Way2slow

Is it single cable or dual cable. I'm guessing from that quote, single. No special tools, if you know much at all about turning wrenches, should not be a problem. The helm and cable is probably a single unit. You should find a part number on the cable on the helm end that will identify what length it is. The hardest part is getting the cable through the gunwal without pulling a wire loose, and to get it into the motor. Depending on where it exits the rear, you may have to unbolt the motor so you can get the cables out and in. When you pull the old cable out, tie a rope to it so you will have something to pull the new one in. Also to keep that big nut from hanging, build up both sides with paper towels and tape so there is a tapper, makes getting it through much easier. Just be carefull, sometimes they tie wrap it in and tie wires to it and wire can get wrapped around it over the years, so pull carefully. Also when pulling the new one through. Then hope the gas tank leaves you the room to work on the side it's on. If you do unbolt the motor, be very sure you put plenty of fresh silicon on them to reconnect it.

You can start with the motor or the boat. The boat is probably the easiest and least expensive place to start. If the boat is or has been stored outside. The floatation foam needs to be checked, this can be done by weighing at a feed store or truck stop that has scales. Drive on, weigh everything, go launch the boat, come back and weigh it again without the boat. That will give you the weight of the boat, see if it's several hundred pounds heavier than should be. If it has a floor drain, take the cover off and see if it just dumps on top of the foam, many do, or if it has PVC pipe. If no pipe, you can take a core sample there by pushing a short piece of 3/4" conduit about 18" or so long, all the way to the hull and pull out a core and see if it's dry. Fill the hole back with some spray foam. By the way, the reason for launching the boat, sliding one off on dry land and getting it back on the trailer is something you will probably never want to do again if you ever do it the first time. Use at least a 4' straight edge and check the hull for a serious hook I the back half of it. Improperly adjusted bunks can cause serious hull problems. This can easily be done with it on the trailer. If it has dry foam and no hook, time to check else where. The other, easy to check would be try another prop, maybe you have a friend with similar size Merc prop. Even a 19" will let you know if the prop is bad, it should launch out of the hole and turn at least 6,000 rpm with a 19. From this point, you are going to have to addresss probable motor issues. Now it can get expensive, depending on your knowledge level. Compression would be my next test, and doing that on the bottom cylinders of that motor sucks. From threre the free ride is over, time to go to the ignition and fuel system. Most of the time about the only real way to verify an ignition component is bad is to try another, that's where a shop with good used parts or a good friend with a like motor comes in handy. A merc guy worth his salt can trouble shoot and diagnose it to a probable problem, but don't get upset when you buy the new part and it doesn't fix it. I found a long time ago, nothing beats swap tropics with good used parts on Mercs until you find the problem, because sometimes it can be more than just one part. Then you have the fuel delivery system, carbs, fuel pressure etc. Again, an expensive guess if you do them first and find it wasn't them, unless you know how to do them yourself. Which I find most people that think they do, really don't.

The boat/motor has issues not jack plate in the world is going to help. I have a 1988 115 like yours on a 1987 Stratos 168V and with a 21" generic Michigan Wheel, it easily runs 52 mph at 5,800 rpm. First thing I would do is find a place to weigh it the whole rig, launch the boat, go back and weigh it again without the boat. That will give you the floating weight of the boat. Now, why is this important, I've seen a number of old boats like that with saturated flotation foam and that makes them more of a barge than a boat because of hundreds of pounds of weight. My next step would be a compression, and preferably a leak down test, to make sure the motor is not used up. Low compression kills a motors power big time. From there you start checking ignition. Mercs do things a little different and have a high speed and low speed stators. May have a problem with the high speed side. Then you have the trigger modules. Six cylinder motors can have a misfire and not even realize it, but will kill approx. 1,000 rpm off it. The prop is another easily checked item and can have a rolled blades and never look like it, but performance will totally suck. Find someone with a good one you can try. For dang sure, don't waste your money on a jackplate. They are for tweaking performance, and will do nothing for fixing your problem.

In my book, proper maintence includes using a good charger. The problem for most they don't realize what a good charger is and what they cost. Some think because they paid $30 for one with automatic cut off over $20 for one that wasn't, it's a good charger. Some think those $45 Schumauker digital things are good. I've never seen one that didn't fry the battery after a long period of use. The top rated on board chargers are not top rated because the are expensive, it's because they work the way they should. Not saying it takes a high dollar onboard but a good single charger is going to make you dig a lot deeper in your pocket than those Schumaukers and those automatic hot boxes.

