Way2slow

Maybe it don't get so hot in Ohio but here in GA, it would be like fishing out of an oven during the summer. My old Stratos had dark blue carpet, after the second trip I made in it when it got hot, the carpet was light blue the next trip.

A couple of possible problems come to mind. One, If the boat has rivets or a weld ridge across the back, that can cause a turbulance and interfers with the signal. When you say it's transome mounted, on a lot of aluminum boats like Trackers, the bottom of the transome is not the bottom of the hull. The hull is several inches below the bottom edge where the transducer is mounted. What happens it once the boat gets on plane and the speed up, it's actually lifting the transducer out of the water so it can't work. If the transducer is mounted so skimmer surface is slightly below the bottom of the boat, you may not have the anle right. It should have a slight angle (only a degree or two) so the it's sending the signal at a slight forward angle. Next make sure you're not running the unit in automatic. Run it in manual so you can adjust the gain as needed. Automatic causes all kinds of problems, like 600' depth reading in three feet of water, won't read at speed and a lot of the other settings work better in manual.

It will probably be in the way more than usefull in your setup. If anything, I would look at Stick Steering but that would probably have to be added to the rear seat now that you're elevated the front. That being said, I wouldn't see much need in spending that money since if you've gotta run it from the back seat, just as well use a tiller and install a seat slide so you can slide the seat to one side when you need to run the motor and centered when fishing. Either way, make sure you get a motor with electric start. Nothing like have to go back to start the motor and then back to the seat to run it.

If you're not fishing clear water, video ain't much good. I thought they would be a nice addition so bought (wasted my money) on one. The lake I fish normally has a visability about five feet, anything below about 10 feet it's not much good. Even where you have good light penatration visabilty is very limited, only about five feet.

Mine reads depth in 30 - 50' of water pretty good up to about 70. Bottom countour and detail pretty much goes away past 40 or so Mine are Lowrance's

Wax???? Shoot, I don't even was it. When I do want to make something look pretty, I use 3M Glazes. I use the hand glaze in small areas and the machine glaze where I can get my buffer on it. It's fast and easy, leaves a glass wet looking shine a last quit a while. It's just not cheap.

Now lets throw another opinion in. I wouldn't use pressure treated or marine grade. Even after it dries, resins will usually not penetrate and cause them seperate from pressure treated. Marine grade is a very expensive over kill just to build casting decks. The main difference in marine grade and regular plywood with external glue is the marine grade does not have air pockets left by knot holes to trap/hold water where regular plywood does. It's not like your going to have your decks constanly submerged in water. Even the boat manufactors don't use marine grade for decks or floors. Get you some B/C and seal the bottom side with resin just before you lay it and the top side with a layer of resined mat. It will outlast the rest of the boat. If set on AB marine grade, check with some local sign companies. They use a 1/2" five ply that's about the same as marine grade, it's just going to cost about $100 or more per sheet but not the paper coated stuff.

As mentioned, you will need to check with your dealer. Being manual start, your motor may not even have a charging system. If it doesn't, it would probably be cheaper to trade the motor than to try and add one because adding one ain't gonna be cheap.

For the small cheaper motors, It's which ever you can find on sale with the best deal at the time you're looking to buy. When it comes to the bigger tournament grade bow mounts that I'm going to fork out $700 to $1,000 for it's only going to be a MotorGuide

The smallest I would put on it would be a 25 rated at the prop, not one of the older that's rated at the flywheel. That's about as large as your gonna find in a tiller steering unless you buy a new one. I think a couple of companies have gone as large as a 40 tiller. If you plan to add a remote and steering, then I would go with a 50. I'm not a four stroke fan because of the extra weight and the lack of performance compared to a two stroke but the small ones do get great fuel economy. I would definetly go with a 45 to 50 if going four stroke, but be very sure you transome is in good shape and add extra bracing because those older boats were not designed for the extra weight a four stroke adds.

If you fall for it, it's great for the dealer. My wife's 2008 Toyota Highlander was purchased from a dealer that had "No Haggle Pricing". They never haggled, I promised him I was buying a car that day and offered him three thousand less than his no haggle price, told him if he couldn't do that deal, don't come back with a counter offer because I would be going elsewhere before he got the words out of his mouth. He came back about 10 minutes later, shook my hand and thanked me for buying her car from him.

A couple of concerns involved but if everything is right, no problem. 1. If your cranking battery is just a cranking battery and not a dual purpose, it's not designed to be deep discharged or discharge a large number of times like the deep cycle battery. Using it as a trolling battery will greatly shorten the life. 2. If you run too long and run them down, you're starter is not going to crank the motor when you get ready to use the motor. If an isolater is available that will only let the cranking battery disharge to a certain level and the take it out off line, then I would seriously consider adding one. 3. Many outboard charging system are only designed to top off a battery after is has been used to crank the boat. Prolonged charging will overheat the rectifier/regulator or stator and cause them to burn out. If you run the TM for a long period and then run the motor for a long period, this could cause you an expensive problem If both batteries are deep cycle or dual purpose, and your only using the TM you shouldn't have a problem You would connect the two in parallel, positive to positive and negative to negative.

