Way2slow

A leakdown test is a method of checking percent of blow-by in the cylinder. It requires a special guage and a source of compressed air at 100 psi. The cylinder is brought to top dead center (I mean TDC exactly, if off to either side, when the air hits it, it will blow the piston down to BDC). The guage you use is basically a small manifold system with a hose that screws into the spark plug hole, with a .040" orfice in the center and calibrated guages on each side (the better ones have two guages, the cheaper only have one guage on the cylinder side) and a small regulator on the compressor side. You screw it into the plug hole, apply air to it and adjust the regulator so there's 100 psi on the compressor side of the tester. You then read the pressure on the cylinder side of the manifold and determine the percent of leakdown. 10% is about the max you want to see, with 3 - 5% being what a good motor will show. This is why you want the dual guage system that the guages are calibrated to read the same. Without that, you can be off several percent just by differences in guages. A leak down tester can cost $75 to over $100, just depends on who wants to make the most money and who uses the best guages. There is a guy (Balzy) on Scream and Fly that make and sells a very good guage for about $80.

I thought my explanation of doing a compression check was fairly detailed. In no way am I trying to be ugly or non helpful to you but I'm sorry, with your lack of knowledge, you should seriously consider having the boat checked out by a pro or someone very knowledgeable of what to look for in older boats and motors. It's very easy to drop your $1,000 right down the drain. At the same time if may be a great deal, but it takes a lot of boat/motor knowledge to determine that. There is no way I'm going to write you a book on everything you need to look for and go into every little detail on how to do that. It would actually be a book. Transom needs to be checked thoroughly, floor needs to be checked to ensure it's still bonded and not rotten. The bottom of hull needs to be checked for hook/bow from being trailered wrong. Steering cables need to be checked. Motor needs to checked, not just compression but complete powerhead, hydraulics if it has tilt/trim, lower unit etc. Most seats back then had wood frames, are they rotten? What seems like a $1000 boat can easily turn into a $5000 boat if it needs lots of repairs, or a $1000 boat thats not repairable and is junk. There is just no way to go into all the details for checking this stuff.

Do you walk tight ropes in you spare time? I have a 17 Grumman wide bodie cargo canoe. I have stabablizers for both sides and even much longer keels that attaches to it so I can install a sail that came with it (over 45 years ago). Even with the Keel and stabalizers, I don't think you will find me standing to fish out of it.

By the question asked, I would recommend you have some a lot more knowledgeable to check the boat/motor out. To answer your question, Warm the motor for about five minutes. screw one spark plug at a time out and screw a compression guage in, crank the motor over until it hits six time on the quage. Do all four plugs that way, making sure it hits the same number of times on each plug. If you try taking all four plugs out at once, it will hit once on the guage and kick the bendix out. You didn't say the year model but it should have 90 - 105 (depending on year) and should be withing five percent on all four cylinders. Basically, no cylinder should read more than five pounds lower than the highest reading. That's why it's very important to make sure each cylinder hits on the quage the same number of times, or you can get wrong readings. A leak down test is better than a compression test anyway. Now, with that said, there is a whole lot more to checking out a boat and motor than just checking the compression, a WHOLE LOT more!!

On board charger installation is a no-brainer. Stratos boats are very nice, well built boats. I have a Stratos 169V (87 model), an 89 Stratos 285 Pro and 99 Javelin R20 built by Stratos and have no complaints. They look good, ride good, handle rough water pretty good and are not the slowest boats on the lake, not the fastest either unless you do like me and put 300 hp motors on the back but they do ok.

It depends on the battery and the electrolite used. Most new/good deep cycle batteries will read 2.14 volts per cell (18.4 volts) when fully charged and allowed to sit 24 hours. Many maintenance free cranking batteries will only show 12.6 volts. Before taking a voltage reading of a battery, it should be allowed to sit at least 24 hours after charging or you will read residual voltage left from charging. It takes a minimum of 13.8 volts to get any charge in and more to actually charge most batteries. 13.2 - 13.6 (depending on type battery) is required just to maintain a charge in a battery while stored. If dealing with AGM or Gel batteries, never use your standard automatic charger. These batteries have to be charged with a charger that controls the charging voltage. You never want to charge those any higher than 14.8 volts and normally in the 14.4 to 14.6 volt range or you will damage the battery. Your standard battery charger will charge at over 15 volts and some as high as 16 volts.

LU oil should be changed at least once a year, if heavily used, change it twice a year. During winterization is just a good time to do it. That's just so if it has developed a leak, the water is not left in it for a long period of time and cause the gears and bearings to rust and so it doesn't freeze during the winter and crack the gear case. I never winterize my Javeline because I use it year round but I still change my LU oil twice a year. Plus I also do periodic preventive maintenance on the boat, motor and trailer every six months. My other boats/motors I winterize because I seldom use them during the winter.

