Way2slow

I would hope with the size TM's available these days, they would have at least installed 4ga marine cable for the TM, and 2ga would be even better. 6ga is too small for the larger TM's we have today. Yes, you can safely use 6ga but performance is going to suffer because of the increased voltage drop. As for the batteries, there are way too many options, with a huge difference in cost for that not to be an optional item.

I don't think many people are going to be buying much of a boat with a $2,800 per month income, unless they are still free loading off their parents for food and shelter. I was making twice that 40 years ago, and with a wife and two kids, I would have had a hard time justifying forking out the money for a new bass boat of any size. In 1990, I looked at a new 18' Champion and couldn't justify it to myself. Figured I was better off sticking with buying other peoples junk for pennies on the dollar, fix it up and use it. The way things are now, I hate to even go to town with my wife. From the time I leave the house, until I get back home, I always have at least $100 less than I left with and feel fortunate if that's all it cost me. $15 - $20 just to go through a fast food drive through, $40+ to have a meal that's edible, and we always have to stop by a grocery store for something. I tell her, I'm glad we are not still dating, I would only be able to afford one date a month.

I was 17 and a senior in high school when I bought my first new boat, a 14' Glass Master runabout with a 65hp Mercury. Boat, motor and trailer cost me $1,427 (that was in 1966). I was as as much into water skiing as I was fishing then and with that boat, I could do both. I was 14 or15 when I bought my first car, that I only paid $10 for. From the time I was 13, I had a full time job, working after school and weekends at a service station. Plus I had a sideline of repairing lawn mowers, fixing them up and selling them. After I bought my car, when the station closed, three nights a week I made a moonshine run, hauling whisky. We didn't live in the city, and I was driving when I was 13, just not allowed to go into town. I feel it's all about where you put your priorities and how much you are willing to work for what you want. I see a lot of people spend more than enough on beer and cigarettes each month, which I've never had a use for either, to afford a whole lot of things they say they can't afford and would like to have.

Before changing props, I always like to check the performance of the motor. Compression, Timing, Throttle linkage, spark plugs etc. Make sure it's making full power. Too many times I've seen people chasing props for more hole shot and speed when their motor was the problem, something as simple as not going full throttle. However, to answer your question, yes, you go down in pitch for better hole shot. You want the motor to be able to turn max rated RPM with a normal load in the boat. Many times, this also adds more speed also because the motor is not having to strain as much,

One thing you have to realize about the industrial use of batteries also. They are generally abused a whole lot more than the private sector would. They sometimes go for days of use without being charged. Some get used heavily and not charged until they quit, some get charged every night, whether they need it or not. With this abuse, the plates expand more and faster than they would with proper care. Being spiral wound, they have minimal room to expand so they short much faster than stacked cell batteries. If you have ever noticed how typical flood cell, stacked cell batteries start to bulge on the sides after they get some age on them, this is caused by cell expansion, which usually leads to a cell shorting if sulfation doesn't get it first. Spiral batteries don't have the capability to expand more than a very small amount, causing them to short much sooner. Now, I'm not saying the spiral batteries are junk, properly maintained a lot of people get years of good service from them. I just saying, under the same conditions, a quality stacked cell battery will generally give a longer life than the spiral cell. Also, it has long been determined, 85% of the bad batteries turned in for cores on new ones were actually good batteries that went bad because they were sulfated from improper maintenance and charging. Sulfation is the killer of most lead acid batteries, that's one of the reasons LiPo batteries will last so much longer. they don't sulfate. Back when reconditioned batteries used to be commonly available, they were nothing but dead batteries that were flushed with a chemical solution to disulfate them. With today's manufacturing process, that's much harder to do, so they are not as common now.

Any name brand that is stacked cell and not spiral cell batteries. I've been using Deka by East Penn for over 20 years. They also make the Duracell and a number of other brands sold under some of the major auto parts dealers. I will not buy spiral wound batteries. Having spent over 20 years repairing industrial material handling equipment, which included bunches of electric pallet jacks. I never had a single customer that got good service from spiral batteries. Usually, a year was their life span. Swap them out for Trojan Deep cycles or Deka's and get five or six years easily.

It's getting the time of the year the stripers on Clarks Hill are moving into the creek channels. I was wondering if anyone on here is fishing Clarks Hill for them and if they are in the backs of the creek channels yet. Can't find any current reports on the internet.

Don't be surprised if your TM batteries only last a lot shorter time than you expected. Batteries self discharge, when they drop below approximately 85%, the start to sulphate. The more it drops and the longer it sets, the more it sulphates and the harder it gets. There is nothing you are going to be able to do to desulphate it when it does. Don't think for a second one of the chargers that claims to desulphate one will do it when it has hardened. There are all kinds of witches brews and snake oil remedies people will claim to work, but generally, the only thing that really works is the funds it takes to buy new ones. A brand new battery left discharged for 30 days is basically junk. That's why you should only buy new batteries from places that have a high volume of turnover, and check the date sticker on them for when they were stocked in the store. That little code sticker you see on them, that's the date the are stocked in the store, not the manufacturing date, That's a secrete code that's embossed in the battery.

