Way2slow

Don't know the boat but that sounds like a lot of prop for a 17.5 boat with a 75. Usually in that size setup I see more 15's and 17's, just depends on the hull and weight. If you were turning a 19" aluminum near max rpm you should be in good shape though, the stainless will usually give you 100 - 200 more rpm than the same pitch aluminum

It's a good, general purpose prop. Almost any prop is better than aluminum but as cart7 said, it's not a high perfomance prop. I've been running one for years on a 17 Stratos with a 115 merc and have never had any complaints other than it doesn't have the bow lift I would prefer but still pushes that old boat in the low 50's.

Check with the dealer and have him see what size the parts manual or service manual calls for. Don't depend on the Clymer to be accurate. As for why would it have the 30 in the place of a 20, if it indeed requires a 20, somebody might have blown them and figured if the 20 blew, maybe a 30 would work better. After all, it takes a lot more current to blow a 30, doesn't matter that 20 was protecting some high dollar electronics that could blow instread of the fuse the next time. What's even more fun is when see a big ball of fire back there where the wiring couldn't handle the extra 10 amps the fuse was protecting.

Avid, Look for the minutes reserve capacity. It doesn't matter what kind of battery it is, the way they rate that is the same for all types. If your Trojan has a 200 min RC, then a car battery with 100 min RC will run 1/2 as long. Like I said though, don't think I would go any smaller than 100 min RC, that's getting down pretty small. The problem you're going to be faced with, most car batteries only have CA and CCA listed which shows very little for your use. If they have a spec sheet, look for 100 - 120 min Reserve Capacity. If you can't come up with the RC rating, stick with 625 - 700 CCA, that should keep you in the ball park of what you're looking for. You should be able to find a 35 - 40 pound battery in that size. Yes, you can get maintenance free car batteries that are sealed so if you knock it over, it want let the acid pour out. If left laying on it's side it may leak. As for terminals, for a couple of bucks each, you can get terminals that go on the battery post and have a stud and wing nut on them to connect to. If you're running alligator clips, I would do away with them anyway and use eyelets. A TM that size can draw enough current to make those clips get red hot if you run very far on max. First time you grab one to unclip it after making a long, highspeed run back to the trailer and draw blisters, you will see what I'm talking about. Stratosdadri, Your are absolutely right, normally you should not use car batteries as a TM battery. The only real problem with doing this though is you only get about half life from a car battery from what you would with a deep cycle. My father-in-law had two different heart bypass surgeries and wasn't suppose to lift anything heavy. He loved to fish and fish lots of ponds so I gave him a little group 22 car battery that only weighed about 30 pounds he used for two years and never once had a problem with run time, but he could easily load and unload it.

In heavy, industrial use, the spiral wound batteries have not given anywhere near the service life stacked cell AGM have. I feel this is because the spiral wound does't have the room to expand like a staked cell as they age and short out much sooner. The reason the Optima's are lighter, they have less run time. You've got to decide if you want run time or less weight, can't have both. If you buy a flooded cell battery with the same run time as the AGM, it's not going to be that much heavier, and cost about half as much. Now, if this is a short term thing, I would buy me a small, cheap car battery and use it. It's life span will only be about half that of a Deep cycle but once your shoulder's better, you won't need it anyway. Even a lot of the cheap batteries have a 12 month free replacement so if you kill it in six, they don't have to know you was using it for a deep cycle, just swap it for a new one. $45 is a lot easier to throw away than $145. Find you a battery with approx 100 minutes reserve capacity, that's going to be about half the battery as your Trojan and about half the weight. If you feel you can carry a little more weight than that, get one with a little more reserve. Just pick out one you feel you can safely handle, don't have to be a deep cycle. The deep cycle is just for longer life under deep discharges, if this is a temporary thing, you could care less about that.

Yep, forgot the mention jackplate, that's a must have, along with hydraulic steering and Hot Foot. I personnaly wouldn't go larger than #80 tm, don't feel it's needed for that size boat. Plus when you get into the 36 volt systems you've got to have another 70 pounds or so added for another battery or have to share the cranking battery with the TM, something I"m not fond of doing at all. Plus that's a whole lot more bow weight stuck up there for that size boat. I'd leave those monster TM motors for the 21' boats with the 250's and 300's on the back. An 80 is going to be a heavy motor to ride on the bow of a 19.5' boat, get much weight in your storage compartments, a couple of people with a full live well and you will have a hard time getting good bow lift.

Get a 200 hp motor and if you can swing it, get the E-Tec. I know it's a big chunk extra up front, but it sure makes all those trips to the lake a lot more pleasant when you find out how much less is cost to run it and their warrenty is hard to beat. Since you will probably be paying for the thing a long time, you're gonna want all the motor warrenty to can get. Also, look at the options, if it doesn't come with gas springs on the battery box and rod locker lids, get them. Also get the 80 #thrust variable speed TM and three bank onboard charger. Rod storage systems I think are a pain and take them out if intalled but to each his own on that subject. I know it's exciting getting a first class ride that but can't help feeling for you though, that's gonna be a lot of boat payments. (I only buy used boats at auction I can pay cash for) Causes me more work to get it like I want it but saves me thousands of dollars.