I usually put 30 - 35 gallons of gas in my tank when I buy gas and I always add 2 cans of Seafoam. I've been building, modifying, tearing my motors down a putting them back together for a long time and have never seen one thing that's caused me concern with running Seafoam. Seen a lot of good things from running it though. I have a couple of motors that turn over 7,000 rpm and make over 300 hp so one would think if SeaFoam was harmful after a few years in these motors I would have seen it. Like I said, knowing the difference between before I started running SeaFoam and how they look now when I pull one down, I'll keep running the SeaFoam.

There is major chance of getting the royal shaft when dealing with a "rebuilt" engine, especially one that claims not to even be broke in yet. A reman'd powerhead by a major, reputable builder that has a warrenty is OK, but when they start saying rebuilt, that can mean anything. Too many times they are just patched up as cheap as possible to cut expensis, hope it last long enough to get it sold, say it still needs to be broke in so the new owner will take it easy the first few times out. When you run it hard the first few times it blows. He says, sorry, you must have not broke it in right. It's much safer to have one that has 20 - 30 hours and has been run hard many times after a rebuild. By then, if it's not right you can usually hear those strange little ticks, clicks, rattles and knocks that's not suppose to be there.

It's on the can. I use 1 oz per gallon and it's in every drop of gas I run through my 225 Ficht.

Either unit, 320 or 480 will give you excellent seperation. Shop around, and as suggested, try ebay. You can find some good deals on discontinued models. I bought a Lowrance X87 (320 pixle) a while back with temp Xducer for $150 from Cabela's. Had absolutely no need for it, still sitting in the box beside my computer now, but at that price, I figure one day I'll find something to use it on. Actually, I still like the x-75, 240 pixel units, but the 320 and 480 units will give you better seperation on targets close to the bottom or other cover.

Easy, get you one of those windmill generators, rig it so you can mount it in the boat and when you head down the highway, that thing spinning in a 60 - 70 mph wind should charge them up pretty quick. If you do a search, this subject has been brought up a number of times and you can write a book on the responses. There are chargers, and Isolaters made for this purpose. A couple said they have them and like them, I wouldn't waste the money or time. Unless you're traveling between remote areas, there's just not many places than are not going to be able to provide AC power to run your charger.

First, I would check out the rules and regulations on minumum boat requirements for the Tourny's you plan to fish. Most have minimum size boat allowed for safefy concerns. Smaller boats will get you in trouble on big water when the wind get up. Unless you only plan to fish local club tourneys, I would not consider anything smaller than 18.5' and lean heavily toward at least a 19' rated for at least 200 hp. If your gonna play with the big boys, you needs the big boys toys. If you want a good fishing platform with storage and room to handle your gear and still have something that will get you from one hole to the next (which can be miles) in reasonable time even a 19' is gonna get small and slow, so you might want to look for a good 20' with a 225. Which is going to be hard to come by in your price range. A Stratos 295 with a 200 would make a good rig.

The early 92 150's are some of the strongest 150 made. Johnson acutally was going over the 10% max hp until Mercury, wondering why those 150's were running as strong as their 200's and had some tested and filed suit. Problem free, there is no such motor. The 60 degree blocks do have a problem with more than a few of the blocks cracking where the reg/rec. If not detected if it happens, it can blow the motor.

Actually, for your 25, a deep cycle battery will work fine. In larger motors, no, you don't want to use a deep cycle, it will not provide the cranking amps required for your big V-6's. Cranking batteries are designed to deliver large amounts of amperage over a short duration and are not to be repeatadly discharged. Deep cycle batteries are designed to deliver much less amperage but over a much longer period and are designed to be discharge several hundred times. Some of your large motors can draw over 100 amps during cranking, more than a deep cycle is realy designed to provide. This causes the cranking voltage to drop, sometimes to the point that it can hard starting problems on those motors because the ignition electronics voltages drop, causing a reduced spark to plugs and injectors.

Not sure, in the little narrow river I use that boat in, (not much more than a large creek) it scoots along pretty good. Nothing like my 9.9 or 25 on my 14' jon but it will get it up on somewhat of a plane. Not too many places in that part of the river to really run any speed, mostly working around limbs and rocks, (that's why I use that small motor and boat there) so don't really have feel for the speed. Sometimes even have to get out and drag it over rocks to get up into the sucker and catfish holes we go to.

RPM is way too low. This could be a motor problem, linc and sinc adjustment problem or a prop problem. The first thing I would do is pull the air silencer off the carbs, press the hotfoot all the way to the floor and make sure the butterflies in the carbs are pointing straight out and not to one side or the other. If they are not pointing straight out, you need to make sure the cam roller has not started come appart, it should be approx 3/8" in diameter. If the outer shell has come off, it will be much smaller than that. If cam roller is good, you need to get the book and do a linc an sinc. If that's all good, next step would be to do a compression check, after warming motor up for at least 10 minutes. Depending on year model, it should have 90 to 105 pounds of compression. If that's good, then I would check prop out. If it's an OMC/BRP prop, it will have the size cast into it around the inner edge where the prop washer and nut are. I would think a 23" pitch prop would be close to what you need. That motor needs to turn 5,800 - 6,000 rpm for your best power and speed.

