Way2slow

You might do better posting some serial numbers, model numbers and makes of the motors. A couple of pictures would also help. Then age and condition of the motors, and how long they have setup and if they were inside or outside in the elements has a lot to do with what you are asking. When you say the mercury has water intrusion, that's definitely not good. If water has gotten inside the motor, especially around the crank and bearings, good chance that motor is junk. Even if just a cylinder is rusted, it may not be worth the cost of a rebuild. Also, you might want to look at the condition of the boats. If they have floors in them, they might be rotted and if water was left to build up in them, the transom's may be rotted. At todays labor cost, old motors are not worth repairing if they need much work, unless you can do the repairs yourself. Even then, it can be very expensive just of the parts and any machine work that might need to be done.

I still have two new ones in reserve. When Leatherman first came out with the larger Super tool that was bigger than the standard Leatherman, back in the late 80's or so, I came across 12 of them for $150 and bought them. Didn't ask any questions about where they came from to be so cheap, just scooped em up and never looked back, and they were the real deal, not some cheap counterfeit.

I've tried three times and haven't found a Leatherman Super tools that floated yet. All three that have gone over the side went to the bottom. As said before though, I still keep one in all my vehicles and boats. Handy tools to have around, just don't want one on my belt and too big for the pocket.

I have not been in South Carolina in several years so I don't know about now, but they used to be one of the worst in the country for speeding, especially if you had out of state plates. Three MPH over the speed limit would get you a speeding ticket

I was stationed at Langley AFB in VA back in the 80's My 1970 Mach-1 Mustang has those decretive amber lights in the grill, that look like driving/fog lights but were nothing but amber parking lights. Wired the same what as when it rolled off the assembly line, but the vehicle inspection stations gave me a big hassle every time I got it inspected trying to tell me they were driving lights and had to wired to the high beams only. I think all states key on dark tented glass. Not so much because of the tent, but because almost all drug dealers have them so people can't see what's going on inside the vehicle. Tented widows will get usually get you a drug search somewhere along the way. A little funny side note about VA state troopers. I had one pull me over for running doing 70 in a 55 and because I was slowing down quickly his radar didn't get a lock until I was at 57mph so he couldn't charge me with 70mph . He accused me of running a radar detector. He went all through my vehicle looking for it. My wife was in the passenger seat doing her cross stitch needle work. He asked her to get out, and when she did, he handed her, her basket of needle work to get it out of his way. He searched every square inch of that vehicle, and finally he walked off telling cursing saying 70 was too fast and slow it down. He peeled rubber leaving there he was so p***d. After he go out of sight, I took the radar detector out of my wife's needle work basket he had handed her and sat it back on the dash.

I think it boils down to what you expect from a knife. Since I have a wide range of hobbies and things I do, I am punishing on knife blades. I can use it to scrape a gasket off metal, cut a piece of wire with it and then expect it to cut a rubber hose, rope limb or anything else. I've never found a Chinese blade that would even begin to hold up to the stuff I expect of a blade. If it not S30V or harder, I usually don't keep it in my pocket when I'm working on stuff. Yes, I loose them and it sucks when you do, but that's still better than trying to cut something and it won't. I've tried a couple of name brand knives, Gerber, and Buck made in China, and have gotten so p****d trying to work with them, I threw just as far as I could throw them. Never will have another Chinese blade. This is my work horse. They were about $45 when I first started using them, I think they are about $80 now, but it's still the best knife going for the money. Several years ago, when I had both of the Buck's hiding from me for a while, I bought one Spiderco S30V's at about $160. It's an OK knife, but it still won't hold up against the Buck at half the price.

I have numbers of Case knives, several brand new, still in the box, true collectors knives. That's all I carried for many, many years, but I have developed a sentimental attachment to those and since I'm so subject to misplace one, I won't use those. I was missing one of those Buck knives for over a year and was cleaning out the jon boat the other day and found it laying in the back where I had been working on some wiring. Stupid crap like that is why I usually keep one on me that won't rust. I have miss placed these knives months at the time. That's why I have two. Years ago, I misplaced the first one I bought, after several months of not finding it, I bought another. A few days later, I found it under the seat of my service van. This one is early 70's and has never been sharpened. Still new It is a XX 7 star blade. Hard to find.

