Way2slow

Depending on the size of your charging system, determins if you would gain anything by trying to charge you TM batteries with your outboard. Some of the newer V6's have gone to 60 amp charging systems because the manufactors finally realized the modern bass boats uses lots of battery power. A 60 amp charging system would probably keep the cranking battery charged and put some into your TM batteries if you made fairly long runs. For several years the standard big charging system has been about 35 amps. This will usually keep up with the cranking battery if you make long runs, but will probably not put much into the TM batteries. Anything smaller than a 35 amp charging system, it would be a total waste of money to install a system that charges you TM batteries from the motors charging system. Not unless you did more running than you did fishing. Unless your running one of the big V-6's don't plan on your motor having a 35 amp system unless its fairly new and says it has. Most of your older and V4 or smaller motors only had about a 16 amp charging system and those won't even keep the cranking battery charged during a days use. On the average, when your big tournament bass fishermen come in for the day, their cranking battery is about 80% charged and is charged by their onboard charger every night along with their TM batteries. My boat has a 225 Evinrude with a 35 amp charging system. My ProMariner ProTourny 300 onboard charger will charge the TM batteries from the motors charging system once the cranking battery has reached full charged. I also have a Battery Discharge Indicator on the front deck monitoring my TM batteries and I don't think I've ever seen it gain any charge during my normal fishing day where the motor has charged the TM batteries. To answer your question, there are a number of systems out there made to charge your TM batteries from the motors charging system. It's just they are usually worthless because the motor can't keep up with the cranking battery, much less the TM batteries also.

Yes, battery needs to be fully charged to properly check it. Even if it were fused, which it's not, fuses make no difference in this case. Fuses only protect against current overloads, not voltage spikes. No, your motor does not have an altinator. If it has a tach and the tach works fine, that narrows it down to a bad battery, possilbly bad/dirty connections, or the regulator. I haven't bought a Merc regulator in a long time but you can figure close to $200 for the part and $100 - $150 labor to check and replace it.

LaurasDad, Your post is why I've stayed away from this site for a long time and don't post much on these types of topics anymore. I made a general statement and you make it sound like I was talking directly to you. I have read a number of post where people have had problems with their BPS chargers. I've also read post of people having problems with the DualPro, the Minnkota, their Quest and their ProMariners. I've even had one of my PM PT300's go bad. That's what warrenties and customer service is for. When my PM broke, I had a brand new one at my door the next day. I'm sure BPS provided similar support. I've heard people say when their DualPro's went out, they had new one the next day. If the DualPro didn't fail, you would not have been able to buy a rebuilt one at a discount and save those bucks. My statement was more aimed at most anything you see on hear, a couple of people post they had a problem with something and half the internet makes it sound like it's junk. My number one phrase to my customers is just because it's new, don't mean it's good, we get bad new s***t all the time. With more and more of this stuff coming out of China, puts even more truth to it.

I'll try to make it simple Take battery out of boat, run something, a tie wrap, piece of wire, anything, through the eyelets of each lead as you disconnect them and cinch it to keep all leads together for each terminal Charge battery, let it sit 24 hours and take it to a place that sells batteries and can test it for you. Be sure to let it set at least 24 hour or they may get a false reading as a good battery. If by some chance the battery test good, have them clean the terminals with their terminal brush. Clean all the terminals in boat with a water/baking soda mix and wire brush until they are all clean metal, no green or white residue on anything. Reinstall battery, after reconnecting all the terminals good and tight, spray them with some Battery Saver/Protectant. Now you need to put it on a set of muffs, bring the rpm up to about 2,000 and check the voltage across the battery terminals with a DVM. You need at least 13.8 min and should read 14.4 to 14.6 VDC. If you are not sure about doing this step, you should take it to a shop and have it checked. Just understand, this is the start of their bussy season and it may be their a couple of weeks. Also make sure you have about $500 minimum in your piggy bank if it's not charging and don't be surpised if it ain't a whole lot more. Actually, it's about a 90% chance you battery is bad and more like a 50% chance you have blown the rectifier/requlator with the bad battery. Not many boat motors run altinators, they run stators mounted under the flywheel, energized by magnets in the flywheel and then recitified to DC by the rectifier and regulated 14 or so volts by the regulator. With most of the newer motors, the rectifier and regulator are all one unit. Some of the smaller and older motors didn't run regulators.