If properly winterized, shouldn't be a problem. Just depends on if the drained the carbs and purged the gas out of the fuel system or just added stablizer to the gas. If he drained and purged the system, you are good to go. If they just added stabalizer, you may have fuel problems.

First, you are trying to come out of the hole with the motor trimed out way too far if you're getting that much bow lift. You should be able to come out of the hole with the motor trimed in a little from neutral and should have a better hole shot with the motor trimed all the way in. If you are having problems coming out with the motor fully tucked, you have setup problems. THe alarm my be oil level problems or sensor problems but if you constantly get and alarm with the motor tucked, (trimmed all the way in) you need to have that checked out, it's not suppose to do that. Porposing is telling you the boat is trimmed too high. If running a vented prop, the motor is suppose to rev up to about 3,500 rpm when it coming out of the hole. That's called controlled cavitation, it lets the motor spin up into the peak torque band to help get the motor on plane quicker. It will start out slowly gaining rpm and then make a quick jump to about 3,500 and the boat should quickly start gaining speed. When the boat speed catches up with the rpm, the cavitation goes away. As cart7 mention, there are some other numbers that would help. Max rpm the boat will turn at WOT and properly timmed out. Prop pitch and type, motor height and other things also have a major part in how you come out of the hole Just read your last post, you should be able to nail the gas to WOT and come out of the hole without letting off. Hydrofoil tells me he was having problems also.

I have a 96, 4hp Merc I use on a 12' jon sometimes and it pushes on plane pretty darn good with two men over 220#'s. It's a hole lot more motor than I think I would want to put on the back of a 9' plastic.

Yes, No sub for CC's when it comes to torque for same type motors, but you gotta remember, the four stroke is only making power every other stroke, the two stroke is making power every stroke. I would suggest you try to find someone with a motor you're considering. As I said, I'm not a four stroke fan but I wouldn't suprised if you don't see a whole bunch of difference in performance between a 9.9 two stroke and the 15 hp four stroke Yammy. Again, never even seen the Yammy but for the couple of small four strokes I had been in, I was not impressed, other than how quit and smooth they were. In that area, they were amazing, after being used to old, noisy two strokes.

Rodbender, do you own a boat? The bottom fin you are refering to is the skeg. Not only does the skeg stick below the bottom of the boat, the whole lower unit sticks below the boat down the anticav plate. The anticav plate will usually be a little above the bottom of the boat. Oh, and there are only two standard foot lengths (shaft lengths), 15" and 20". They do make some 25" for large saltwater and similar boats and some sail boat kicker motors with extremely long shafts but 15" and 20" are your standard lenghts. All most all bass boats run a 20" shaft and the jackplates are to dial in the motor height and a particular prop for the boat for best performance.

You should check it for water before doing that. You store it that long with water in it and it will be junk next spring. One big rust block inside.

Most likely the carbs and fuel pump will need to be pulled off and cleaned, and the old gas blown out of the fuel line with air hose. Don't try to start it with the old gas in the motor and carbs. At least take the plugs out of the carbs and drain them and pump fresh gas (premixed) through them with the plugs out to flush all the old gas out. If it's a VRO motor, DO NOT take the fuel pump apart to try and clean it. You may have to replace the primer bulb and check fuel hose for cracks. What you migth run into if you don't remove and clean the carbs is the motor run ok but runs lean from a restriced jet and melt a piston. If it has the old metal tanks, it's probably rusted inside and will need to be replaced. I guess I should ask how old of a 35. Back in the early days of two strokes, those old 35's ran a pressurized fuel tank and no pump (had two hoses going to them), hope it ain't that old. Any gas left in the tank will need to be dumped. Look in the tank and check to see if there is a lacquar build up in the bottom. If so, I would junk the tank and buy another. That's stuff's more trouble than the tank is worth when you can buy those plastic one fairly cheap. I would also replace the water pump impeller, spark plugs (.030 gap is probably what that motor will run) and change the LU oil. As for double oil and spraying oil in the motor, I wouldn't. That motor was broke in a long time ago and if any rust has formed from condensation, no amount of oil in the world is going to save it. Again, depending on how old, if it has points (used back in the 60's and early 70's) they will probably need to be burnished and gap checked. Do the fuel system, LU, water pump, put it on a hose or in a tank, get her running and take it to the lake and try it out. See how good it will catch fish. Of course you do know you want be able to catch those big bass. They swim so fast, it takes a 70+ mph bass boat to keep up with them to catch them, but for anything other than those largest bass, it should make you a nice outfit. LOL.

Before everybody gets on the over powering kick, many of your southern states could care less if your boat is over powered. There are no laws in reference to HP and making insurance mandatory, so you can put a 200 hp motor on a boat rated for 20 hp if you want to and don't plan to insure it. Until I put my 225 Ficht back on my Javelin, I haven't had a bass boat with the legal HP on it in 25 years. Heck, I once had a 15' ProCraft (rated for 85 hp) with a 200 merc on the back.