Way2slow

Put a new one in it, let it sit through another winter and it probably will not work again. Usually what happens, water gets into the pressure chamber and during the winter it freezes and pops the chamber. That or the pointer seperates does not move. They are basically worthless anyway. Very, and I mean VERY seldom are they even close to being accurate. If I need room for anything in the dash, the speedo is the first thing to go and I would never spend the money to make it work. Buy a GPS, they work accurately. To check it, take the platic tube off the back of the speedo that goes to the pickup in the the motor. Using compressed air, blow through that tube and see air comes out of the hole in pitot. Since your motor has the pitot built in, you still should have air coming out the hole in the leading edge of the LU. Next, apply compressed air to the fitting on the back of the speedo and see if it registers a speed. I think it takes about 80 psi to show about 40 mph.

Well, that's totally your call, I would place a max value on that motor at $125. Totally rebuilt, I wouldn't believe that unless I saw it done. I have very serious doubts about being able to get parts to do a total rebuild. If it's not a Johnson, I can almost bet it's not. The max value I would place on it would be $800.

I wouldn't be too quick on that deal. Being a 12 hp motor, what brand and how old is it. That's a strange hp and makes me think it's either fairly old, and or some odd make, or maybe both.

The lanyard has to be in place (properly) or it's not suppose to let the switch go fully into the run position. If you have to lanyard insterted properly and you still can't get the motor to start, the switch might be bad. That switch kills the ignition voltage to the motor so it's not going to fire.

I'm not sure I follow you. When I cover a compartment lid, I lay the carpet out, upside down and draw some arrows on it for what I will consider the front of the boat, making sure I also keep the lids in the proper orientation, so mark the insides of them with an arrow as you take them off This so I keep all the cuts in the same orientation, very important. Then I lay the lid upside down on the carpet and mark around it. I then add how much it's going to take to fold over the outer edge of the lid and up into the inner edge. Say if that's 1 1/2 inches, I add that to my lid piece all the way around. Easiest way to do that is to cut you a strip of wood and lay it against the lid, them mark along the edge of the strip. I cut it out around this line. I then lable that piece and draw an arrow on it in the direction of what would be the front of the boat. When I'm ready to cover the lid, I use small paint roller and role DAP, Weldwood Orginal contact cement on the top of the lid, it's inside and outide edges and the carpet. AFter proper cure time, I carefully sit the lid on the carpet, lined up with the first set of marks I made around the lid itself and press it down. I cut a square notch from each corner, just don't cut all the way to the lid, stop at least an 1/4" from the lid or you will leave the metal corner exposed when you fold it around the edges. Fold it around the edges and rub it down good to make sure you have good contact. Using contact glue, you don't have to screw around with clamps and waiting for indoor/outdoor carpet glue go dry. Just remeber, it's called contact glue for a reason, no oh craps allowed. The reason I stress maintaining proper orientation is if all pieces are not on the same bias, they will look different colors when the light hits them or looking at them from different angles.

Don't have any experience with them, I run the ProMariner Protournament 300's but I did go to their web site and check it out. It looks HUGE and it's heavy, but according to their spec sheet, it should do a very good job maintaining your batteries. It does use a float mode as the maintainer, which I greatly prefer over the chargers that cut off and back on when the voltage drops to a set point. Well, I just saw another advertisement on your charger and it says it shuts off after 24 hours, that puts it back in the catagory of chargers I don't care for.

2 amp is no good because it does not make the acid bubble, not enough to do any good, and will let the battery stratify (the acid gets concentrated in the lower part of the battery and is a very weak solution in the upper part). As mentioned, 10% of the rated capacity is the recommended slow charge rate. That's not chiseled in stone, you can go 8% - 15%, but the most most all manufactors prefer the 10% for optimum battery care.

Unless you do a lot of running, the motor will not keep the cranking battery fully charged. It should be charged when you come in at the end of the day. The onboard charger should be keeping your TM batteries maintain if you are leaving it on 24/7. The cranking battery will need to be charged every month or a battery maintained connected to it.

Do not add water until after the battery is fully charged. Before charging, if the cells are exposed, only add enough water to cover them, fully charge the battery and then finish adding water. Only add enough water to bring it up to the fill mark, normally about and inch down from the top.

Gonna depend on the boat. If you have 75 on a 17' boat and put a 115 on same make or similar style 18' boat, you may only see very little, if any difference. You should stay with the max recommended HP if you want good performance. No more than a 10% reduction from max, or you will start big drops in hole shot and all around performance.