Let me just say if haven't blown it already, you keep that crap up and you most definitly will!!!! First the arc created by connecting jumper cables can spike a regulator and blow it. Second, the charging system in a boat ain't as robust as in your vehicle (which most of your newer vehicle altinators can't handle what you're doing either) and you can very easily burn out your stator and or, rectifier/requlator trying to charge a dead battery with them. That's only about a $1,000 repair bill if it gets both. Take the battery out of the boat, charge it, test it or have it tested. If it's one you've let sit in there all winter, most likely it's junk anyway and go ahead a buy a new one. The new battery is much cheaper than any part of the charging system you're trying to destroy. To check and see if it's charging, with a known good battery in the boat, run the motor at approx 2,000 rpm, read across the battery with a digital voltmeter and see if you're getting over 13.8 volts and less than 14.6 Oh, and while you're doing this, clean everything with baking soda and a wire brush to get all metal connections nice and bright before putting it back together. Then get you some of that protective spary and makes every look red and spray hell out off all the connections back there.

NOMALLY, Smart and Intilli chargers have have a three stage charge cycle stage one, Fast charge Stage two, Absorption charge Stage three, Float charge or maintenance charge Easiest way to tell if it is going into a float mode is to leave it on and connected after it has finished charging. 24 hours later check the battery with a digital voltmeter. The ideal float voltage for most deep cycle batteries is approx 13.2 VDC. If the battery is still showing close to this, then the charger is in a float mode. If the battery has dropped back to 12.6 - 12.8 VDC, then it's not going into a float mode and there would be no reason to leave it connected.

10 amps is your best setting for a battery that's in the 100 amp hour range (85 - 130). Some will say to use the 2 amp setting but that's actually too low. Just about all battery manufactors recommend a charge rate of 10% of the Ah capacity. The reason is you want producing a reasonable amount of gas bubbles as it charging. This is required to keep the electrolite properly mixed in the battery. Extremely low charge rates can cause a battery to stratify. You can go actually go much higher than 10% up to 80% charge to get it charged back in a hurry but I needs to be cut back to 10% to finish it off. A good smart charger/Intili charger does this for you and is the best way to charge your battery. Most will have a mainenance/float mode they drop into when fully charged and can be left on the battery 24/7. If your charger is the Vector High Frequency Intilli charger, you have a good charger and should be left on the battery 24/7 while not using the battery, that's what's it's designed for. That's also why it charges so fast. It can charge a battery in three hours that your old automatic chargers will take eight hours, and it's better for the battery than those cheap automatics. While keeping it on batteries for a maintenance charge, you can have several batteries in parallel and it will keep all them up.

For years I have run nothing but ProMariner's ProTourny 300's and wouldn't have anything else. However, ain't no way ya gonna get that charger for $130. Kinda strange all the negatives about the BPS charger and yet they say get a ProSport when they both basically went down the same assembly line. I think a lot of that is caused by the internet. A couple of people get on here and complain, 30,000 more read their complaints and knowing nothing about the product other than what the couple that complained posted get on here and make it sound like the product is pure junk. However, the million good ones you never hear about because they have no reason to get on hear and say anything about them. If one with a good one did say it was a good product, the 30,000 would bash him to pieces, because they "read" two or three post where they were no good. I think instead of "smart" I think he meant "on demand" charging. The ProMariner (and BPS) chargers transfer their charge rate to the battery needing charged. For instance, if you cranking battery charged in a 1/2 hour, and the others were still charging, the amperage for the cranking battery would be transfered to the others. Basically what this does is change your charger from a three bank, five amp charger to a two bank, 7 1/2 amp charger. Plus with their charging technology, they will still charge about as fast as most 10 amp chargers.

Actually, you should never file a set of points, works in an emergency but if you file them, you should replace them as soon as possilble. Most point files are still too course and leaves scrathes in the platnum surface, if they are pitted or have a burr, replace them. Points will get an oxidized glaze over them when let set for a long time and you can "clean" that off but not with a file.

To set the points, sometimes they have an access port in the flywheel. It will a thin metal cover hold in place by one, sometimes two screws. You use a burnishing tool, which most likely you won't have to clean them. A second option is fine emory cloth. If you can't come up with that, use a match book. Then gap them so a .020" feeler guage slides smoothly through them without moving them but has a slight drag on it.

The first thing I would do is clean the carb. Second would be to clean an gap the points Since it does start, it's probably the carb, easy way to check that is to spray a mist of premixed gas into the carb and see if you can keep it running.

My personal preference is the ones with caps you add water. Reason being, the sealed battery normally will not have the same Ah capacity as the same size in the ones with caps. This is because they have make more room for additional electrolite and to do this, they have to reduce plate size. The sealed batteries usually won't give life because the water loss can't be replaced. With the newer venting technology, they are much closer than the older batteries. I also like being able to use a hydrometer and seeing exactly what my cells look like. If you are going to running in salt water, it's much safer to give up that extra capacity for the sealed battery. Salt water and electrolite make a deadly combination when mixed.

