Way2slow

Haven't you heard why they used the name GT150. GT stands for Gas Thirsty. Those old cross-flow are not known for their fuel economy. A good prop on a properly setup boat and keeping your cruising rpm below 4,500 will help a lot. When I had my Stratos 285 Pro with a GT150, it would get about 3.5mpg cruising and about half that at WOT. If you have the standard lower unit, yes, the muffs will work on it. You really don't need muffs to check the battery. You only need to try and crank it for a few seconds to see if it's going to crank over or pull the battery down. If it cold starts that easy, it will be the first one I've seen that does.

Well, let's see if we can break the growls, grumbles and whiney noises down into understandable motor terms. You say it sounded good but didn't turn over. If a motor is not spinning over, it's not cranking. If it cranking over but won't start, then it won't run/start. Your depth finders cutting off means the battery is being pulled too much. To check it, you need a volt meter. Connect the meter across the lead post or mounting studs on the battery and crank the motor. Voltage should not drop below about 11.5 volts. If it's droping below this, you're battery is bad or not fully charged. If it's holding voltage, move the meter leads and connect them to the battery cables themselves and crank it again. It the voltage drops way down then, you have bad/dirty connections at the battery. If it's holding voltage at the cables, then you need to check the voltage at the solenoid and starter. I have a feeling you're battery is junk.

If you are wanting to mount those brackets on your seats, I would suggest using rivnuts. If you don't know what they are, look here http://www.cardinalcomponents.com/fasteners/RivnutDesignGuide.pdf The Rivnut® EZ Flat Head Round Body is the one I would probably use. WWW Graingers carries some, they might have what you need. They do require a little practice and a special tool, or some redneck engineering to install, so I would suggest you practice with one or two in something besides your seats first Look at their C 722 Wrench Type Stroke Tool to install them.

Just understand, with that motor, you are not going to be getting on plane with much of a load without a strugle. That's another one of those packages BPS grossly under powered just so they could advertise it at a cheap price. As for the sonar, turn fish ID off, that's usually the most worthless feature on most waters. Understand it's main use is to identify structure and countours that should hold fish, not showing the fish, they will seldom do that.

Also, don't forget, some pedistals screw in.

The ideal situation would be to store the battery on a maintainer like the Battery Minder and just leave it 24/7. Just check the electrolite level ever so often. Just storing a battery, you need to charge the battery every 1 to 2 months. If it's at 12.6 volts, I would recommend charging it.

If you want to break rods tips, install the tubes. I've had three boats with the tubes and have taken them out of all three. The only way the tubes work is if you use rod sleeves to keep the tips from hooking together. Then, if you're going to use rod sleeves, whey mess with the tubes, they only limit the number of rods you can store in the locker. If you have a fully open locker, the rod racks might work. All my boats have had rod lockers where you slide over half the rod under the deck and the tips are pushed into a confined area. Even wrapping the line around the rods won't keep the tips for locking together and you WILL break rods. Save yourself some heart ache and broken rods, get rod socks or rod sleeves that cover the whole tip and at least back to the reel. Then if you feel you still must have rod tubes, the rod will slide in and out easily. Plastic golf bag tubes are the most common tubes used for rod locker tubes. As for tangled rods, hook the lure/line back on the reel, then grab the line half way up the rod an spin the rod a couple of times, wrapping the line around the rod and the line through the guides. This will greatly help keeping the rods from getting tangled.

Put is where you're going to be using it the most. Now, if your talking about the Structure scan unit you add to your HDS unit, both transducer (structure scan and sonar) should be no more the 12 inches apart.

By you a good pair of hair clippers from Wal Mart for about $30. Trim them and then take the clipper back and tell them they won't cut hair. You won't be lying, when you get through, they probably won't. Most all carpets they use now are a heavier weight than the past so they tighten up the gap between the lids a bunch.