A lot depends on how anal you are about maintaining your batteries. If you don't properly maintain them, I would recommend the Wally world ones, they are a little less expensive and convenient. If you properly maintain them, Deka batteries are hard to beat. Trojan deep cycles are still an excellent choice for the TM.

Somewhere close enough you can check it out and test drive before you buy it. Main thing is how patient you can be. In the next few months they will usually start popping up for sale, just don't think you have to buy the first "deal" you think you see. If you are close to GA, I know of one that might be what you are looking for.

I didn't see anything about bleeding in that video. As for leaks, they normally will not show during bleeding because there is no pressure on the system. The piston is nothing but a short piece of steel with a seal in the center, mounted in the center of the rod going through the cylinder. Teleflex has their published bleeding procedure, and it works very good when you add the step for putting the hoses on the bleeders and into something to catch the fluid and I have to defend them on leaving that part out, even though I use it. There is no way on gods green earth they are going to tell you to catch possibly contaminated fluid or fluid that may have gotten debris in it while exposed at the back of the boat and turn around and dump that fluid back in their system. Emagine the law suit that would follow the first time they had a failure that killed or injured someone.

To each his own, but to my notion, that was some clown that just thought he needed to re-invent the wheel and made it square. If you turn the motor all the way to the stops,and secure it with a strong bungee, rope or something so it can't move back, like the factory says, but still use the bottle and hoses on the bleeders, it's a hellava lot less work bleeding than in that video. When both bleeders are open and the motor is centered, air stays trapped up inside the cylinder. Because the fluid hose comes in right there at the bleeder and exits out the bleeder, doing nothing for that section of cylinder between hose/bleeder and the piston inside. Other than possibly pushing more air into that area. When the motor is fully turned to the stop, the internal piston is against that end of the cylinder and leaving no room for traped air, so as air is being pushed through the lines from the helm, it goes out the bleeder. A couple of times in each direction with plenty of fluid pumped through the helm and I'm done. No going back, or wearing my arms out, and I have a nice firm feeling steering. Oh, and I've never needed a helper either.

Just understand, your first couple of responces might come pretty quick, they will probably be one of several popularl scams. Usually starting of as being from out of state or merchant marine and wanting to do some kind of swapping of monies that has you refunding them or sending you a certified/cashiers check along with some picking up the the boat, just to find out after the boat and possibly your money is gone, everything was fake.

You just have to do a little math. Three bank, 10 amp charger = 30A @ 14.5V = 435 watts plus what ever the efficiency rating is, would probably make it about 550 watts of output power. 120V @ 5 A is going to give you 600 watts of input power so you are a long way from over loading a plug rated for 15 amps. You should also have no problem running it off a 16ga drop cord for a fairly long distance if needed. I would make one suggestion though. When you first plug in the charge coming back fishing, leave the battery compartment lid open until the batteries are charged. Then you can close it while it's just retuning in the maintenance mode.

Definitely NOT a 20. That would be way to small. I run my 25 on my 1436 Lowe on some of the rivers and larger lake areas. It's looking like you are eyeballing one of BPS's grossly under powered Riggs they are good at dumping on people because with that little motor they can make it look like a great deal "on paper" but it's a total dog on the water. Get the 40 with PT&T. Yes it's a right smart more but at least it will make, making those payments for the next half of your life a little better. If you fall for their finance plans they get you into.

My 4HP, Merc, 9.9 Johnson, and 25HP Merc don't have it. All my larger motors do and I wouldn't have one without it. If I ever bought a new 25, even with it being tiller steering, it would have it. No the small 4 and 9.9 don't need it, but that about as large as I want to go without it. My arrs has done gotten old and pulling on them things to lift them sucks now.

I have no problem with the motor being two years older than the boat, just be sure the price is adjusted for that. The hours on it are just a good number of brake in hours so it should good. What size motor is on the boat. It says rated for 200HP but don't see anything showing what size is actually on it? Have you checked to see if the price has been adjusted for the older motor? I edited my first post because I thought I saw it had a 135 on which if it does, I will go back to saying you could not give it to me if I had to use it.