I use the old saying, fight fire with fire. If I'm in my truck, I can throw enough light down the road to light up an air strip if I wanted to, I just don't turn it on when on public roads. If one of those want's to come at me with theirs own, I will give them my HID high beams first, if they don't get the hint then, I start adding "more power".

Normally, it's the Buck 347 S30V, I have two and can keep up with one of them most of the time. For the money, you can't beat it. As with most S30V knives, they are a little hard to sharpen, but the Buck holds that edge as good, if not better than most other brands. When both of those have been laid someplace I can't remember, I usually use a Spiderco camo S30V When I want something smaller it's usually a Buck, three blade folding knife. When it comes to knives, I have a drawer with dozens of them. Gerber, Buck, Puma, Spiderco and most of the older American brands, plus some custom made knives. Large and small fixed blades, skinners, folding knives etc, most any size and type one could want. I also have about a half dozen Leatherman's I keep in the boats, tool boxes, vehicles etc, they are handy to have around. The only kind of knife you will not find in that drawer is one that's has "MADE IN CHINA" on it

If you had local law enforcement worth a darn, they would stop a lot of that. The light bars and most other high powered front lights are legal for off road use only. Driving lights, even those within legal power limits are supposed to be connected to the high beams so they are only on with high beams and not with low beams. 95% of those super bright headlights are after market installations and are not DOT legal. A lot of states have legal limits on how high a headlamp can be off the road to prevent those that put those skyjacker lift kits on them from blinding the crap out of you. They also have limits on how high the bumpers can be. The laws out are there in most states, it's just a matter of them being enforced.

At first I thought 5 grams was a typo, but I guess you are serious. I've never heard of using that small of an amount. I pull off 50 grams into a fresh jar and feed it with 75 grams of bottled water and 75 grams of flour. I started going to the extra flour because the starter is active enough, it will eat through 50 grams in a few hours. It always seem most recommended 100 grams, but burning through too much flour for that with this experiment. I always pull off what I want to keep into a fresh, clean jar, feed it, and throw the other in the trash. or use that to build enough for a recipe I plan to bake. Never had a problem with it going long enough to develop alcohol. All this stuff I'm doing with all these different starters is just an experiment. Want to see if how it's cultivated and maintained makes a difference in flavor. When I get done, I will go back to one or two. It was always easier to keep a whole grain and an all purpose flour than converting one to the other when I was doing more baking. Too many irons in the fire had me slowed down on baking for a while, but getting started back. I have not tried any above about 80% hydration. I use 70% for most of my pizza's doughs. I usually cook on the hearth and not in pans, even in the oven, I use a large pizza stone and a very heavy steel tray I made to pour water in for steam when the bread goes in. When the dough gets too slack, I have a hard time working with it. Yes, I have made pizza dough with sour dough, and yes it's good. Had to do something for the wife before I could finish typing. I have 36" wood fired refractory oven I built a couple of years ago. I can get it as hot and one could want. 900 - 1,000 degrees is no problem for thin pizza's. I can cook pizza's one evening, close it up and still be hot enough to cook biscuits for breakfast the next morning.

Wow, once a month. I have two, a whole wheat I grind and a King Arthur all purpose flour I put in the fridge after 14 days of room temp, and I'm feeding those once a week. I use several of Peter Reinhart's books for recipes and he says to feed once a week. That was what I did before. I'm going to have to try the once a month with a jar and see how it does. Right now, I wasting a lot of flour doing an experiment. I have the two jars in the fridge covered, one whole wheat and one all purpose flour, feeding those four ounces once a week. Then I have one jar on the counter with cheese cloth over it and feeding it three ounces of flour every 12 hours. Then I have another jar of fresh ground red wheat I kept outside with cheese cloth over it for a wild yeast starter. I just brought it in to the counter a few days ago and feeding it three ounces ever 12 hours. I've read the wild yeast starter cultivated outside like that is not supposed to be as tangy as sour dough starter cultivated in the house. So, I'm feeding two jars 3 ounces every 12 hours and two jars in the fridge four ounce every week. I plan to do this a couple more weeks so when it's about two months old, I want to do a side by side bake off between the four different jars and see if and/or how much difference there is between them. They claim the ones covered in the fridge are the strongest tasting, the wild yeast is the mildest and the other flour with just cheese cloth is in between. So, I'm going to see for myself. I've always kept one 100% fresh ground wheat and one KA plain flour starter and if once a month feeding works, that will be good. If the wild yeast starter is what they say, I will keep it in the place of the ground wheat sour dough starter.