Look at the end of the Quicksilver, Supertech thread.

If you want a cheap one that gives you a couple of season's, those big yellow Wal-Mart batteries are ok. If you want a pretty good one, get a Trojan. Just realize you can buy two walley world batteries for what one Trojan cost but if you take care of it, the Trojan will out live three walley world batteries. If you don't properly care for your batteries, buy the Walley world's, because no battery is going to last.

If you have never decarbed it, it's best to do the first one with something like Evinrude/Johnson Engine Tuner. I would get two cans to do 1st decarb on 3 or 4 cylinder motors and three cans to do a V-6. Carburated two strokes are no problem, DFI two strokes and four strokes (Evinrudes, Opti-Max, Verado's etc) are a bit more complicated, on those follow the manufactors recommended procedure and their recommended products. On your carburated two strokes, run it on the hose in in a tank for five or 10 minutes to get it warm, give it gas and start spraying the decarb in each carb at the same time, keep enough decarb going into the carbs so you can give it pretty good throttle without over reving motor (approx 1,500 - 2,000 rpm), as you get about 2/3's of the can in it, start backing off the throttle and loading it up with decarb until it stalls the motor with the rest of the can. Let it sit overnight and do the same thing the next day with the second can. After this, take a new set of plugs with you to the lake, and run it WOT for about five minutes. Install your new plugs and go fishing. With a V-6 run the whole can throught it and use 1/2 a second can to choke it down. From that point on, if you run it on a constant diet of a carbon guard like SeaFoam and a double dose every fifty hours or so and a good grade oil it should stay pretty clean. I only do this type of a decarb once a year but I put about 200 hours a year on my motor. Oops, I'm sorry, all TCW-3 oils are suppose to be the same so the grade oil doesn't matter. Even though they are "all suppose to be the same" if the manufactors brand recommended for your motor or 100% Penzoil Synthec which is about as good of a generic brand as you can get, your motor will be much happier. For the most part, it's not large chuncks of carbon, it's carbon granuals about like sand. Over time enough of them actually get imbedded into the side of the piston above the top ring that it makes a big grinding stone inside you motor. I've seen properly cared for motors with 2,000 hours that had less wear and a whole lot cleaner pistons than motors with 800 hours. Also note, this is my procedure, which is a little more extreme than the can recommends but I find on a dirty motor, the cans recommendation is not enough. They assume you are doing it on a reqular basis.

No, that's not true, it's made for Wal-mart by Penzoil. Big difference. If you like it, and can buy it for a $3 a gallon, congratulations, you just saved about $20 a gallon over what I pay for oil. I guess there is just $21 a gallon more profit built into it what I buy since all TCW-3 oils are the same. Ya'll have fun and enjoy your fishing.

Well, I think that's pretty much the reason for using any brand probuct. If the price is competitive (actually the SeaFoam is cheaper than most) and it does the job I want it to do, I not one to try to fixing what ain't broke. Go over to Scream and fly technical forum and do a SeaFoam search there, you will see I not just blowing smoke because "I" like the product, just about every high performance boater and race engine builder on that site feels pretty much the same way I do. You see, I don't just mess with motors, I'm a pretty well known and respected builder (just not on this site, too many other experts) of some very stong high performance outboards. Mainly Johnson/Evinrudes motors that easily make 350 - 400 horse power and some turning over 9,000 rpm. I said I wasn't going to get into anymore of these ticking contest what's better and what's not, that's why I don't get into battery discussions anymore. I did get drawn into one, to my regret the other day, but that ain't gonna happen again. To give you a short explaination of why not cheap oil. Most don't have the carbon reducing additives and cleaning additives the quality oils have. Many actually increase carbon buildup. Carbon is very hard, and buildups on the pistons will start to flake off and get between the piston and the cylinder walls. Carbon makes a great grinding compound when it get's against metal. Pull and old motor down and see all the vertical wear lines, that's not from the rings, thats from where carbon has ground the cylinder away. Even with good oil, you should decarb a motor every 50 hours. Then there's the oil buidup. Oil builds up in the ring groves and around and over time the heat of the engine bakes it into a thick tar like substance, pretty much glueing the rings to the piston. Good oils have the additives to help keep the rings and groves clean this buildup doesn't happen. SeaFoam does a great job at doing both of these also and every 50 hours I just add two ounces per gallon for one tank. Like I said from the start though, I don't want someone telling me what I should be running or how I should be running my equipment and I dang sure ain't gonna try and tell someone else how they should do theirs. I Just suggested what I would do if it was mine.