88 - 89 what? They made a bunch of different size motors that year, each one are different to some degree. A new impreller will cost you about $35, complete kit about $55. I would pull it apart before getting parts. If the housing and o-rings/seals look good, just replace the impeller. Not sure why you are replacing the thermostats, but some models are fairly expensive, but most very easy to replace. Just be sure to get the gaskets/seals also. Pull them out and check them. Place them in pot of water with a candy thermometer and start heating on the stove. At about 105 degrees they should start opening, at about 135 they should be fully open. It they are opening, they are doing all they can do. Go here, to see what you have. http://epc.brp.com/SiteMods/BRP_Public/BRP_Public_Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fIndex.aspx Uncheck the box and click on blue box for view parts cat. That will take you to the producst page Open the Producst pull down for and select make. Select year model Select horse power Select your model number If you know which direction to turn a wrench, it's no problem to do what you're wanting to. For about $35 you can order a factory service manual from the dealer and it will tell you exactly what you need to do. Strongly recommend getting one if you're going to try any work yourself. At $95 per hour, you only have to save 20 minutes to recoup your cost.

Big glass boats cost a whole lot more to operate and tow. I personnaly prefer the big glass boats over the tin cans any day of the week but if the boat meets your needs, I would check it out and make an offer you feel comfortable with. I'm 6'1" and 215, about your same size, and just didn't like the one I bought. Another thing, I bought it because it was fairly cheap, $1,100 (that was with a 48 hp) and thought it would make a nice boat for some of the smaller lakes and not have to mess with my 20' Javelin. I put it in the water twice, it sat in my yard three years after that and begged someone to get it out.

I recently sold similar 86 model boat with an 88 model 48 hp rude on it for $900 just to get it out of my yard. I would place a value of $1,200 on it. You're probably going to find that TM is barely enough to move it around on a calm lake. It looks like it's no more than a 20# thrust motor. I'm not sure how large you are buy you will probably find it almost impossible to sit in the front pedistal seat with out it leaning to one side or the other. I weigh 215 pounds and that was my main hangup with the one I practically gave away. Check the lube in the lower unit. Remove the bottom drain plug and make sure it comes out black. Milky, drops of water or fresh lube probably means it leaks. The motor is a late 80's - early 90's and that's the older style LU they used on the 28's to make them cheaper and are very prone to leak. It's a 30 hp power head without oil injection and without through the prop exhaust.

I would not want less than a full size truck with a V8. As mentioned the best way to get the weight is to take it and weigh it. Feed stores and a number of other places can do that. I would estimate in the 3,000+ pound range with gas on gear on board. My wifes Toyota Highlander has about a 5,000 - 6,000 lb towing capacity but it would be a joke trying to haul my 20 Javelin around. It gives my full size, 4WD chevy pickup with a 350 V8 about all it wants to deal with on the interstate and hills around my neck of the woods.

Nope! Actually, I've never made a dime working on boats or boat motors. I'm not and outboard mechanic and never have been. Like I said, I've never claimed to be an expert or claim to know that much about them. I just know how to work on mine. I'm about the same way with boats and motors as I am with automobiles. There's nothing I can't do to one, I can build engines, up to any amount of HP I want, including the head porting, I can build and modify the transmission, auto or manual, do the body work, put a dam nice paint job on it and do the upholstery, but I can only do this on one kind of vehicle (or boat). MY OWN!!!!!

They do that because the torque on the crankshaft under full load actually causes and advance of the timing on the two bottom cylinders to the point that it will increase the EGT temps to the point that it can cause piston damage/melting. There have been two methods used to compensate for that. One is, they increase the jet size by 2 digits to richen them up and cool them. The other was to lower the compression, doing the same thing as increasing the jet size but much more fool prof. There is a much less chance someone can think the wrong jets are in the bottom two carbs and cause it to melt the piston. That is also why the timing should always be set with engine under a full load and above 5,000 rpm.

All 150's from 1992 on were 60 degree motors. Rebuild or Reman does not replace sleeve unless a sleeve is damaged beyound a rebore. Most motors can be bored up to .030" over to bring the cylinder back to straight and round, and to remove all scuffs, scratches and wear surface. Basically like new, just a little bigger, with a set of oversize pistons to make up the difference of the overbore. Again, even if it had new pistons installed, does not mean it was bored to bring cylinder walls back to specs. It can still have a tapper or small wear scratches that bleed compression. It can cost $200 - $300 to bore a V-6 block outboard block and in most locations, they have to be shipped off to have it done, shipping adds to that cost. If they are in for max profit, that a pretty big chunk out of it. Knowing most customers wouldn't know the difference, they will get a few years out of it, and warrenty long gone. Also don't know what was represented to you and what you paid. If he said it was "rebuilt and charged you around $1,500, then he probably represented it propery and charged you fairly. Then it's just a matter of how good of a mechanic he is, because with new pistons, rings, gaskets, a fair labor charge, etc, it's hard to rebuild one for less than $1,500 and having installed new pistons. If the price was closer to $2,500 or more, then it should have be a bored and complelety remanufactor power head. Now these prices are just for a powerhead, not a whole motor.

