Way2slow

Most likely you have at least one bad steering cable. They cost approx $150 each plus the labor to install them. Now would be a great time to consider upgrading to hydraulic steering. You will luv it when you do.

Lets make it simple so you can check it. Get you about a 15 watt 12 volt bulb with a bulb socket that has two wire or one you can attacht wires so the bulb will lite up. Check it across the battery to make sure it does lite up. Now disconnect all the wires from the positive post of the battery, and connect one of the bulbs wires to the positive post. The one bulb wire is all you want on the postive post. Now touch each wire you took off the positive post to the other wire on the bulb. If the bulb does not glow, that wire is ok and do another one. Do this with each wire that was on the battery. If one makes the bulb glow, that wire is causing a drain on the battery. If it happens to be the motor cable, you will need to move the bulb out to the stater solenoid on the motor, this is where the engine's power is usually connected. There will be the large battery cable and one or two smaller terminals on the battery side of the solenoid. Take the smaller one off and leave the battery cable and connect your bulb. Touch the smaller terminals to the other bulb wire is see if the bulb glows. If so, keep chasing wires until you find what's make the bulb glow. Just be sure all switches are off before you start or you're going to feel like an idiot when you spend two hours chasing wires back to a switch that's on. If none of them cause the bulb to glow, get you a new battery.

No, before you adjust them, if they are too loose they may be sucking air and it would change your adjustments when you tightenen them. You want to leave them loose enough to still be able to turn them, just that they will be snugg to turn.

The needle valves and mixture adjustments are one in the same, just different termonology. The two screws/knobs you are adjusting for high speed and low speed mixture go through a brass nut that's screwed into the carburator. Tighten that brass nut on each one until the mixture adjustments fell pretty snugg when you turn them. At the bottom of those nuts are compression packings that squize against the shafts of the mixture adjustments to keep them from sucking air and to make them so they don't vibrate and turn on their on. To properly adjust them, only adjust the high speed when the motor is in the water and running wide open. Turn it out until the motor is running rough, then slowly turn it, the motor will start to increase in rpm and run smoother. Keep going in slowly, the motor will reach peak rpm and sound it's best and go just a little more until it starts to change again, then bring it back out until it's running it's very best. Just for a little fudge factor, screw it out about another 1/8 turn from there, or until the motor just starts to change sound/loose a few rpm again. By now the motor should be good and warm, bring the rpm down until it's at idle, now adjust the low speed in or out which ever makes the motor gain rpm and run smoother. As it gains rpm keep bring the ilde speed down and tweeking the idle adjustments. If it spits and jerks and cuts off, go back toward rich just a little, you are getting into what's called lean spit. When the motor is cold, you will usually have to turn the idle about a 1/2 turn richer to get it to idle, then lean it back out when it warms up.

Too bad you don't live closer to GA. I have one that I would give you. I just threw the lower cover in the truck to haul to the dump and plan to do the same to the rest of the motor when I get to it. I actually got it to run but it's just been sitting for for 10 - 15 years and I'm not gonna mess with it. As for the crab adjustments, I think they are in a brass nut you can tighten and that increase the pressure on some compression packings that will tighten the needle adjustemt screw to keep them from vibrating loose. On the same principle as your old plumbing faucets. It the one I have wasn't buried in the back of a bunch of other junk, I could dig it out to verifly that. I went here and varified that it does have the packing nuts you can just tighten. http://12.2.215.22/pub/default.asp?SessionId=8e37cea5b72a4b55b44c9fbd6e89fe83&Lang=EN&brands=SKIDOO,SEADOO,ATV,SPORTBOAT,EJ Just bring up Johnson, year and click on the HP the carb.

The SE Sport is going to help hole shot no matter what prop, what motor, or what boat it's on. It's just a matter of if you want the dorkey looking thing on the motor and if you want to drill four holes in the anti-cav plate to mount it. I don't use one on my Javelin because it comes out of the hole pretty much flat and with ease anyway, but even if I put one on it, it would come out that much better. I just think they look dorkey as hell or would run one on everything I have.

Most auto parts stores sells them.