If you're refering to over the counter additives you add, the only one I use is SeaFoam, it keeps the motor and injectors clean, and also does a pretty good job as a fuel stabalizer, though I don't use it for that. I don't run gas in may boat that's over two months old, don't care what any stabalizer claims. Why do I like SeaFoam, because it works, plain and simple and have no reason to try anything else. I buy it by the case and I mix one ounce per gallon for every gallon of gas that goes through my boat motors. Every couple of months, I pour a can in the gas tanks of all my vehicles. Now if your talking about what the suppliers are putting in their tanks, who knows, I have very little respect for the junk we are getting now. I only buy major brands, BP, Chevron, Exxon etc, but even then, I've gotten bad gas so don't have much to say about that. Again though, if you see what some automobile engines look like that have lived on cheap, offbrand gas, you would see why I buy the name brand. Additives make all the difference in the world. Yep, it all comes out of the same pipeline, but the tanker station mixes it to the brand it being sold as. You can see a BP tanker dumping fuel in a Raceway, but don't think for a minute it's the same fuel you get at BP. Chevron may make 15 brands of two stroke oil, but the additives that goes in are specific to that brand, they are not all the same, just because Chevron refines and bottles it.

I'm kinda go with the idea it's your motor and you can run anything you want in it. With my motor, I can run anything I please also, and you could not pay me to run those discount oils. There is no comparison to the quality of SuperTech to QuickSilver. The only non motor manufactors brand oil I will run is Penziol 100% synthetic. Just because the oil is TCW III, doesn't mean they are all created equal, like gasoline, additives have a whole lot to do with the price/quality but not going to get into this one either. I've seen the inside of enough motors running cheap oil and good oil to know which I willl always run in my motor and that's all that matters to me.

The best make/brand motor is the one that don't break while you own it, which is something any of them can do. Every make has their demons. The new Evinrude E-tecs are the hot item right now, but that don't mean they don't break. Go to one of the major B.A.S.S. tournaments on one of the maga size lakes and you will see the factory guys for all makes swapping out power heads. I saw Yamaha and Mercury run out of power heads at on of the big lakes once and Evinrude only swapped out two I have a friend that fishes the FLW and is sponsored by Ranger and Evinrude and Evinrude put three new powerheads on his boat this past season. He just got his new boat so looking forward to see this motor holds up.

You turn that receiver over on most 4WD vehicles and you will have that tounge 2 feet off the ground. I run a 6 inch drop on my 4WD chevy pickup. If it's a new boat/trailer, hopefully you have a dealer that keeps up with those types of things and will have the manufactors recommended tounge height. If not, go with what the other's have recommended, level or slight drop at the hitch. Try to avoid towing with the higher than level, this will usually make the trailer sway back and forth.

First things first. look in carbs, open the throttle wide open (without the motor running) and make sure the butterflys are opening fully and not goint too far open and moving past center. I've seen this to be the problem more than a few times. What kind of shape is your prop in, if it's beat and banged, good chance that may be your problem. Even if it looks good, check it closely, I've seen rolled edges that looked fine at first glance. I had a friend that swapped out his 150 Merc powerhead, just to find the new one didn't run any better than his old one. Cost him $2,800 to find he had a bad prop. Do a compression/leakdown test. Then do a serios decarb on it. May be as simple as the speedo not reading what it used to read. As for a rebuild, I would get a remained power head, you will get a much better warrenty than any shop is going to give you for doing yours. If you can turn a wrench, they are very easy to swap out.

Last post and I'm out of this one. I said a long time ago I was not getting into anymore battery type discussions and here I am. Shame on me. In the space shuttle, and tank or any other piece of military or FAA piece of equipment you are 100% correct, you would never solder a crimped connector, but in a fishing boat, there are other elements that come into play. I've seen a whole lot of crimped connections go bad from corrosion getting into them that I've never seen happen with one that's properly soldered, and I've never seen one break from vibration. That kind of vibration in a boat would cause a whole lot more to come apart than a soldered crimp connection, especially on something the size of a #10 wire. Add to that, very few people are going to have a $700 GreenLeaf crimper to properly crimp connectors that size, for the current they handle, it's added insurance of a solid connection. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I always have and always will solder mine in my boats and after 40 something years of doing it, I've never had one break. Not too sure about just how much you know, when you look at the current ratings of different types of #6 wire. Goodbye, dam I should have never gotten into this.

Yep, back when they first came out with those things, I bought one. Didn't take long to figure out what I already knew. If fishing more than 10 feet deep in stained water, use a dark lure, if fishing shallow, use a ligh colored lure. In between, use shades inbetween. Still have that thing around here somewhere.

Go by a automotive paint supply store and get you some 3M Hand Glaze (not the Machine Glaze) and follow the directions on the bottle. I will look brand new when done.