The recommended charge rate for a lead acid batteries is 10 - 15% of their rated capacity. Lithium batteries require a totally different charging technology that lead acid batteries. I haven't kept up with them for a few years so some of these newer lithium's may come with circuit cards in them that let you use a standard lead acid charger but if it doesn't specifically say it can be charged with anything other than a charger built specifically for lithium batteries, don't do it. Lithium batteries (at least the ones I use) come with a C rating and that's what they are charged at so have to have a charger that meets the batteries voltage and C rating.

When doing the math on battery capacity to figure run time. There are two variables you have to take into consideration. A 10Ah battery is rated at,' from the time it's fully charged until is reaches the point of being fully discharged. That's usually in the lower 11 volt range. Your electronics are not going to stay on until reaches that fully discharged level. Many won't even stay on until is at 25 to 35 percent charged. So, you have to figure in how long it's going to run until it cuts off, not how long is before the battery is fully discharged. That's where LiPo batteries have a major advantage over lead acid batteries. They tend to hold a working level voltage until they are almost fully discharged, then they just drop out. So, in this situation, I personally would only consider a LiPo battery. You will get more run time that a similar size lead acid and they are a whole lot lighter.

If it has a choke with plates in the carbs, then yes, they should close when you engage choke. If has a fuel primer/enrichment system, it will not have plates in the carbs It just pumps fuel into the intake when it's engaged.

Looks like an old Hiawatha, somewhere between 3 and 5 hp. Other than being old, anything else you might want to know about it, I don't have a clue.

If the boat is not up on plane to the point the hull spray is not back to or behind the drivers seat and properly trimmed out, the hull torque is usually going to be too much for the trim tab under the anti-cav plate to do any good. It usually works when you are up at a good cruising speed with the motor trimmed out, that's where you adjust it for neutral steering. Coming off plane or slowing way down the increased drag on the hull is going to make the boat want to turn right and there is not a big enough trim tab made to compensate for that. One other note. If the motor is on a jack plate and you have it raise up a lot, you usually have to put a trim tab on the skeg because the one under the anti-cav plate is not in enough water to do anything.

Said nothing about the prop, I was responding the WOT comment. All motors should be prop'ed so they will turn the manufactures recommend RPM with the boats normal operating load. The motor should be able to turn that recommended RPM, that does not mean it should always be operated at that RPM, as the comment I quoted suggested. A hydrofoil (whale tail) will improve any boats ability to get on plane. Unless the motor is too small to plane the boat to start with.

Only only boats that are way under powered or slower boats would you want to do that. In the boats I had, you would be running 70 - 80 MPH, if you ran WOT, and burn a lot of gas doing it. Backed of 45 - 50 MPH or 4,000 - 4,500 RPM, the ride was a lot more relaxing and burnt half the fuel. On some boats, like my pontoon, its a total waste to run WOT. I can run at WOT (5,500rpm) and run 19 MPH or run at 4,200 and 17 mph and burn a whole lot less gas.

Mine started in my mid 20's, I'm now in my mid 70's, let me know if you find a cure.

Check some of the small car carriers. A lot of those make trips cross country and I would think they would haul it for $500 to $1,000 cheaper than that. You might have to make arrangement to meet them someplace to pick it up and drop it off, but I've shipped a couple of vehicles from Texas and Arizona for $500 and $700, but again, it would have been double for the boat. I would also check the people WRB referred to.

Put new tires on it, service the wheel bearings and use the shipping cost to take vacation and spend a week or so on a nice road trip and see parts of the country you haven't seen.

Just have a JP do it and have the formal wedding if and when all this crap gets under control.

What other company is going to furnish you a place to live and pay you to see a lot of the US and Europe. Granted, being in the special duty assignments I spent most of my carrier in, I sometimes got to see more of it than I really wanted to. It was a nice vacation until the last couple of years, when the government first started on their massive cutbacks. I was going to 26 years, but the fun meter pegged out at 22 years and 4 months.

Can't help in your situation. While growing up, I had so many skills, I never had a problem with employment. At 28, I got tired of working for a living and spent the next 22 years in the Air Force. I will say, I would hate to know I had your current job.

Don't know what size you are wanting to ship, but I checked on having a 20' Javelin shipped from South Texas to Ga, and it ain't cheap. Because of the length, they wanted to charge the same they would for two vehicles, because it knocked them out of the space needed for another vehicle. With the motor on the back and the length of the tongue, you are talking almost 30 feet.

I've pretty much always have a pocket knife one me, but rarely do I take it out of my pocket in a boat or near the water. I'm yet to find one that floats, and generally carry very nice pocket knives. I keep at least three Leatherman's in the boat, one for the front, one for the back and one in the dash. Over the years I've found out two Leatherman's don't float either. I also keep a couple pair of small scissors for braided lines.

I missed and email from MidwayUSA the other day for CCI 450 Mag primers, I've been on their notification list for 9 months, so I missed out. If you don't catch it immediately, when you get them, the items are gone fairly quickly. That didn't hurt my feeling too bad though, since I still have a couple thousand and they had gone up from $36 a thousand to $83 a thousand.

I feel for ya'll, winter for us is those few months between Dec and Feb, the temps might drop into the teens for a few nights, but mostly in the mid to lower 20's is considered a cold night. That's spring time weather for the far north.