Way2slow

Llebroc's are the seats I have in my Javelin and they sit/ride great. I can't say about now but a couple of years ago they made the Stratos 201 seats, (and probably the Champion). Llebroc's was having a warehouse inventory clearance sale and I bought both front and rear deck seats and the full set (driver, passenger, and center seat) for a 2006, 201 for less than $500 with shipping. One of the deck seats has the Stratos logo but hey, for the price, I was not complaining. They even gave me five yards of matching vinyl to make butt seats that would match and to recover the back of the one that had the Strator logo if I wanted to take it off. The look very similar to the GT1 but are a solid light gray.

Going by your location, I figure you've been using the motor in waters with high salt content. This will greatly influence what it's going to cost to repair. It's usually about a three hour job but when you start dealing with corroded/broken bolts that time can double. Figure $90+ per hour, depending on the labor rate in your area.

Depends on the seats and if you want them to look original or not but unless they're just plain, basic seat, I doubt you're going to get them done for less than $400. Personally I just do my own. Usually cost me about $100 for the materials

It's been a long time since I've had 16oz but I would think you should get several years. I'm thinking if you go with 20oz on your lids, since they do wrap, you are going to regret it. It's not uncommon for them to be so tight, you have to use something to pry them up if you can get you hand uner the edge. I've done two older boats and regretted it on both. My current 1999 Javelin had new carpet in it when I got it and they used a very plush carpet in it and it's the same way. Get's aggrivating as hell at times and I will probably replace it this winter.

20oz is nice and plush but the problem you have to watch out for is your lids. If the carpet wraps over the lip and glues to the under side, since 16oz the good stuff back then, most of the early boats don't have enough clearance between them for the newer, heavy carpets. This makes them hard to open and you would probably be better off with the 16 oz. If it glues to the top of the lid only, then you will like the 20 oz, or even the 22 oz much better, they will hold up much better.

Actually, where you live has more to do with it. Being in Florida, you have very little in the way of hills to deal with. Towing on flat land makes life much easier. Stay out of overdrive (with either trans, auto or man) and you will probably have very little trouble. I towed my 285 Pro from all over Ga and Fl for about four years with a 1989 4WD Toyota four cylinder 22R motor. On the flat roads I would cruise a 70 mph with it. Now, this is not totally recommended, but I did it. Now, stopping 3,000 pounds in a hurry on a wet road, that's totally a different ball game. That truck is going to get mighty little and mighty light real quick, been there, done that. Took a couple of months for the crease to come out of the seat under my butt.

With a 3,000 pound tow weight, I think you had better be looking at aluminum or small glass boats under 17 ft. My 1987 Stratos 169V (16' 9") with 115 Merc and gear on the trailer weighed 2,700 lbs My 1989 Stratos 285 (18' 5") Pro with a 150 Johnson and gear on the trailer weighed a little over 3,100 lbs. I've never weighed my Javelin R20 DC (little over 20') with 225 rude but I would guess it's close to 3,400 loaded on the trailer. The newer glass boats are usually a few hundred pounds lighter than their older counter parts but loaded and ready to fish sitting on the trailer, they will still push your tow weight near the limit if you go above 17'.

The oil injector for that motor was a tank and pump unit that sat inside the boat. As the motor was pulling fuel from the fuel tank, it went through the oil injector to be mixed and then on to the motor. He is much better off without it, reliabililty for that system, that old, is not that great. You fuel/oil mix ratio is 50:1.

The shaft length is detemined by the transome heigth. A long shaft (20") motor would run way too deep in the water on a short transome (15") boat. A short shaft motor would not work on a long transome because when it started getting up speed, it would have the lower unit mostly out of the water. With the proper length motor on the boat, the anticavitation plate should be approx even with the bottom of the hull. No way can you compare the power of a newer 9.9 to an old 60's 9.9. Even if the older motor is in like new condition, the newer motor has approx 15% more hp because of the way they are rated. Figure the age and wear, it may have 25% or more hp. Add the advances in prop design and there is just no real comparison between the two motors.

Oh well, I tried. There's no way in hell I would turn it over 5,700 but it's your motor and I hope you get a long service life out of it, good luck.

