat shrink tubing with the sealer in it. Cover the crimped end of the lug and two or three inches for the cable. Hope this helps

The technique we are both refering to is strickly vertical fishing. The only difference is the contolled fall of the bait. He prefers to feel the bait which eleminates the natural movement you get when the bait is allowed to free fall. Granted jigs (which is what he was refering to) don't dance as much as spoons or tubes, but I just prefer to let if fall naturally also. My method is basically the same as his but I prefer not to feel the bait. There is a very fine line between his method and mine. While I'm not feeling the bait, I'm also not fishing with slack in the line. Like I said, it requires constant observation of the line and precise timing of the rod drop, because when slack does show, you immediately set the hook, most of the time never feeling the bite. This is not a technique you will master in just a few trips, I've been doing this Kennedy was president. It don't take that long to learn but it will take many hours of practice to get it down pat. Each time you change types or weight of lures, your rythm changes but after you've got it down, it only takes few jerks and fall's to get the timing for the new bait.