Way2slow

What speed?? If you're plowing you have no speed. If you don't already have a 9" prop, it would help, no matter what. At 1200 pounds, the boat is so grossly overloaded it may not get up but the the smallest prop you can get (which I think is a 9" pitch) will certainly help by taking a lot of the strain off the motor and may actually run faster by letting the motor get up into a more suitable power band.

I'm no expert but here's what little I know about them. One thing I forgot to mention, Johnson never did make a ficht motor, they were only the Evinrudes. Both Johnson and Evinrude were made by OMC, and now by BRP. Depends on which ficht you are talking about. I think the V-4's (90 - 115) were the first to hit the market around 1997. The 60 degree V-6's were next (150 & 175), I think they were around 1998. The 90 degree V-6's (200 & 225) hit in 1999. The 60 degree motors had all kinds of major issues, the V-4 faired a little better but they also had issues. I took them a couple of years to learn that indexing the plugs helped with the plug fouling problem they were plagued with, which was caused by soot build up when idleing. The redesinged the fuel line mounting in 99 because they would leak and catch fire. It's very easy to tell if they have the update just by looking, or any dealer can pull the SN up in the computer and tell if it was updated. In 2001 BRP took over production and made a number of engineering updates to the injectors and ECM so the 2001 was suppose to be a better motor than the earlier models but I think it was 2002 models that actually started living up to expectations. The early 200s and 225's are good motors but do have have a problem with old gas that has been left in the system a few months. The injectors are very prone to slowing down slightly with old gas. This causing them to lean out and melt pistons. The ecm's have a few issues that showed up in about 15% of them. A company called DFI does and upgrade that makes about 50 changes to the ECM but that's about a $800 upgrade. I have a friend that bought 15 of the 200's for a commercial application in 1999. He put over 1,200 hours on everyone of them and never had a major failure. He ran those until 2004 when he replaced them with all new Evinrudes. He replaced those with the E-tec's. I've been running my 1999 225 for five years, which I had the ECM upgrade done on when I bought it, and have never had any issues. I also never let mine sit for more than a month without running it about 15 minutes on fresh gas and SeaFoam.

I'm wondering how you manage to have 1200 pounds if the boat, unless the people for three or four hundred pounds each. If someone got carried away using too much and too heavy of material building those decks, I would consider a possible rebuild. Before I did anything, I would check the pitch on the prop, it may be an 11 or 12 inch pitch prop, if so, drop down to a nine. The diameter and pitch should be cast into the prop just under the prop nut. I would also do a compression check, low compression will kill low end torque, which is what's needed to get up on plane.

I feel your pain. A couple of years ago I thought I would save the few extra bucks and just bought the front and rear tires for my Snapper rider mower, after all, I've changed thousands of tires working in service stations during high school and college. I think I spent about 30 minutes just getting the old rear one off and the new one on, chasing the thing all over the drive way trying to find a way handle it. I then took the other three back and bought the mounted tires.

Performance Propellors in St. Charles, Mo. I should also mention, I haven't had one tuned in a couple of years so I'm just guessing he's still around.

Better send it to cart7t area. I've never checked on a four blade repair but the last time I prices a three blade 26" raker, they wanted $175, and it wasn't as bad as you described. Give this guy a call, Bob Lipton 636 949-3121. He does not polish them but does outstanding work, does a lot of work for the drag racers and performance boat people. Tell him what boat, motor etc and he can tweek it for your rig and his prices are not much different than the ripoffs around my parts.

The foam is going to add weight, thats a given. Foam is going to add 2 - 4 pounds per cubic foot, depending on the density of the foam used. On the average it's going to float approx 60 lbs per cubic foot. However, damage it and the foam is not going to let water push all your flotation out. If it's one you have to be doing a lot of handling, loading/unloading, the extra weight of the foam is going to make it heavier. If it's air tight, if you punch a hole in the bottom of one of the cells, it's still going to hold most of the air. I pesonnaly would prefer the foam though.

I hope you have insurance to help pay for the cost of a new housing. Depending on the speed/performance of the boat but if that's on a fast boat, it's down right dangerous. If it breaks off at high speed, you may totally loose the back end of the boat and it may try doing a bat turn on you. If the boat only runs in the 40's - 50's you may get away with it. No way under the sun would I run that on my boat. I've never heard anything good coming out of welding one one a high performance boat, they usually break off completely. Again though, on a slower boat, might work.

Spray some WD40 on the the shaft and try it. Sometimes the grease gets old/dry and keeps the gear from popping up. Also make sure your battery is not weak. If weak, it won't kick the starter fast enough to kick the bendix up. Depending on where the hole is in the LU. If in an area the heat from a TIG won't damage seals, should be no problem to have it TIG'd.