I'm affraid that dealer would have to physicaly show me what 1993, 115 manual he's looking in. I don't claim to be an expert but do know a little about motors. The crossflow motors (that's the type yours is) develop harmonics between approx 5,800 and 6,200 rpm that can greatly make you regret you ever ran it in that rpm range. I've never seen a crossflow that had a factory max recommended rpm above 5,700, and would be willing to make a wager your's is only 5,500. Just be sure you find you a good, spare powerhead if you keep running it in that range. The looper's run 6,000 rpm but not the Xflow's. Now, with all that said, and they went to that small of a prop to get the rpm up, sounds like it might have been struggling a bit to get on plane. If that's the case, I would stongly suggest a compression test on the engine. Low compression is one of the main causes for poor hole shot. It doesn't hurt top end much but the drop in torgue it creates kills hole shot. If he told me it's suppose to turn 6,000 rpm, I wouldn't put much faith in anything else he told me. Compression might be fine, but would check it to be sure. I think a 115 on that size boat is touch on the small size.

You want a prop that will let that motor turn 5,300 - 5,500 rpm with your normal load Try to find someone that has a good 15" stainless and will let you try it. That will remove any doubt as to why pay the extra bucks for one.

Don't try to compare similar symthoms as being the same problem between a Merc and a Johnson. Totally different ignitions systems. First thing that comes to mind on a Merc giving that problem would be the stator. Merc motors have high speed and low speed windings in their stator and it could be the high speed windings gone bad. The next thing that can cause the problem is one or both trigger modules. Sometimes, about the only what to eleminate either is to swap them out with a known good one so I would try to find someone that knows Merc motors and has some good used parts that can try in your motor before getting stuck with the bill for new ones. Could be carbs. Sorry, I don't know enough about Mercs to offer you any expertise in how to check it out.

I assume your motor is a 12 volt motor. You will get longer run time by connecting the batteries in parallel over running one battery, then switching to the other. This is because the heavier the load on a battery, the lower the amp hour rating. By connecting the batteries in parallel, you are basically cutting the amp load in half on each battery, therefor increasing the amp hour capacity over using just one battery. Being different size batteries, it's not going to actually half the load per battery but it will still be much better than running on one at the time. If running a 24V TM on two different size batteries connected in series, you will damage the batteries so don't try that one. In series they must be the same size, type and age.

Not sure where you're getting your parts but that's pretty darn steep if you're doing the rebuild yourself. It's also no problem just boring one hole and replacing just the one piston if the other holes were still good. 99.9% of the time all but the lower main bearing are can be reused. I always replace the lower main but seldom any of the other, only if they have a blue color to them that makes them look like they've been hot. One word of advice, DO NOT have an automotove machine shop bore the block, they usually can't do them without leaving a taper and they do not know how to chamfer the ports, which is required to keep the rings from hanging one and breaking the rings. If you wanted more hp, now would be the time to do it. With a little porting and parts swapping, a 2.4 or 2.5 will do 225 - 250 without getting too radical.

It's not the year model motor that really determines the mix ratio, it was the oil they had available when that year was made. Two stroke outboard oils have come a long, long way from the 50's and 60's. With todays TWC-3 oils, most any motor turning less than 6,000 rpm can run a 50:1 ratio, even the old 50 models that required a 25:1 ratio when they were built. Back then, about all they had was basically 30W motor oil so it took a lot more of it to get even close to the same protective oil film TWC-3 will give today. Just be sure you use TWC-3 in water cooled engines (that's what the WC stands for, water cooled) and use regular two stroke oil made for air cooled chain saws, weed eaters etc in the old, small air cooled outboards. Also, don't use your TWC-3 in air cooled chain saws, weed eaters etc.

Might want to take the fuel guage out, if it works. Sometimes all the shaking can damage the guage.

If you feel you really need to use a metal tank, put a couple of pounds of small, rough gravel along with about a 1/2 gallon of gas in it and spend a bunch of time shaking the stuff around inside it.

