Way2slow

not just any 90W. Has to be GL-5. Get 100% synthetic in an 85 - 90 or a similar viscositly.

LBH, You need to get a second job or fish more, you have way to much idle time on your hands.

Don't spend a lot of money on one. Fishing shallow water, about the only usefull info you will get is the deth and occassional stump/tree top and creek bed. Don't need super high resolution or much in the way of bells and wistles for a pond boat. I've got a number of very good LCD's, a new x87 and two x75's that have been sitting on a shelf behind me for almost a year and I still use my 30 year old 30' flasher in my pond jon, and have no plans to change it.

On the top face of each head, just above numbers 1 and 2 sparkplug, there is a cover held on by four bolts, the T-Stats are under each of those covers. There is also a popet valve and spring under each of those covers. Also note, the rubber seal is split and covers the edge so it wraps around the edge of the flange so there is rubber on top and bottom of the flange. I see a lot of them where people don't realize this and try to just put it under it. You will need new gaskets, T-Stats and seals. Might want to check yours by heating them up in water with a candy thermometer, if I remember right they should start to open at about 120 - 130 degrees and fully open by 160, then again it may have been 110 and fully open by 130, been a long time. Those things are rather expensive for a little T-Stat.

You can get a tube of lube from a dealer at some rediculous price or go to you local auto parts store and get a quart of Penzoil 100% synthetic gear lube, something like 85 - 90. If you don't get the synthetic, make sure it's rated at GL-5 specs.

My methods is about like senile1. I leave the winch hooked, back it in until the back just starts to float. Depending on how far I had to back it, I either climb in to the back of the truck and over the tailgate to the boat or just onto the trailer and into the boat, unhooking the winch strap on the way. I then crank the motor and back it off the trailer, pull the boat up to the bank and park the truck. I have used the rope method but invariably, you pull the boat up hard on the concrete ramp and it don't take long to eat the bow out doing that.

Might want to check state laws. I know here in GA, they have laws as to how close you can come to another boat and you are also responsible for your wake. Now, the idle by thing, just depends on what you consider an idle, kinda like the NO-WAKE zones. It seems a lot of people consider idleing or no wake to be when the boat is off plane but plowing as hard as it can just before laying over and getting on plane, leaving six foot rollers behind them. Personnaly, I had rather a boat come by me at 70 mph in a narrow channel than at 20. A boat wide open, on plane is only going to make a small, quick bumps for a wake. A slow boat is going to rock you all over the place. Kinda like which had you rather deal with, a Tunnel hull F1 wake or a barge. If there's enough room I can go by with a safe distance from the bank and them, a 100+ ft or more from the other boat, I keep up a safe speed, if not, I drop down and idle (that's 700 rpm idle) past them.

Might want to have the dealer connect the computer to it and see why, just to be on the safe side. It should have stored the fault code that caused the alarm. May have been a small air pocket in the oil system, may have just been a sensor acting up. Won't know until they get the fault code.

Both units are good units quality wise. Both units have always basically gone after two different makets. In the past Hummingbird as always gone after the enty level market with the lower and mid level units and on their upper end models give up screen resolution for more sophisticated electronics like 3-D and wider view angles. Lowrance doesn't go for the entry level units as much and only with their Eagle line. It has only been in the past few years Hummingbird has started putting LCD's in their units that have very good resolutions. Look at the features they both offer and see which features you feel most suits your needs. I've always prefered the high resolutions Lowrance offers over the super wide angle and 3-D graphics Humminbird offered. I have to admit though, that new unit HB has is mighty impressive and would luv for one of my friends to buy one so I can see it in action, so I could decide if I wanted to buy one.

In it's day, it was one of the best, was considered up there close to a Ranger. I had a couple of them back then. My brother still has one of my old ones. As with any boat that age, if has to be checked closely for rot. $900 is way too much for it though. If the transom and floor check out sound, $500 is the absolute max I would pay with a bad motor and would have a hard time wanting to pay that. That old of a motor is only worth a little over scrap metal price. Very good chance the steering cables are rusted up, control cables might also need replacing. You will easily have a couple of $K spent on it by the time you get back to a fishable boat (as menitoned, that's provided it's structurly sound). You can probably buy another good running, older motor, much cheaper than you can rebuild that one. Even if you can build it yourself, just boring with new pistons rings, and gaskets will cost you close to $1,000 retail for the parts. That's provided all the bearings and crank are good and reusable. Forgot to mention, it is also among the narrower Bomber style boats, Not quit as narrow as the Bomber not a big wide boat like the newer bass boats

As LBH stated, it's only to protect the prop, just be carefull in shallow water. I wouldn't try to have it welded, the motor would have to be taken completely apart and the magnets removed, just not worth it. For $10 and it runs good, you got a good deal, keep it that way.