I run the SE Sport 300 on one of my hotrod motors on the back of my Stratos 285 Pro. If the motor height is right, it should not be in the water when running on the pad. I run it on that motor because it's cranking over 325 hp and I run a modified 28" Raker and the SE Sport helps bunches on the hole shot. Before I put it on, the nose wanted to raise when I shot the power to it, with the foil, it comes out almost flat but has no affect on the boat when running WOT. Boat will run 83 with or without the foil. I did cut aprox 2 inches off the sides so they didn't bite when making hard turns. Kinda raised the pucker factor after triming the motor down to make a 70 mph turn and the thing bit the water in the middle of a hard, highspeed turn.

I've cut Motor Guide shafts but things don't always go as planned. Had an aluminum shaft that the threads ended up get stuck into head after a couple of turns. Ended up making a mess out of the shaft getting it out. Naturally you will have to take the head off. You also need to hold the wires going through the shaft so they don't twist up while screwing the shaft out of the motor.

I base it on the vehicle I'm towing with, the load I'm towing and the kind of roads I'm towing on. Also, the first thing I would do to any vehicle I was going to be towing much of a load with is add an auxillary cooler to the transmission if it doesn't already have one. If you realy want to take care of the transmission, add a temp guage and keep it below 210 degrees, preferably below 200, but when towing a load, that can be hard. If your vehicle has a 6,000 pound towing capacity and your towing an aluminum boat, across flat highway, the vehicle is hardly going to know you have a boat back there and can tow however you please. Take that same vehicle and put a heavy 20' fiberglass boat behind it and you have different situation. You need to know the towing capacity of vehicle and recommended towing procedures for any vehicle, they are all different. Some strickly forbid towing in overdrive, some could care less as long as the load is within the towing capacity they recommend. I have made two trips from GA to AZ towing my 20' Javelin and used cruise control most of the way. The key is if the transmission will stay in gear and not constantly down shifting to maintain speed. If you are in a hilly area and constantly down shifting, take it out of cruise and use the pedal to feather your speed. As for to tow in OverDrive or not, again, based on factory recommendations. I've modified the transmission in my truck so it will tow 6,000 pounds in overdrive all day long but I seldom do it because with those two long hauls to Arizona I've found I get about two miles per gallon better gas milage in drive than overdrive when towing 70 - 75 mph. I would get 11.8 mpg in overdrive and 13.7 in drive, both on fairly level highway and that was based on a number of tanks of gas. At 55 mph on level road, it will do a little better in overdrive than drive. However, since I seldom drive 55 and where I live there's very few level roads, I seldom use overdrive when towing a heavy load.

I think you will find most modern outboards will handle up to 10% alcohol. Older motors have a very hard time with it. It dries out hoses, and ruins gaskets and seals. All fuel systems are having a hard time with it because it's desolving the old shelac buildup that's been forming in the tanks, line etc from 100% gas that has formed these deposits and giving the carbs hell. You will be very smart to put a good filter in your fuel line and change the filter often. If running fuel injection, it's even more critical to keep the filters change. Also, I've read some of the plastic tanks are not really suited for alcohol bases fuels either but have not experienced any problems. However, not many stations in my area area pumping alcohol fuels (yet).

Compression, displacement and timing are three of the key factors that determine octane requirement. 91/93 octane burns too slow and will not make a full burn in a low compression motor dumping unburned fuel out the exhaust. Unburned fuel equals loss of power 87 octane will burn too fast in a high compression motor, causing predetonation, which can destroy a motor by hammering the rods needle bearings into the crank, breaking rings, melting the edge off the pistons etc. The engines timing and compression is set by the manufactor to burn a certain octane fuel and it does a motor no good to run anything other than the recommended octane, unless you have gone in and modified the motor to increase/decrease the compression You will see small bore carb engines like 9.9, 25's etc running 130+ pounds of compression and running 87 octane but a big bore motor running as low as 80 pounds of compression with 87 octane. With computer controlled DFI motors, they are able to get the compression up to 125+ pounds and still run 87 octane because of the much more accurate fuel and timing control. That's why a 225 DFI motor will have a better hole shot and midrange torque than a 225 carburated motor. Note: that's also why you have to be very careful about trying to run old gas in a DFI motor. Doing it can get very, very expensive. Gas loosing octane very quickly and they don't build a whole lot of fudge factor into DFI motors. A lot of blown DFI motors are blamed on the injectors, ECU and all kinds of things but many times, it was simply the fuel was a few months old no or not enough fuel was added to offset the old fuel. I should mention if adding fuel to that's been in the tank for a couple of months, is one time I would recommend adding 91/93 octane, at least two or three gallons for every gallon in the tank. Personnaly, If it's more than two months old, I pump it out, even though I do run SeaFoam at one ounce per gallon in every tank.