Deka makes a group 22NF thats about half the capacity and weight of your Trojan. It's their Sea Mate (AGM Line for marine use) model number 8A22NFM has a 55 Ah rating at 20 hours or a 90 min RC and weighs 38.5 pounds. This would probably run you the time you're speaking of as long as you realize it's half the battery as your Trojan and don't try making full thrust runs for any length. I think if you go any smaller than this and you will not have the run time you want. Deka is a good battery and is going to still be a little expensive. You're not going to beat a Trojan but they are the next level down. I would prefer them over the Optima spiral wounds any day of the week. I have no use for Spiral Wound AGM's. If you was close to Macon, I could get you one wholesale and save you a big chunk of money. I don't buy many of their small batteries but in their industrial batteries I get approx a 50% discount off list. Since I bashed the Optima, I'm sure there will be comebacks and after many years dealing with them I have my reasons but this is the only post I will make on the subject.

I have pulled the cables out of the motor, mixed brake fluid and automatic transmission fluid (makes a pretty good penetrating oil) and kept working that into the motor end of the cable and freed them but that usually a lot of work and only a short term cure. On most boats, to get the cables out of the motor, the motor has to come off. I would guess its been six or seven years since cart7 bought cables. I bought some for 13' five years ago for my Stratos and they were $110 each, bought some for a friends three years ago and they were $130 each so at that rate, they are probably $150 each (or more) now. If you have dual cables, now would be a good time to look at adding hydrualic streering. Depending on the boat, on some boats those cables can be a royal pain to change. On my Stratos, the starboard fuel tank and to come out (two tank system), the motor had to come off and they were anchored up inside the gunwalls in areas you couldn't reach and had to rip the hangers out.

I think Stratos has tested on Eri. They would run the boat as hard a abosuletly possible trying to destroy them. I've seen a driver having to dodge TM that acutally ripped loose from the mount. I personnaly couldn't figure out how the drivers could survive some of the testing they used to do, without busted spines and broken necks.

you can roughly divide the amps into the amp hour capacity of the battery. There are several other factors that play into this so you won't get the total time you get when you divide this. If you tried to run on max for an extended period of time, with a 32 amp load, the amp hour capacity of the battery would reduce by as much as 25 percent. If you just eased around, only pulling 5 - 10 amps, then you would get closer to what the math said. The heavier the load on a battery, the lower the amp hour capacity, that's why a lot of companies us a 20 hour rating, that lets them post big Ah capacity numbers. For the novis, minutes of reserve capacity is actually better when comparing batteries, that is always based on the same load for all manufactors. A 115 Ah 20 hour rating will probably only be a 75 - 80 Ah battery at a 3 hour rating. So, basically after all I said, if you plan to run on max, the whole time, plan on 2 hours unless you plan on running it down to nothing, then you might get 2 1/2. At a 10 amp load, figure on close to 10 hours. I guess I should also mention, this is based on a new or very good battery. As a battery ages, it looses capacity or if it's not properly charged and maintained.

One thing you might want to consider. Both motors run very high dollar oil. Unless the new Yammy's have changed, they burn a hellava lot more of it than the etecs. Fuel economy on the etec is suppose to be a little better also but reading diffferent comparison numbers, not sure there's truely enough difference to notice. I think both motors are suppose to be good motors, Yamaha's HPDI has been around longer than the e-Tec seems to have a good reputaton for now but for me, the jury is still out as far as how the reliability rates between the two. I know the 250 HPDI has a bad reputation about blowing but that's the only one of their motors I've heard anything about having any real problems. Personnaly, I would still go with the e-Tec, BRP pretty much worked all the gremlins out of their DFI motors before coming out with the etec.

For $1,000, your options are very limited, and it will probably not have "the works" on it that works. To find a glass or aluminum boat and motor of any size for that, it's going to be very old and with age comes a whole host of problems. You've pretty well limited yourself to smaller boats that are going to be somewhat unstable. Probably need to look for a 48" wide flat bottom jon, that's about as stable as you're gonna get in a small boat.

Go larger and you may actually run slower. With a boat set up perfectly, it still takes a certain amount of horse power for a boat to run any given speed. If a larger prop drops you below the peak horse power rpm of the motor, it's not going to run as fast and be a whole lot slower out of the hole. Many times I've seen guys running those big props thinking they were "speed" props, just go to install a smaller pitch prop and gain a couple of mph. What will usually give you the best performance from a boat/motor setup is get the setup right with a good stainless prop that is right on the redline or even one or two hundred rpm over the red line and then send that prop off and have it blue printed buy one of the better custom prop guys. That's not cheap, but ooooohhhhh what a difference it usually makes.

Like I mentioned though, watch out for the sales pitch. It's very common for them to slap a 40hp motor on the back of a 75 hp boat so it looks like they are selling you a lot of boat at a cheap price. However that's just it, they are selling you a lot of "boat" but with a motor that's too small to get much of any kind of a load up on plane with ease. Tracker's are the world champs at doing this.