Bow weight has a tremendous affact of trim. If the guy before you had it dialed in, I doubt that changing the height is going to do anything for you. To answer your questions though: The lower the rooster tail the better, should not be any higher than the top of motor if set up properly. The higher the rooster tail, the more force the motor the motor is applying in a downward direction and not in the forward direction. How to adjust the jackplate. There are a few key factors you watch for. Number one is the water pressure. The water pressure should NEVER drop below the factories recommended minimum pressure when at WOT with motor trimed out or in turns. The next is to watch the tach and speedometer, if the RPM's increase and the speed doesn't, it's too high or motor is trimed up too high. Number three is pay attention to you bow lift, if you loose bow lift after adjusting, it's too high. Once you reach any of these conditions, it's recommended you drop the motor back down 1/2" If your weight is rather significant more than the previous owner, you may have to look into a different prop that has more lift and/or more offset in the motor. Another thing you might be running into is the load balance in the boat. With just you in the boat, it may be wanting to run mainly on the starboard side and not centered on the pad. This will also kill a lot of lift. The "sweet spot" is going to be when have good bow lift, minimum rooster tail and most likely not have the motor trimed out to the max. When right, you should be able to overtrim the motor and make it cavitate. When it does this, you can hear the motor change sounds, feel the boat/steering change and the rpms jump up a few hundred rpm but the boat speed does not increase, may actually decrease a little. Finding the sweet spot can be time consuming and expensive. It's done by playing with setback, props, engine height and load balance. Once thing that helps a bunch is talking to other people with a boat and motor like yours, knows what they are talking about and have gotten theirs dialed in.

Not while fishing but did while crabbing. In 1966 I was working a crab trap off the pier at Panama City Beach Fl, when I pulled up a drowned man. The man had been missing about 30 minutes and search boats had just showed up to start looking for him a couple of hundreds yards up the beach when I pulled him up.

As always, depends on who you ask. I've never run anything but MG's and have run nothing but the variable speed (similar to MK's maximizer) units since they came out. The only complaint I've ever had with the MG's was the amount of work it took to get the RFI they radiated from screwing up the LCD display. I'm just before ordering the MG 82# digital and as in the past, MG is the only TM I would even consider hanging on the front of my boat. A few people can have a problem with a product and with the internet, those few can make it spread like that product is the biggest piece of junk made. The other 95% that don't have a problem, you never hear anything out of them.

I would also recommend sticking with a Garmin, and don't waste your money on anything made by Magellan. I only have one hand held, and it's a Megellan. About all it's good for is checking the speed of boats and that's all I use if for. My brother uses this one and likes it http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap76csx/. Just stick with one that has the expandable memory using SD cards or similar. Just having the internal memory will limit it's coverage if you want to use it as a vehicle gps also. One thing you're gonna find out though, the chances of plotting fishing spots from a map and then going to them is going to be a little harder than you think, unless you have some very good maps. Being off several seconds can put you a long way from where you wanted to be.

Get the Tandom, don't let anyone talk you out of it. It tows a huge amount better. Contrary to others opinions, I find they are easier to back. They don't take off in one direction or the other as quick. Get the brakes. Tires will last much longer on a tandom than a single axle. You are going to find the tow weight on that boat with your grear is going to be over 3,000 pounds. The tires are only rated for approx 1,750 pounds, that's approx 3500 total. I much prefer that extra set under that much load. Hull 1,700 batteries, 70 each times three 200 Motor 500 if four stroke is over 600 Gas, 40 gallons approx 300 trailer 700 Gear 100

It's taking an extremely long time to get into this site and move around to different forums. I've spent several minutes during the prime times at night and finally give up. Is this just the way the site is running and others having the same problem or is there a problem on my end? This is with DSL and a very fast computer with bunches of RAM.