It's ya'lls motors, you can run as much of any kind of oil you want, just what ever makes you fell comfortabel. In my motors, the only time I increase from 50:1 ratio is on my hotrod motors I'm turning over 6,500 rpm. On my stock, oil injected motor, I do not and will not add any addtional oil to the gas, this only causes more carbon build up. Even if you mixed it as heavy as 100:1 in the tank, that would only help save the motor at very low rpm, if running WOT and the oil pump quit, it would still most likely take out the crank/pistons before you got the motor shut down. On a DFI motor, it would make no since because the gas and oil doesn not even go through the crankcase. Anyway, like I said, no one can tell anyone how to run their own equiment, I just know how I would run mine and that's all that matters to me. We've Done beat this dead horse too long already.

I assume you're talking trim angle, unless you have a hydraulic jack plate. The key is your water pressure, you don't want to get it below 16 psi. As for trim and engine height, you want it up and trimmed out from max speed at the rpm you're wanting to cruise at so there is as little hull drag as possible. Just don't let water pressure get below 16 psi. Now, if you're talking WOT for 50 mile runs on an OPTI-POP, good luck. Then their's this equation, 70 mph for 60 miles one way = 120 miles round trip = approx 40 - 60 gallons of gas @ $3.5 = $150 - $200 per trip.

What I described was a Motor Guide. When he gets a quote to have it repaired and he already says he doesn't like it, it will probably help convence him it's time to buy another one. If not handy with tools or have the tools, personnally repairing it is probably going to be beyound his capabilities anyway. I usually bend at least one every year or two, so I keep a spare upper and lower shaft and it's no big deal to replace them.

Well, again not quit right. First the mixture screw on most all modern day motors is for idle only, has nothing to do with midrange or WOT mixture, which is where you melt pistons The direction you turn the screw has nothing to do with the type motor, stickly the type carburator. If it's an air bleed carburator, meaning the screw is controlling the vacuum, then as you turn the screw out CCW it makes the idle learner. If it's a fuel control carburator turning the screw out CCW makes the carburator idle richer. For instance, 92 - 95 200 hp Johnson ran Air bleed carbs with idle adjustment screws and CCW made them idel leaner, 96 and later ran fuel adjusted idle adjustments screws and CCW made them idle richer. Again though, made no difference with anything other than idle mixture, they would still melt a piston in a heartbeat if you have the wrong main jets in one, I've got at least a dozen pistons that will prove that point.

Nice boat, good storage room and fairly fast. I still have my 285 Pro and when I got my 20' Javelin, I didn't have enough room in it to put everything I had in the 285 Pro. I would be sure to get it with the 150. Several years back, they drop the HP rating from 175 to 150 and I would have prefered it been 200. They have also lightend the hull and I've never been in one with a the 150 motor (mine is over 300 hp) and I feel the 150 will make a nice motor, I don't think I would want it with less. If you are into dialing a setup in, you could probably get it running 70 with a light load.

Catt, ya'll have come up with some wrong info somewhere, adding more oil, heavier oil, anykind of extra oil will do nothing toward making a motor run any richer if it's lean. More oil will only add to the problem and cause increased carbon buildup. More oil will make the piston hold more heat and heat is what causes one to melt.

Many dealers will usually have the upper and lower shafts in stock. If the upper shaft is bent also you have a job. The pop rivets holding the upper shaft can be a pain to get out, if not careful you will break the plastic or drill the hole too large. You will need to completely disassembe the motor, being sure to mark the wires and pull the head off the motor. I grind the pop rivets off from inside the shaft a pull them out. Drilling the heads off, sometimes the bit will run off and down into your plastic. You will also have to mark and drill holes in the replacement and come up with the right size pop rivets. I drill and tap mine for 8-32 screws and go back with screws, but that's not easy either.