That's a nice looking loaf. For some reason, when I bake in house oven, they tend to be light colored. They look more like yours when I bake in the wood fired oven but I have to preplan to bake in it, this was a spur of the moment deal. I listened to others and tried freezing my starter. Didn't work. Tried drying and then keeping it in the freezer. Didn't work. I restarted about a month ago feeding a new starter, this is the first loaf I've made from it and did that because I got tired of dumping the leftover in the trash. Made some pancakes with it the other day. Figured I would try the bread today. They say it takes about three months to be actually be ready. When I froze it, it was seven years old and lost it, thinking freezing was going to work. I didn't make any panettoni's last Christmas because you need a very active sour dough starter and then, convert it to a "sweet" starter to make them, didn't have a starter to start from. Thinking I was going to use that I had frozen. Figured I had better get started back because I have almost 200 pounds of wheat berries, red, hard white and soft white, I need to get used up. I grind my wheat fresh as I need it so I can have true 100% whole wheat.

It was still cooling, just cut it a bit ago. It wasn't that pretty to take a picture. I was rushed to get it in the oven so I didn't get it long enough on the second rise, had some dense area in it. It's was still good though.

I'm definitely probably not the right person to answer this one. I don't think I've bought more than a couple of boats, or cars, that I've sold for less than I paid for them. I buy them for pennies on the dollar, fix them, use them and when do sell them, most of the time I make money on them. I just sold a 1999 20' Javelin for the same thing I paid for it in 2003 used it all those years and still gave the guy a hellava deal on it. I bought it at auction and major parts of the motor was in the storage boxes. How good of a deal you get, depends on how much you know about them and how bad you want one right now. If you feel like you've gotta have it now, you are at the sellers mercy. However, if you see one you like, and you feel like it's a reasonable deal, buy it, or somebody else will while you are thinking about it. If you can't do much more than take the drain plug out and hope you can remember to put it in, you are going to pay a lot more because you need to stick to the newer boats and are in pretty good condition, and pray you get one that has a good motor. Outboard motor repair is very expensive, and routine maintenance can be if you have to pay to have it done. If you can't afford to pay to have it done, it will cost you big time later on. No telling how many powerheads are blown because the $50 water pumps were not maintained at reasonable intervals. Also remember, the bigger and heavier the boat, the more it cost to run it. Four stroke motors and DFI two strokes get better fuel mileage that the older carbureted two strokes. The older two strokes are cheaper to maintain and easier to work on.

Sour dough, fresh out of the oven.

What you are going to tow, within reason, and what you want to tow it with is not as important as how you want to tow it and the terrain/conditions you want to do it in. When I was in high school, I bought my first new boat, a 14' Glassmaster runabout with a 65hp Mercury. I towed it for two years with a 62 VW Carman Ghia. Because of the steep ramp, I replaced the clutch a couple of times but other than that never had a problem. Now, it was five miles from the house to the boat ramp and was fairly flat other than the ramp. I didn't want to put a trailer hitch on the 55 Ford hot rod I had. Now, if you think you are going to tow at interstate speeds, up and down hills and stop safely in wet or sudden situations, you had better think long and hard about what you want to tow and what it will take to do what you want. Towing is pure H**l on transmissions, and the faster you try to tow, the worse it is. If the transmission does not have a temp gauge, install one. If the transmission doesn't have an auxiliary cooler, install one, if it does, might need to install a larger one. That's not just automatics, most manual five speed and six speed/etc transmission tell you not to tow in the over drive gears, 5th, 6th exc. As for how you actually tow, it's your vehicle, and no one can tell you how you should drive it.