This should give you all the information you need to fill and bleed system. http://ww2.seastarsteering.com/PDFs/296784-AO.pdf go to page 47. Jig Man, check your cylinder where the rods come out, you will most likely find they are wet. If you wrap a dry rag around them, after several days you will see oil on the rag/s. To repair them you have to oder the kit that has two new ends for the cylinder and a wrench to change them. Kit cost approx $100 but is something you can easily install yourself. The only trouble is sometimes the wrench that comes in the kit is not strong enough to break the old ends loose. You can't just get new seals to go in the ends, you have to get the whole ends. You can save a bundle also by going to you local county airport that has somebody that does aircraft repair and buy a gallon of the MIL spec fluid for just a little more than SeaStar wants for on little bottle of theirs.

If the battery wasn't bad, it probably is now. Two things could have happened, the charger could have just flat failed to shut down when battery reached full charge or battery may have never reached full charge and the charger kept cranking into, over heating battery and boiling the water out. If I had to make a blind guess, I would say the battery was the whole problem. I've seen a number of batteries fail and do this The only time I've seen chargers do this is when you standard old Automatick cut off chargers were left on an extended time after the battery reached full charge. Most of those chargers still trickle some charge that over charges the battery, causing it to over heat to the point it makes the charge come back on and cooks the carp out of the battery. Your cables being burned like you described could also have caused your problem. One or both of the connections were bad/dirty, causing a resistance, which causes a voltage drop so the charger never sees the batteries full charge. The resistance causes the connection to over heat. I've seen the studs melted out to the battery and the insulation melted off the leads because of a simple loose/dirty cable connection. By the way, your battery may appear to be at full charge, but don't plan on getting much run time out of it.

With a dime size chunk missing makes it sound likes it's an aluminum prop. If so, remove it, put it in the back for a spare and get a good stainless prop matched to the type hull he has (you don't need a high lift prop if it's a boat that's not going to be able to use it). He will see a hellava difference in hole shout and overall performance.

See if they have a 25 for another few dollars more. Without a doubt at least the 15. Unless you load it pretty heavy, it should get up and go ok, probably about 20 mph it proped right.

If it's cable steering, I would suspect one or both the steering cables. Take one end the rod loose that goes from the end of the streering cables to the motor. Motor should pivot back and fourth with ease. When coming out of the hole, did you have the motor trimed all the way in, may be cavitating, even though a foil usually will hellp prevent that. Make sure prop is not banged up also.

Liability. Charging a battery too hot in a confined space can cause the fumes to build up so when you disconnect the charger, the ark can create nice explosion. I've seen more than one battery exploded by people fast charging them with a big shop charger and have them explode when they disconnect the clamps. That's also why you should never charge a battery with the caps off. Charge at the proper rate, approx 10% of rated capacity, leave the caps on and the cover open on the battery compartment and you should be fine. If the battery/s are created fumes that a readily noticable, check and see if the case is warm, you need to check you batteries water level and check their condition, they are probably going bad. I hot climates, you may have to reduce the charge rate a couple of amps.

If you can find a dealer, Deka's will give you the most bang for the buck. They are not a cheap battery, not even an inexpensive battery but will out live two of those Wally World batteries, if charged and maintained properly. Now, with all the battery recommendations, if you don't have a high quality charger, don't waste your money on a high quality battery. If it's one of those Automatics with a big transformer in it that Sears and most parts stores sell, don't consider that a good charger. A good charger is going to be a logic controlled, three stage charger with a good maintenance mode like a float mode so you can leave it connected 24/7.

The very first thing I would do is pull the hubs, clean, inspect, replace any pitted bearings/cups, and pack them.

Carbs have to be removed taken apart and cleaned. You can spray a case of carb cleaner in the carbs, let it sit over night and it will still make absolutely no difference. What he was probably refering to is a decarb spray, totally different than carb cleaner. This is BRP's http://www.evinrude.com/en-US/Accessories/Product.htm?product=ENGINETUNER&page=2&category=EngineCare and you will need a couple of cans so you can do it a couple of times, letting it sit overnight between each. After a couple of good doses, take motor to the lake, run it WOT for about 10 minutes, bring it back and install new set of plugs. When you get it back home, do a compression check. Make sure there is no more than approx 5% between highest and lowest reading. If compression is very far off, you're wasting your money on going much further.