I think you will find that it has a 20 amp rectifer with no regulator. I posted what I thought about those charging system on anything less than a 35 amp charging system and was told (excuse me, it was implied) I was FOS. StayNcharge says he has a 90 day unconditional money back guarantee. Try your boat for several trips and do a voltage reading with a digital meter on your cranking and TM batteries and record it at the end of the trips. A fully charged battery will read 12.6 o 12.8 VDC, depending on the battery. You need to fully charge yours, after aboutr five minutes of running your TM on the lake to knock the surface charge off take a voltage reading to determine your full charge voltage. A fully discharged battery will read approx 11.4 VDC but you should try to never run down past 12.0 VDC for longer battery life. Install the StayNcharge, make several trips and take a voltage reading on your batteries after using it. See if there is any significant increase in voltage. Unless you do a whole lot more riding than fishing, I'm pretty sure what the results will be.

If the motor has idled before looking at the plugs, you're wasting your time. To get an accurate reading you need to run the motor at WOT for a few minutes (on the lake of course) and then cut the switch off or pull the emergency kill while still holding motor wide open. Then pull the plugs and look at them. As mentioned, on a carburated or normal fuel injected motor they are going to be about the color of a brown paper bag, maybe just a touch lighter. On DFI motors they will be a lot lighter because being computer controlled, the fuel mixture is much more precise. All motors are going to darken the plugs when idled. Acutally going heavier on the oil does nothing for lean or rich, it can actually add to helping a lean motor melt a piston because the extra oil tends to make the piston hold more heat and melt quicker. Plus it greatly adds to the carbon buildup in the motor.

As you suggested, premix the first tank, you should always do this when you mess with your oil injection, provided it's not a DFI motor. With DFI motors the fuel does not go through the crankcase so premixing does no good. If you get an oil alarm, and it's not DFI, don't worry about it, it should clear in a short time and it's not hurting the motor. If fell you need to run a transome saver, leave it up like you have it, that places the motor closer to it's balance point. Also when bring the motor down onto transome saver, keep triming it down until the two trim cylinder rods are fully retracted and you hear the pump motor just start to change tune and you can tell the hydraulics has it held down. With the tilt cylinder rods extended like they are, the transome saver is basically doing nothing but riding back there, a hard bump and the motor can still bounce. I don't recommend putting a strap around the motor to hold the end of the transome saver either. First time you forget to remove it, it can get turned around and into the prop, screwing up the prop and the TS. At least without the strap, you only loose the TS. Properly cinched down, it will not come out going down the highway. Don't mess with those black motors much and don't know of any bleeder system. Safest bet is just to premix a tank after working on it. That way if an air pocket is traped in there somewhere, it will pass through without causing an "OH CRAP" response if the oil warning goes off.

Might I ask what size motor that was you only put six gallons of gas in the boat for? My guage would never come off empty with just six gallons (48 gallon tank) and my motor would run about 20 minutes on six gallons. Most V-6 outboards can burn 18 - 20 gallons per hour. I usually put in 30 gallons for a two day fishing trip and fill it up if I know I'm going to be doing a lot of running. Sometimes we will go 30 miles before we wet a hook. I just realized, at todays gas prices, it cost a over dollar a minute just to drive the boat.

Well, I started to repsond, but decided it's just not worth it. Just couldn't find in my post where I mentioned your system or anyone elses other than the "ProMariner" in "MY" boat. Ya'll have a great day.

If you have a Northern Tools store near you, they have the asles in stock but I think about 2 1/2" drop is all they carry. If you could find a 4" or 6" drop it would make a world of difference but before getting too excited about using a droped axle, trim your motor down with the trailer level and see how much clearance you have from the bottom of the skegg to the ground. I personnally would be a little uneasy about not having enough clearance that I could not trim the motor all the way down on the trailer. Eventually, you would make a mistake and break the skegg off and damage your prop. That would totally ruin your day.