You have three wires going to the motor to operate the tilt and trim. Does not mater how many switches you connect or where you connect them, as long as they are all properly connected and in parallel with the three wires going to the motor. I have a total of four T&T swithes operating my motor The wires going to the bow are probably running along the inside of the gunwall to motor. The main cable to the motor should have a platic plug on it that's plugs into the the motor control handle and the wires going to the bow are spliced into that wire somewhere under the dash or near the control handle

YES, it matters. Same old story all the time, even if it all comes out of the same plant, that does not mean it all had the same additivies put in it going through that plant. All you're gas may come out of the same pipeline. Does that make it all the same when you buy it at the pump. If you think so, then keep thinking all the oils are the same also.

Not a problem in my 20' bass boat. When I'm fishing from my 1436 jon, I limit the number to five if by myself and to three each when two people are fishing. The rods are sitting on top of the bench seats and secured down with two/three on each side.

Being and old Chrysler, you did one of the smartest thing you could have ever done. Now you can jump for joy that thing is someone else's problem and not yours.

Don't replace it, unless you have it checked by a good front end guy and he says you need to. Find one of the old time front alignment shops that can do front end alignments on your old trucks that have the solid, straight front axles. Don't bother with most of these new, computerized shops, I don't think you will find one of those that can do solid front axles. If you find the right guy, he can align it and can actually weld reinforcements to it to help hold that alignment. I always have my axles aligned because very few trailer companys do that, even new. Ranger used to do it, but don't know if they still do. You will find it tows better and your tires will wear even and last a helllava lot longer once aligned. Anyone having tire wear problems should have their axle aligned. Even though it's just a trailer, the tires still have to meet the road in the proper way, just like the front end of an auto.

Sorry, but about the only way I can help you with your merc EFI is point you toward the gurus that know that motor. You will have to register as a member first but post your question here http://www.screamandfly.com/forumdisplay.php?20-Technical-Discussion. A lot of these guys live and breath Merc EFI motors.

As mention you MUST reconnect the batteries in parallel instead of series or you WILL burn the motor out. You will get almost twice the run time using the two batteries instead of just one.

Go with the SE Sport 300. The first time the Doelfin bites the water during a hard turn and you finally get that crease out of the seat from the butt pinch, you will wish you had gone with the SE. Besides that, while both are funky looking, at least the SE looks a lot better. If it's vented properly, you should be spinning up to about 4,000 rpm so the motor can get into it's peak torque band. If not, you might try not tucking motor all the way in, leave it a couple of degrees short of fully tucked and see what it does. Might even try raising the motor some, it may be too deep in the water. Personally, I've never thought much of Michigan Wheels. Strickly a low performance prop. If you can get you're hands on a high rake, SS merc prop, see if they will let you try it.

I'm having a little difficulty following your checks. Lets start from the beginning. Also, post the tenths of voltage, those are very important. A 12 volt battery is very close to being fully discharged at 12.0 volts. Fully charged, you should have 12.6 to 12.8 VDC after the battery has sat for 24 hours and you spin the starter for a few seconds to knock the surface charge off. Recovery time is important also for checking battery condition, if you pull the battery down to 12.0 volts cranking for several seconds, it should recover almost all it's initial voltage within a few seconds. Now, check the voltage across the battery then crank on the motor to see what the voltage drops too. Again, tenths of a volt are important. Leave the meter's negative lead connected to the battery negative and read put the positive lead on the the positive cable stud on the starter and crank it. This voltage should be the same voltage you got at the battery positive. If it's lower, move the positive lead to the battery cable side of the solenoid and try it again. If there is an increase in voltage from what you had at the starter, clean and tighten the cable on the starter, and the starter side of the solenoid. If you still have a drop, connect the meters negative and positive across the two big terminals and crank the motor over, you should only show a very minimal voltage, if any. If there is a few tenths across it, the solenoid is probably bad.

If the starter is spinning at a good speed (250+ rpm), the solenoid is doing all it's suppose to do. The voltage drop you get is going to depend on how good the battery is and how much of a load the starter is putting on it. Usuallly I don't like to see the battery go below 10.5 volts. Even at that, sometimes it will shut down you're electronics everytime you crank the boat. Now, if it's dropping at the starter and not at the battery, you have a dirty/bad connection somewhere between the battery and starter. I thought you said the starter was spinning but the bendix was not engaging the flywheel. If that's the case, spray some WD-40 or some sort of lubricant on it. If it engages then just put a good lubricant on it.