One thing you might look at is a larger cranking battery, if you are not already running a BIG one. A couple of things are probably coming into play that can cause your problem. A very cold motor is going to be harder to spin over. A very cold battery is not going to have the cranking amps a warm battery has. Motor being harder to spin and amperage being lower causes the motor to spin slower and a big drop in cranking voltage. This cause a big drop in ignition output voltage, giving you a much weaker spark. The next problem is an extremely cold motor will have a tendency to be very lean when trying to start it. The air mass is much thicker but since they don't run mass air flow sensors and just using temp sensors they tend to be lean. A lean motor is much harder to start than a rich motor, add this to the fact the motor is spinning slower because it's cold and the ignition voltage is low because the motor is spinning slower, it all add up to a hard starting cold motor. This is one time your dual purpose batteries may be working against you. They don't have the long term surge power to really spin a cold motor. So, a very high MCA/CCA straight cranking battery might help get you started on those really cold mornings.

I use what ever I have handy, paper towels, rags, hands etc. you name it, I've probably used it. Don't don't use chemicals as someone has already mentioned. Even using windex, spray it on a soft cloth, not directly on the screen. If your's does not have the non glare screen, you can go to your local auto paint store and get you some 3M plastic polish and it will make it look brand new. If you do this to a non glare, I won't be non glare when you finish. Now, here's my secret formula. I go to Best Buy or some of the larger Office supply house that sell computers. I buy me a package of Fellows WriteRight universal screen protectors. These are the clear scratch guards made for touch screen PDA's etc. I cover the screen with those, that way I can wipe them with what ever I dang well please and when it gets too fuzzy, I pull those off and put new ones on. Screen stays like brand new. The package of Fellows will cost about $15 but have enough for several uses.

It just depends on who youi talk to. LBH says the best ones come from Portugal. Some say G-Loomis, some say St Croix, plus a few other brands and everybody has their own opinion on what line and reel works best on them. I think it all boils down the the person using them so LBH says take him along. Now, if you're talking about LCD sonar units, I like Lowrance and you couldn't give me a Garmin if I had to use it myself. Next person might not want nothing but a Garmin and couldn't give him a Lowrance. Reliability wise, they are all about the same. I know I've had a number of Lowrance units that the inside of the display has some condensation on them when the sun first hits them on a cool morning but not enough to make me quit using them. Find the one with the features you want and buy it. Just don't expect it to find fish for you. Other than on rare occassions, I've never seen one that could even remotely be considered a "FISH" finder when fishing for bass.

Sorry, not a big no no, just a big waste since gas does not go through the crankcase in the HPDI to lube the the crank. Kinda read over the HPDI part. In your case, just make sure you get it bled out good if you dump and clean the tank.

If I was going to switch, I would dump the tank. Dumping the tank should be done every couple of years anyway. Almost every one I've seen seems to accumulate water in them any way. I've seen more than one motor blown because the tank had so much water it sucked it into the oiling system. I've never heard of it causing a problem mixing them, I've done it tons of time premixing the gas/oil in the gas tank, but I always take the tank out, dump it and clean the screen when I change oils. As a safety precaution, anytime I do anything that opens the oiling system for the posibility of and air pocket, I add enough oil the the tank to premix the gas in the tank to a 50:1 ratio. This double oils the motor for that period of time but it insures an air bubble doesn't get hung up in the pump and cause a no oil situation in the motor.

I would not add much to the price for the motor. If that's what you are looking for in a jon I would figure about $800 and no more than $1000. I should say also, it's totally depending on what it's worth to you and how well it meets what you are looking for. If that's the exact boat you would like to have in a jon, it's worth just what you feel you would like to pay. The value is in the buyer, while it's not worth me hauling it home because it's useless to me, it may be worth $1,500 to you.

I don't like black but if I had to pick one of those two, it would have to be the OPTI-POP.

If it's gotta go on top a wagon, be care with the weight. A heavy guage 14' jon can get pretty darn heavy real quick. Just loading a 1436 in and out of the bed of a pickup and getting in and out of the water can be a job for one person. I'm not refering to it being too much weight on top of the vehicle, it's the having to get it up there by yourself. This is one time you might want to look for a cheap, light guage 12 ft jon or as mentioned, a canoe. I hauled and handled a 17' Grumman canoe by myself of the top of and old car for a bunch of years.