I would strongly suggest anyone wanting to use AGM batteries do their homework on charging requirements or you're gonna pay a whole lot more for a battery that's not going to last any longer than an el chepo battery and you average charger is not going to charge them properly. This is from one battery manufactor "Constant under or overcharging will damage any battery and shorten its life! Use a good constant potential, voltage-regulated charger. For 12-volt batteries, charge to at least 14.4 volts but no more than 14.6 volts at 68°F (20°C). The open circuit voltage of a fully charged 12-volt AGM battery is 12.8V. However, as the battery charges, the building internal pressure (voltage) causes resistance to the charge. Therefore, the on-charge voltage must be higher (at least 14.2V for 12-volt) to overcome this internal pressure (voltage) during charging."

The trace lead in the electrolite is the problem. A little lead goes a long way when it comes to contamination. Neutralizing the acid does not get rid of the lead.

I was probably a little high on the 14 hours, it would be more like 11 - 12 hours, but trust me, I don't claim to be an expert since I've only been dealing with them almost daily for the last 15 years. Thats why I usually stay away from these battery topics.

The proper way is to take it to a hazardous waste disposal site and pay the disposal fee. There was a salvage company in Alabama dumping them in a pond on his place so he could reclaim the lead and didn't want to pay disposals fees. EPA caught him and he served a few years and paid a hellava clean up fee and fines. This is kinda like the guys who change their on oil, some put it in a container and take it to a garage or changing station to dispose of it in their waste oil tanks. Then you have those idiots that just dump it on the ground, having no clue how much damage a gallon of oil can cause. So, while I did mention you could flush them, I guess I shouldn't have if someone is seriously dumb enough to do it without the knowledge and equipment but this is common pratice with the large commercial batteries that can cost 3 - 4 thousand dollars. However, it is also done by professionals that know what they are doing.

Wow, don't know were some of these fancy figures and "facts" came from. FACT: Two batteries in parallel, will give you more than twice the run time of one battery. Most batteries you find advertising say an 105 Ah rating is based on a 20 hour draw. In other words you can only have approx a 5 amp draw on the battery for it to be a 105 Ah battery. Incease that draw to 25 amps and your battery just became about an 80 Ah battery. The more you load a battery the lower the capacity of that battery becomes. Now, if you connect another 105 Ah battery in parallel you just cut the draw in half, thereby increasing the effective capacity. If you run one battery for five hours and it dies, connect to a second battery battery and run it five hours and it dies, if you had connected the two in parallel, you pobably would have been able to run for 12- 14 hours instead of 10. While it is"best" to have like batteries "and this is a must in series" it's not required in parallel. It's just going to pull the most load off the strongest battery and the other is just going to help out some. If you have a 105 Ah battery and a 80 Ah battery, you're still going to get 185 Ah, but the 105 is going to be doing more of the work. Unlike series batterys where the current draw is equal through all batteries and can damage unlike batteries. Forget this 2 amp charge stuff also. To properly charge a deep cycle battery it should be charged at approximately 10C (10% of it's rated capacity). In other words a 120 Ah battery will charge at 12 amps. As also mentioned, the newer Smart chargers are much better and quicker at charging batteries because the the can charge heavy for the first part and when reaching 80% or so, they slow the rate to finish it off at a safer level. Goods ones even have a float mode so you can leave them connected 24/7.

This is the best money anyone having batteries that sit can ever spend http://autosupermart.com/store/shop/vdcbatterycharger.html. Contrary to other opinions, it works. I bought my first one about two years ago and have three of them now. I have reclaimed a number of sulphated batteries with them. It can take up to two months for a badly sulphated battery to be fully desulphated but I have had batteries that would not even float a hydrometer after a long charge, read 1.280 - 1.30 on all cells after a couple of months on a Battery Minder and run them another year or two. Now there are other issues that come into play letting a battery sit for long periods of time. One is stratafication, where the acid seperates from the water, leaving a heavy concentration of acid at the bottom, eating away at the cells, a water at the top. Too low of a charge rate willl also cause this or letting a battery sit without being cycled and left to self discharge . When the battery is charged, it has to be charged at a high enough rate the gases are being released perculating to the top. As the bubbles rise, they create a current flow that keeps the electrolite mixed. Then you have the problem of sell deteriation caused by overcharging/discharging or letting the cells become exposed by not keep water levels up. There is no cure for a battery that has been damaged by these issues. As for just adding distilled water and charging, sorry, that's hog wash. If it's below the cells, you add enough to cover the cells and try to charge, but that's only to protect the cells, has nothing to do with recovering a bad battery. Don't try to add more acid either, that usually only causes and over concentration of acid. When a battery looses liquid, it only loose the water so you only add water back. Now, if you like living on the edge, you can drain the battery, flush it with caustic soda, rince it good with distilled water and then refill it it with electrolite. This will also desulphate a suphated battery but does also does little for a deteriated battery. You can also have a battery explode in your face doing this. I just keep the BatteryMinder's on my batteries that are not in use and my onboard chargers connected 24/7 to all the batteries in my boats.