That's what you get into when you start messing with motors that have seen salt/brakish water. Sometimes there is no way around it but since you managed to get it broke loose and started coming out, when it starts getting tight, try turning it in a couple of threads and then back out a few threads, keep doing this. It may take 10 minutes and only getting a 1/2 thread more each time but sometimes you can work them out. NEVER just keep pulling hard on it thinking it's going to break free and start coming out, it will break. If it's in a location you can get a whole lot of heat to it, that helps. One word of caution, if you do break one, don't aply heat after the fact and try spraying WD40 of other penetrate on it trying to get the broken end out. It will make it so hard, not even a cobalt bit will drill it.

In my personal opinion, you would be down grading if you got an Optima. A good flooded cell group 27 is going to give you approx 200 Reserve minute capacity or 105 Amp hour, the last time I looked at the Optima group 27 is only has about 140 res min's or 66 Amp hours. Even going to their largest group 31 you only get 155 res min's or 75 Amp hour. A good flooded cell group 31 is going to give 120 Amp hour or 225 res min's, and at a hellava lot less money. Deka makes a hellava lot better AGM than the Optima and has way more power than the same size Optima. The only thing I can say good about the Optima is they have great advertising. I don't know of an onboard charger that's going to let you mix battery types. They need to be all AGMs, Gells, or Flooded cells. Working in parallel, you can get away with it as far as running them but it's always better to keep like batteries. Like batteries are a must if connected in series. As for discharging your batteries, you can take them down to 30% without damaging them. The difference between 30% and a higher number is that the less you drain one, the higher the cycle count (a discharge and recharge). What his means if you drain it to 30% every time, it may last 200 charges, only drain it to 50% and it may last 500 charges. A lot this also depends on the quality charger you use. The better the charger, the longer the battery life. Batteries can only produce the amount of power the plates will allow. This is measure in Amp Hour capacity, normally using a small load over a 20 hour period. Increase the load so it discharges the battery in a five hour period and it greatly reduces the Ah capacity. Another method used is the reserve minutes. This is how many minutes it will last with a 25 amp load (most common). So, it does not matter what kind of battery it is, AGM, Gel, Flooded cell etc, when it comes to run time none of them can last longer than their designed capacity. The big difference is the cycle count, Gel's give the largest cycle count but have the least capacity for the same size battery. AGM's are next, they will give about twice the cycle count of the average flooded cell but up to 20% less capacity. The higher quality flooded cells will give way more cycle counts than the standard, cheaper floodel cells, like the those big yellow Walmart batteries, those are about a cheap as your gonna get and have a battery worth loading in your boat. The bottom of the food chain are those cheap imported batteries a lot of companies buy and stick what ever label that want on them, Stay away from those. A good, high quality charger at the proper rating and keeping them charged and properly maintained is the main thing that's going to let you get full life from a battery.

Too many things can cause your pisser to look weak. At only three years old, I would doubt it's the water pump. I do recommend replacing the water pump every three years but I've never pulled one out that was bad after just three years. They will be holding a bend in the blades but still very flexable. If this is a motor that stays on the boat all the time, I would just add a water pressure guage. First time I've ever heard of having to replace the impeller to maintain warrenty though. At those labor rates, I think I need to start working on motors for the public. I thought they had gotten high around my parts at $90 per hour. A dealer normally installs the whole water pump so plan on more than $50 and figure he's probably going to get you for close to two hours from the time he starts the job until finish. Just think, for $30 and a little bit of your time, you could do it yourself, it's actually very easy to replace.

Yes, that is the correct way to connect it to your other battery. The only gains you will see is it will double you run time. If the one battery lets you fish as long as you like, it wouldn't be worth it. Your one bank charger will charge them but to propery charge two batteries in parallel with one charger (depending on size of batteries) it would need to be at least a 15 - 20 amp charge. A two bank would be better or you could keep the one bank and use it as a maintainer for the two and just connect a separate charger to charge them when you come in. If you buy a two bank, I would go ahead and buy a three bank so you have your cranking battery on it also.

I guess as long as your silicon don't let loose your good, but I don't think I would want to depend on that. Look at how big of a hole you're gonna have when you're sitting on the lake and the thing comes out. I would suggest you try and find somebody that has the tool to flange it or have one made.

10 amp, AGM Mode. NEVER use the 2 amp mode on anything but your lawn and garden size batteries. On an AGM, it's not quite so critical not to use the 2 amp mode, but on the standard flooded cell battery, you could never fully charge a full size group 24/27 etc. it in the 2 amp mode

Strickly and emergency spare. No way under the sun would I consider trying to run one as my primary prop, aluminum props suck bad enough.