You can't arbitrarily say a four blade give more lift. The rake is what gives the lift. Yes, a high rake four blade with the same rake as a three blade high rake prop will usually give motor lift. High rake props give bow lift. Low rake props have no where near the bow lift of high rake props. Low rake props work better on boats that can't take advantage of the lift high rake props give. It's wasted energy running high rake props on them.

I will probably have to put a couple 12' 4x4 down and level them end to end and side to side, and then fill the center on outer sections with sand to get a firm, square and straight base for the hull to sit on, and then brace the sides. I learned back in the 80's fiberglass is not as strong and stable as you think if it's not well supported. The first boat I did was open type 14' glass boat that needed a bottom and transom replaced. After getting it stripped out and ready, I got sent on a special assignment for two months. I flipped it over and covered it with a tarp. It was in the summer and when I got back and pulled the tarp off, the hull has about the 3' dip in the middle. After several unsuccessful attempts to get it flat and straight again, I just put it back with a huge hook in the hull. Before I started, an 18hp Evinrude pushed it 28mph, afterwards, it pushed it 25mph. Trust me, I should have looked at this Stratos before I told my granddaughter it was going to restore it and in a few years, it would be hers. I am totally sure, I will regret the work I'm going to have to put into this thing.

I've probably got a five gallon bucket full of melted piston from over the years. There's not a one of those I've ever blamed on the gas. It has always been a screwup of mine. I will only run top tier gasoline from a high volume station and I only buy what I think I plan to burn.

How much of last years gas was in the tank. Old gas will get one a whole lot quicker than water. People put too much faith in stabilizers, when they shouldn't be leaving old gas in the tank.

Alcohol/methanol/ethanol all hold water. Fuel tanks at the stations get condensation, that settles to the bottom of the tanks. When the tanker trucks deliver fuel, that stirs up everything inside the tank and the alcohol absorbs some of the water. When you pump the gas into your vehicle/boat or whatever, you can be getting gas with water in it. Depending on how long after they received a fuel delivery, as to how much water. It can take a couple of day for it to settle back out. So, what you are buying for gas, may not be all gas.

As you trim up, you should see an increase in speed, and the wake should move toward the back of the boat as you trim. Once you hit the spot where you don't see and increase in speed, and the wake is no longer moving back, you have reached the end of you effective trim. Trimming beyond that is just going to hurt performance. Especially if you start seeing and increase in rpm but no increase in speed, then you have trimmed to the point of cavitation.

It sounds to me like you have just discovered what it sounds like when one pops a piston (burnt a hole right through the top of it. If that is what you heard, to bad you kept running it. If one is shut down immediately, most of the time it's just a matter of cleaning the aluminum out of the sleeve, honing it a little and sticking another piston in. However, after you started it back up and drove it to the landing, it probably did far more damage to the cylinder than a simple clean will take care of. So, first thing you need to do is pull the spark plugs and see if one has aluminum in it and look through the hole at the dome of the piston, and see if there's a big hole in it, if it is. Or just do a compression test, one is probably going to be next to nothing. If you don't have a compression gauge, just hold a finger over each hole while someone cranks it over, it will blow you finger off the hole on the good ones and may not even feel pressure on the bad one. Go tell the wife you just spent at least $1,500 and maybe several thousand. If you can find someone that will fix just that one hole, you might get away with $1,500. Most just want to stick a remanufactured power head on, that way they don't have to worry about the warranty coming out of their pocket is something goes wrong. You want to know the sickening part, usually it only cost me about $150 to fix one hole.

Yea, it's so bad, I've got to rethink how I'm going to chase that rabbit. There's not enough internal structure left to support the boat when the cap comes off, it's totally rotten, like he left it with the nose down so it was holding water. It's going to twist, distort and open up on me so bad, even if I did get the cap back on, it would be one ill handling boat. So, before I even pull the cap off, I've got to have the hull fully supported almost as good as it would have been in the mold. About twice a much work as I was wanting to get into right off the bat.