More brain wash. Stick with a high quality group 27 or 31 dual purpose. It would take the Odyssey 31M-PC2150 to come close to matching them @ about twice the cost.

You don't have to worry about any stress that might be on the hydraulic system with the motor trimed up, it should be minimal. Also, the motor should have small bleed holes that drain any water out of the exhaust cavity when it is trimed up. The problem comes in if those bleed holes happen to clog and let the exhaust cavity collect water. If it freezes, you most likely just bought a new lower unit. A motor that's resting on the skeeg is not going to bother a thing, just don't go cranking on the steering wheel or forget and move the boat.

I would be concerned ie that was a motor I built, however, there are a couple of things going on. When you say "rebuilt", that a mighty broad statement. It's very common for someone to do nothing but slap a set of rings in a motor that really needs to be bored and call it a rebuilt or even a remanufactured powerhead. This will cause inconsistant compression readings. If this was the case, three hours is not a lot of run time to fully wear in set of rings (I didn't say seat because it takes way more than a seating). I use a 10 hour break-in but there are different strokes for different folks. It's possilbe the numbers may get better after a couple of more hours. That's also a big maybe. The first hour - two hours of break-in are critical an hopefully it was done properly. I'm not really up on the Eagle motors (60 degree FastStrikes) but they may do the same thing as the 90 degree loopers. On the 90 degree motors, the bottom chambers in the heads for number five and six are approx eight CC larger so they can reduce the compression. Those two cylinders are always going to read lower. Like I said though, depends on who did it and what they did. On one of mine, after three hours, I expect the compression on the top four to be within a pound or two and the bottom two will be lower but the same. A leak down test is always better than a compression test anyway. Compression or leak down test, I expect to be within 5%, at 10% I consider it's time to do something about it.

While three are better in weeds, the main difference is power/speed. Three blade props have more pulling power but less speed. Two blades are just the opposite, they have more speed but less pulling power.

Unless you're wanting a new boat, I would put feelers out at all the banks within 50 miles or so. This time of the year, and the way the economy is, boat repo's are extremely common. About a month ago at a large action company, I saw 180 of every type bass boat one could want from $50+K Rangers down. There were so many Tritons, you would have thought you were in the plants back yard. Actually, they probably don't have that many at the plant. Like new 20' and larger boats going for $12K - $18K. Sub 20 footers were going for as little a $5K. Most were 1 - 3 years old. The next week they were doing Harley Davidson's. They all ready had 300 on the yard and more were coming. Things aren't that pretty right now for a lot of people and those high dollar toys so many financed their life away on are being the first to go.

Never said to use the motors hydraulics to hold motor when towing. I said to use the motors built in tow/stow bracket and manually locks the motor up.

I feel the best one is the one you don't use. I don't and won't use one and that's with a 600 pound motor. Placing PVC pipe over your trim rods does nothing more than what the motor's built in support will. Actually probably not even as good. The factory support is designed to keep the motor as just the right balance point to keep the stress off the tansome. I've seen lower units and midsection busted by them. All the shock from a hard bump that lets the boat bounce transfers all that into the motor. I don't car how tight you make you're tie downs, 2,500 pounds of boat and motor can move up and down. I you use a transome saver with the spring in it, you haven't accomplished anything. The spring is going to let the motor rock as if it were not on a transome saver, just trimmed further down so there is more stress on the transome.

Kinda hi-jacked, so I deleted. Sorry

Wow, I guess since I like the Evinrudes and Johnson, and also like my 1999, 225 ficht, I had better not get into this one. Of course since I don't know anything about boats and motors, I wouldn't be qualified to comment here anyway. Let's see merc Opti, aren't those known best at Opti-pops. Funny thing about those merc's though, they can be blowing left and right, but those that like them have no problem with that. Go over to scream and fly and read all the post about the blown mercs.