You have a bad connection somewhere. When you check it with nothing connected and get 12 volts (open circuit voltage), that's because there is no load on the circuit. When you connect your unit, that places a load on it and it becomes a resistive circuit and depending on the amount of resistance, determines the voltage the unit will actually see. In your case, it's almost pure resistive, to the point it's close to being an open. Leave the unit connect or connect a small 12V bulb across the two wires you're using. Then just start following the voltage (or lack of) back to the point you find where you're loosing it. My first place would be the circuit breakers if it has them. Check both terminals an see if one has 12 volts on one side and you millivolts on the other. Then I would check the switches on the console. First make sure it's not controlled by a switch you haven't turned on, then check the input and output of the switch. Always, have any circuit you're checking under a load. Open circuits will almost always lie to you. Then you just follow the voltage drop until you find the point of the drop, there will be your cause/problem. DO NOT check to the hull. There should never be any connections made to the hull. I know with aluminum boats it's convenient to use the hull as a negative but that's it very bad and very wrong. You will create all kinds of hull corrosion problems doing that. ALWAYS run two wires, one battery positive and one battery negative. Thin needles, like hat pins or T-Pins work greate for tracing the voltage. Just stick it in the wire. Check each side of every connection point, fuses, switches, plugs etc. Also, work from a known good point to an unknown, and don't forget it takes two wires to make a circuit. Too many times people go crazy trying to figure out what's wrong with the positive wire, when it's the negative that's causing the problem.

Everybody that's trying to do a little of their own trouble shooting needs a digital VOM and learn the basics of how to use one. They are worth their weight in gold. With the new info of your spinning but not engaging the flywheel narrows your problem down significantly. Two things can cause that, the voltage is too low and the starter is not creating the inertia needed to kick the bendix up to the flywhee, or as Fishing Rino stated, the thing just needs a little slickum on it. The best stuff I've found is a penetrating oil that has litium grease in it. Give it a good spray of that and you're problem should be cured.

He is waayyy to high on that boat. If the boat had to go to action, they would pobably get $6K for it, which is where it will probably go if it doesn't sale. There is not certain amount the bank has to get for it, they are just trying to recoup all their investment right now and would "like" to sell if for at least that amount, but they will take a big loss if they are tired of holding it. Trying to buy a repo through a dealer is the hard way to go. The dealer has nothing to loose, he's getting his money for checking it out, and everything to gain because he's gets a big commission check if he sells it. If average retail is $10K, I would not pay any more than that for it. Check with the banks, and ask about any repo's they might have. Dealing directly with the bank makes it much easier to make a deal than trying to go through a dealer. Some banks may not deal with you directly but some do and are willing to deal. Remember, what they say they must have is not what the will really take after they get tired of holding it and they figure they will have to send it to auction. If you can be patient, there are some great deals out there, bunches of boats are going back because the economy has made it where people that made those rediculous, long term terms can't afford them now. Many can't even afford to use them with what it cost to run a big bass boat now, so it's just sitting.

Starters are expensive, you need to make some voltage checks before just saying it's the starter. More times than not, this kind of a problem is something besides the starter. First thing you need to do is see if you're getting voltage to the solenoid (one of the small terminals) when you try to start it, then check the other side (the other small terminal and make sure you have a good ground (battery negative) connection. If you are not getting voltage to the solenoid, then you need to check the voltage at the key switch, neutral switch in the control box or wiring. If you are getting control voltage to the solenoid, then check the voltage on the large battery terminal while you are trying to crank it, make sure that voltage is holding and not droping way down. If it's holding on the battery side of the solenoid while trying to crank, check the voltage on the positive cable stud on the starter and see if it has good voltage. If it's dropping way down, check it on the cable. If the stud on the starter has good voltage while trying to crank it, then you can figure on having starter repaired or replaced.

No way would I bore a big hole. The seats are probably filled with floatation foam and you would also have to dig a large amount of that out. Also, if you decided the mounts didn't work, look what a mess you would have in the middle of your seats. For how far the load is distributed with the brackets he's mounting, rivnuts should work just fine. That's not one of those cheap Sears, beer can aluminum boats. I've used them many times in similar situations. I would drill a second hole in each of the ends and put two per end.