It's not a problem running it off one of the TM batteries if you have enough reserve. Hook it up and when you come in from fishing the next couple of times compare the voltages on the two batteries with a digital voltmeter, if the one you connect it to is not more than one or two tenths lower you should be fine. I will say, it would be better to run it off the cranking battery because it gets recharge some during the day when you are running the motor, and as mentioned, it's best to only run the TM of its batteries. That way they are discharged equally and does not over work one battery over the other.

Well, I know of a 17ft Tracker, with 40hp Evinrude, approx. 92/93 model. It would not be that far of a drive for you to pick it up. We used to drive down to Walaka and fish the St Johns a couple times a year and if memory serves me, it was about a five hour drive. If you know anything about boats, this would be a great deal. A friend of mine has it and is wanting $2,500 for it. The boat is kept under a shelter, has a 24 volt TM but don't know the size. It has not been run in four years so I would pull and clean the carbs, purge the fuel system and put a new water pump. He just told me about it the other day and I won't have time to go look at it because I'm heading to south Texas for a few months this weekend. If he still has it when I get back, I will probably buy it. If it had a larger motor, I would have given him the money sight un-seen. It has not been advertised, and he does not have internet. I've known him for over 50 years and he knows I mess with boats a lot and mentioned it at my mothers 90th birthday party. I bought the one he had before this one and he was hoping I would buy this one so he didn't have to deal with other people, like I said, I probably will when I get back from TX. Just to have a large tin can that my 14ft jon to use in smaller lakes or to take to TX the next time I go and leave it there.

A couple of things to consider when buying an older boat. If it's one of the early models, it will most likely have raised compartment doors. Try find one that at least has level decks. Another thing is the older boats usually have small front decks. Try to find one that has as large of a front deck as you can find. It would be nice if you could find one that had a full front deck. Don't by one and think you are going to make the front deck larger, most don't lend themselves to that idea. Then comes the major concern, what kind of shape the transom is in. A weak, rotted transom pretty much makes any older boat junk. The cost of repair is way more than the value of the boat, even doing it yourself requires know how, tools and equipment that would be expensive to acquire. Then comes the know how. Next is the condition of the floor, soft, rotted floors can be extremely hard/expensive to replace and a lot of times rotted stringers go along with rotted floors. Another thing you have to be aware of, when they first started putting floatation foam in them, they used open cell foam. Boats that are left outside, uncovered can have saturated foam (it absorbs water like a sponge and doesn't turn loose of it very easily. Making it weigh several hundred pounds more, and ride like a barge. To get it out and replace is another difficult and expensive project. Make sure you are very aware of how to check the transom and floor BEFORE you buy it.

it looks pretty close to me. When it's deployed, how much space is there between the shaft or drive unit that turns it and the bow. It looks like there is only going to be minimal space between them once you deploy it. If you get it back to far, it's going to hit the bow and not be able to deploy.

Basically, are asking if everything is in inspection order, when you ask if everything is squared away, but then you can always have the SNAFU.

For many years a flasher is all I would run in the console because nothing else worked at high speeds. Now a lot of the LCD units work about as fast as a flasher. It was not until three years ago when I changed over to drown and side scan that I finally took my flasher out, but I still have at least a half dozen different ones in the garage. As for your LCD loosing depth, that could be the unit is just not fast enough (slow processing speed) or it could be the Xducer not properly mounted. If it's an aluminum boat, the turbulence created by the rivets or welded seam will create large numbers of small air bubbles, causing the Xducer to start loosing signal. Also if it's lined up on a bottom rib, the turbulence from it can cause signal loss. Mounted at the wrong angle can cause it.

Too bad you are not closer to Thomson Ga, while at my mothers 90th birthday party today, a friend ask me about buying his 92 model 17' Tracker with 40 Evinrude he's wanting to sell for $2,500. I'm half way thinking about buying it to take to Texas instead of my Javelin, but not sure I will have time before I go. He said the seats are out, but has them and they are good, where he was paying a guy to put new carpet in it, but the guy got killed in a car wreck before getting them back in. He has had heart surgery and other medical problems so he's giving up on the idea of being able to ever use it again. It has not been run in four years but is kept under a shed. As for the TM, he just said its a big 24 volt, which big to him could be 45# thrust, don't know.