Unless you plan to turn some major rpm, (over 6,800 on those merc reeds) don't waste your time or money. They make the motor idle a little better for the first couple of months (that is if you can get them to lay down to start with), then it actually idles worse than with the steel reeds. Some will swear there is a performance gain but that's just mind games. Any of the experts you talk to as well as many test independent builders have run show there really is no gain. They can't handle any lean spit, the back pressure will blow them right through the reed cages. I've got a couple of 3.0 Johnsons I play with, one I turn at approx 6,500, the other I turn approx 7,000, both make over 300 hp and I still run steel reeds in both. I've tried the Boysen's three different times over the years and they just prove to more trouble than they are worth. Also, I actaully think the motors run better on the steel reeds than the Boysen's. Now, you will hear all kinds of claims about them, most are from those that think they've mod'd their motor putting them in and think they make a difference, again though, too many of the professional engine builders claim otherwise. The only major benifit they offer is if you break a glass reed, it will usually pass on through the motor and not cause damage like a metal reed will. I've never seen a merc or johnnyrude turned less than 6,500 rpm break a steel reed.

Not totally useless if you have a very stiff neck and can't turn your head enough to see the angle of the motor when you get ready to start off. Other than that, really serves no purpose. Like cart7 said, I use it to check trim angle on motor to start off, I don't trim mine all the way in and other than that it's probably never looked at. The boat is driven by feel, not by the angle some little guage says the motor is at. If I need an extra hole for my EGT monitors or anything else, the trim guage is the first to come out.

You left out Monark, but any of them will make you a good boat. G3 only comes with a Yama motor since that is their line. Find one that fits your budget and don't down size the motor more than 10%-15% to help get the cost down. Get a smaller boat if needed to keep a reasonable size motor for the rated hp. If they are still making the things, don't get a Force motor to cut cost or buy a used boat with a Force. It takes about a 90 hp Force to give you the same power as a 60 hp Merc, JohnnyRude, or Yama.

Might want to make sure the manual release valve is closed. That the one in the side that you use a flat blade screwdriver through an access hole to turn. A manual would help you identify the valves but they are going to be behind those bolt head and allen screw plugs in the valve housing. There is no manual reset. One could have stuck open, broke a spring or you could have blown the packing in the cylinder.

Only dealing with 75 hp most any will work. How hard they are to adjust is the thing you want to look for. Can it be adjusted from inside the boat or do you have to put it on the trailer or get out in the water to loosen bolts to adjust it. Usually the cheaper they are the more of a pain in the butt they are to adjust. The size is determined by the boat manufactors warrenty (some don't allow any, those that do have a limit) and the amount of built in set back. About the most I've been able to put on a boat without changing out steering/control cables is 6 inches and even then it has them in a pretty hard bend. I've had some that I couldn't even get that much without changing the cables Detwiler and Right Height are two very strong units but probably a little heavier than you need, you can pick good used ones up for $150 or so.

Water will always come out of the P hole, with or without T-Stats. A controlled amount of water is bypassing them. this is to keep air pockets from developing inside the motor. If you get an air pocket, that lets a hot spot develope, this wll make any water that touch it turn to steam and the steam can actually push the rest of the water out of the motor, causing a serious over heat problem. That is also why it so important to maintant at least the minimum water pressure. Water boils/turns to stream at a much higher temperature pressure. Just like running a pressure cap on your radiator, let it go bad and you can have problems with the motor boiling over.

Actually, the tap sticking down would adjust to the right as you are looking at it from the back of the motor. He has already said he installed a skegg mounted torque tab, that will do a lot more than the tab on the back of the motor does. If the motor is up where it needs to be, most of time the one on the back of the motor does very because it's hardley even in the water at WOT. A lot of times you can take them off and they make no difference. I did however make the assumption if he knew enough to install a skegg tab, he knew enough to have already adjusted the motor's trim tab. May have been a bad assumption on my part though.

First off, you don't want to over fuse the wire you're going to use. With a 50 amp, you had better plan on using at least #8 wire. Second, I would not use a fuse. you can get manual and auto reset circuit breakers like these http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0001110011823a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&QueryText=circuit+breaker&N=4887&Ntk=Products&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=circuit+breaker&noImage=0 but if you check with a local marine dealer they should have some that have the extra tabs on them so they can be fastened directly to the battery.

Most any that has 240 or more pixels will do you. 320 or 480 would give better seperation and some of those can be bought at cheap prices. By the time you get where you can understand everything you are seeing, you will probably be ready for a better unit anyway. It's getting about time for them to start running some good deals on clearance models so if you start shopping around and wait about a month, you should be able to pick up a realy nice unit for well under $200, units that normally sell for $300 or more.

Don't waste your money of NFB steering. First quess is you are running your prop too deep. If you have a water pressure guage you can try raising the motor 1/2" and make sure the water pressure does not drop below factory minumum. Then start raising it 1/4" at a time. Four blade props will rip your arms off if they are too deep. Next would be bow lift, if your not getting enough bow lift. If the bow is running too deep, from too much weight or not enough lift. The wetter the hull runs, the more the steering torque.