First, do a compression test and see if all cylinders are within 5% of being the same. If that cylinder is low, you found the cause, so we will need to find a cure. If they varie much, do a good decrab on the motor and check it again. That could bring them up, if not, you may have a problem. If compression is good, you are probably dumping too much fuel into that one. This could be as simple as adjusting the carbs, worn jets, etc. You might try indexing that plug, improper indexed plugs can cause fouling. Don't use a Chilton plug color guide, that's for four stroke motors. Run a two stroke motor to the proper color in there and you will melt the top right out of the piston. Brown paper bag color is about as light as you want on most carburated two stroke motors.

Fishing Rhino gave you some good advice, just be sure you understand the part about using a variable speed buffer or you will burn the gel coat. I usually run mine at 1,200 rpm and never above 1,800. If there is a rough texture to the bad side, it's already through the clear and into the color and metal flake. Most anything you do is going to leave silver specks where it takes the color off flake if you try to make it smooth. I use nothing but 3M products. I use the fine cut buffing compound and both 3M machine glaze and the Hand Glaze. I start by wet sanding with 2,000 grit wet/dry to take the dead gel off, buff it out with fine cut buffing compound. You may see areas that still don't have a bright shine, I resand those and buff again. When I have the gel shining nicely, I work a coat of machine glaze over the whole thing, using the hand glaze in areas that are difficult to get with the buffer. Understand, it's work, be careful and not go through the clear and when done, if done right, it will shine better than new.

No, it's not normal and will melt the stud out of your battery and the battery cable. Take the cables off, clean battery and cables with wire brush until they are clean and bright. Inspect your crimp on connectors, if they look corroded replace them. Replace the wingnuts with stainless steel nuts and when you tighten the nuts, do it with a wrench. It it still gets hot, the cable end connector is probably not making good connection inside and needs replacing.

They are very prone to fouling plugs because of the soot if the plugs are not indexed. Indexing the plugs goes a long way to helping prevent plug fouling.

Sounds like you're looking for an aluminum tunnel hull or possibly a jet drive, no other boat with a motor on the back is going to run in 6" of water. A tunnel hull with a hydraulic jack plate is you're best option. Jet drives run shallow but since they are nothing but a huge vaccum system, they don't do well in shallow water over a dirt or sandy bottom. They suck up huge amounts of dirt/sand and it's causes severe wair problems on the screw and housing. If you're concern if rocks, trees and limbs, not sand bars, the jet drive would probably be better. As for the boat itself, it's going to be what size you want. The lighter the boat and the more hull surface area it has, the shallower it's goig to float. A 350 pound 16x48 is going to ride shallower than a 350 pound 16x42

You've got to figure out if your flooding it and having to clear the excess fuel before it will start or if you don't have enough fuel in it and it's having to prime the crankcase. My guess would be it's having to prime the crankcase with enough fuel to start. I don't know if you motor has a choke or a primer system. A choke blocks off the venturi in the carb and engine vaccum pulls fuel from the carb into the motor. I not fully closing it takes a lot motor cranking on the motor to get the crankcase primed. Primer systems use the fuel pump to pump fuel into the motor and a lot of times people don't hold it long enough while cranking the motor over to pime the crankcase. After the motor sits for several days all the fuel vapors inside the crankcase have totally evaporated so it takes a pretty good initial charge of fuel to recharge to crankcase. That's why it starts easily after having been run and don't want to start after sitting several days. Also, it's a lot less misleading if you say the motor won't start. When you say it won't turn over makes it sound like the starter is not is not doing anything the the motor or it's not spinning the motor. A motor that won't spin over or crank is a motor that the starter won't spin. A motor that won't run is a motor that spins over/cranks but won't run. Either way, a brand new motor, I would be asking the dealer. It could be something not working properly or it could be you haven't figured out the proper way to do a cold start.

Well, you might not think performance is and issue but if you ever tried a good stainlees prop, you will by trying to work extra hours and weekends to come up with the money for one. There is just a big difference in hole shot and the way the boat carries itself in the water. Composite prop - strickly and emergency spare. Get you a good SS prop, have the aluminum repaired and use it as your spare. Then you won't need to waste your money on a composite.