I keep three, top quality auto inflates in the boat and my rearming kits up to date. It's too dang hot in summer to have a full vest on when fishing here. Now that my granddaughter is 19, I'm not quite as fussy about her keeping one on like when she was young, but I still keep my auto inflate on all the time. When riding, I have three of the ones covered in a nylon type fabric and have several reinforcement straps going around them, rated for 100 mph (since my boat runs over 80, I want strong vest), and two of those lighter weight, fabric cover ones just in case I even had to have more than three people in the boat, which is extremely rare, but I do have three on a regular basis. My granddaughter doesn't think that boat can be in the water without her, and a lot of times I will take another person. Needless to say, I have a few dollars invested just in life vest in my boat, but that's nothing compared to a life they might save.

These are the ones I prefer http://www.zoro.com/i/G2642351/?category=4861 You can find them at BPS and Cabela's also. You buy two, both are the same, one just flips over and plugs into the other They probably give you the best connection of any and they don't charge some ridiculous price for them. They will fasten down flat on a surface or you can just them in leave them laying loose a out of the way. They come in different sizes so make sure you get the ones rated for 50 amps. They have one smaller and much larger, those two you don't want. Trust me, the 50 amp will handle any TM out there, these things are for industrial use and 50 amps is a very conservative rating. Also, make sure you get both the same color. They are keyed so Only the same colors will plug together I didn't see them at BPS but here they are at Cabela's, with Minn Kota's stupid price on them http://www.cabelas.com/product/Minn-Kotareg-MKR-20-Trolling-Motor-Plug/1651271.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dtrolling%2Bmotor%2Bconnector%26WTz_l%3DHeader%3BSearch-All%2BProducts%26x%3D0%26y%3D0&Ntt=trolling+motor+connector&WTz_l=Header%3BSearch-All+Products

You have to realize also, glass boats cost more and are generally more expensive to operate. You can usually get into nice,17 foot tin can a lot cheaper than a similar size glass boat. It weighs a lot less, and can use a smaller motor that burns less gas. A lot of people have gone to them just for those reasons, even though, deep down, if it wasn't for todays economy, they really would like to have a glass boat because there are a lot of positives of a glass over the can. To keep them from sounding like they are just being "cheap" or making do, they use all kinds of excuses. So, if you are just being practical, the can might be the better choice. If you want the comfort and more speed, the glass is the way to go.

I easily have the room or a third TM battery, I have a heavy 20'6" Dual Console Javelin with a 225. Three years ago, I upgraded my electronics and TM because I wanted one with a built in transducer. I got the Minn Kota, Terrova 80 / i-Pilot in a 24 volt, and would get a 24 volt again because I see no need to haul around the extra weight of that third battery when I've never once had a need from any more than what I have. The motor I have has plenty of speed, even when chasing schooling bass and stripers, and I've never run it down. If you have trouble with a 24 volt system lasting all day on good batteries, or go for the weekend and need that extra battery to go the second day, then definitely get the 36 volt. If you've never had a need for that extra run time or don't think your next boat is going to be the Queen Mary and will need a three hp TM to run all day, then I personally so no need. However, you do have those that think you need TM as big as the outboard they are running on their 17' aluminum Bass Tracker, if you fit that mold, get the 100+ thrust 36 volt.

The structure scan unit networks all three HDS's. The drawback is, if you are wanting to use the structure scan view, the only transducer for that is at the back of the boat, so when you are using the bow mounted unit, everything you are seeing is 20 feet behind you. It has been three years since I installed that system, but I think I installed down looking transducers on each unit and Navionics maps in all three so each unit can operate totally independent. Like I said, it's been three years but if I remember right, for the structure scan to work it's best, it has to be on the HDS-10, because the down looking transducer on it is the set up for the optimal separation from the structure scan transducer, but the 10's display can be networked to the five or seven, so you can see it on any one of the units. At 67 years old and having been three years, that old fart CRS crap my have me wrong, but I think that's the way I did it. I would say, most of the time, I'm probably using the five mounted in the dash and when wanting more detail on a spot, I use the 10 in the structure scan mode. You have to be moving so slow with the structure scan, it's not something you can use quickly.