MinnKota used to make a Maximizer that connected to the battery and you connected your standard five speed TM to it. This gave you full variable speed just like the didital motors and you could turn the prop just as slow as you wanted. I still have mine I bought 30 years ago and wouldn't take anything for it, best thing going for your situation, that's why I bought it. If you can find one that works, get it. Your TM doesn't not use a variable resistor, they control the speed through the motor windings. You will see there are a bunch of wires on the switch going into the shaft down to the motor motor.

First off, the pee hole could be stopped up, dirt dobbers love ready made holes and it's very common for them to build nest in them, or something else could have stopped it up. It also takes a little time for water to fill the exhaust chest and start coming out. As for running one on a hose/muffs, it doesn't bother one as long as you turn the water on before you start it and off after shutting engine off. Running one dry is what destroys a water pump. I've run motors for 1/2 hour at the time on a hose when I don't feel like messing with the tank. I don't remember if the V4 has one or two power packs but there is a black or black white wire on the terminal strip going to the power pack. Disconnect this wire and see if you have fire. If the motor happens to start, the only way you can shut if off is to reconnect that wire, short it to metal on the motor, or choke it down by covering the carbs with your hand. That's the kill wire, the key switch/kill switch shorts it to ground to shut the motor off. It's not unheard of for a power pack to go belly up all at once like that but usually those they will start running bad before they just quit. Then again, that may have been your problem when you thought the carbs got fouled and it finished dying while you were running it on the hose.

contact cement is all I ever use. Works a hellavalot better than any carpet glue. In areas you're going to need to arrange a piece before you want it to stick, cover the area with wax paper and don't press down on it or the crapet. Once you get you carpet in position, slide the wax paper out. No different than doing laminates.

If batteries were not included in the package price, what's there to make right??? The man said bought a sponsorship package, they intended on him having a sponsor for his batteries. He said it had to be to be shipped to a dealer, and the dealer wasn't making a dime on the deal, do you really think the dealer is suppose to loose the cost of batteries just because he received it from the manufactor for the guy. As for the batteries, it really depends on how much demand you place on your batteries during a days fishing and how many days a month you fish. If you're heavy into tourney fishing, and can't find a sponsor to supply you batteries, I would go with the Trojan SSC225's on my TM. If you're going to run a 36 volt TM and do like some and use your cranking battery as one of the three needed, then I would go with a biggest, baddest, high quality dual purpose battery I could get. The reason for not going with the SSC225's is they are strickly deep cycle and may not provide the cranking amps needed if you're running one of the big V-6's and all three batteries should be identical type, size, and age when used in a series configuration. If one goes bad, unless very new with less than 25 charges, all three should be replaced as a set, don't just replace the bad one. Now, if you're just a weekend bass chaser, them cheap, big yellow batteries from wally world will work and give you two - three years service. However, if running 36 volt, they still all have to be the same if your only running three batteries in the boat.

It's hard to tell by that pic but it looks like fiberglass mat or cloth to me. It's usually laid over the plywood floor to water proof to help strengthen it and water proof it. If that's what it is and you don't need a whole lot, you can find the mat/cloth it in the paint department of Home Depot/Lowes along with resin and hardner but theirs is a little expensive for a large job. Mat looks like a bunch of fibers mangled together, cloth has a woven look just like any fabric. Big/large weave fabric is called Woven Roven.

Yes TIN, the 99/2000 Ficht 200's/225's are actually very good motors (notice I got very specific about the size). They are just too temprimental for the average user and they require a rather expensive upgrade to the ECM by an aftermarket company. The injectors in those older ones are so sensitive, if you let them sit for three or four months they are subject to slow down or stick, leaning the motor out and burning a piston. I got mine dirt cheap about five years ago because of this. I had the $750 upgrade done to the ecm and all six injectors serviced and calibrated. I keep a small external tank with about a gallon of gas and 2oz of SeaFoam. I let it run for about 15 minutes every couple of weeks if it's going to sit for more than a month. Five years and never had a minutes trouble, gets great fuel milage and uses very little oil.

I have the SOSpends Autos. I think they were like $180 at BPS a couple of years ago but I got the larger/longer models which was a little more than the others. I got them for me and my dad because we both have a bad habit of "just going a short distance" and not putting vest on, plus he was nearly 80 and the only way I could get him to wear an inflatable was to wear one myself and insist he wore his. I also got the auto's because who's to say when you hit the water, your going to be able to pull the cord. As for going off from getting wet, I don't think it will do that. Mine says it won't, that it takes that micro amount of negative pressure created when submerged several inches under water. Like others have stated, it is not a legal flotation device and you must still have a legal vest in the boat.