Way2slow

Well, the chair has been repaired since about a week after making this post. There is absolutely no way anyone but Lay-Z-boy (and her) would ever tell it was damaged. The piece of leather I got was just a shade off in direct light so I used it to make the back panel and used the piece of back panel to replace damaged pieces that would be visible from the sides or front. So it would not be visible, I had to make a seam across the top of the back. Originally there was no seam, they just folded it over the top of the back and came all the way to the cushion The chair sits with the back facing a wall and in normal light, with the replacement piece the way it is, you can not tell it's not a perfect match. Yet, a friend of hers was at the house Sunday and commented on how much she loved her new recliner. My wife's response, "it was a nice chair until Keith dumped the back out of the truck in the middle of the highway bringing it home and tore it all to pieces". It only damaged the top two corners and one bottom corner. Like I said, I'll go to may grave hearing about it.

I bought my first boat when I was 16 and a senior in high school. $1,427 for a new 14' with a 65hp Mercury. Back then I had plenty of money, working after school and bootlegging moonshine three nights a week. Since then, other than the five years I spent stationed in Italy while in the Air Force, I've never been without at least one outboard powered boat, right now I have five, counting my jons. However, since getting married, I've never owned another new boat but I've probably bought, used and sold more than 100. Wheeling and dealing in them, buying the cheap, fixing them up and selling them is how I managed to pay for them and my fishing. 22 years as an enlisted man in the military, with a wife and two kids dang sure didn't provide enough income for me to have one without some way to offset the expense. I also did the same thing with cars. My current (main boat, I still have five) is a 20' 1999 model bass boat with a 225hp Evinrude. I bought it at auction in about 2006 for $5,000 and was about a $17,000 boat had not parts of the motor been laying in one of the storage boxes. I spent approximately $1,100 on repairing the motor. That was parts only, I did all the work. Since then, the only expense has been replacing the three batteries every few years and upgrading the electronics and TM and couple of times. My being able to fix anything about one and not having to pay for repairs, other than parts, is a huge advantage to me being able to afford them, especially now that I'm fully retired and only have my little bit of retirement income. So, having tons of experience being a boat owner on a modest income, first you have to evaluate your income versus monthly expenses. If you don't have approximately 25% more income than you have expenses and are not investing in some type of retirement fund, you probably don't need a boat right now. Boat's can come and go, retirement and the inability to work is going come, period. The next thing to consider is just how much boat do you feel you need and your ability to do routine maintenance. If you are the type that can't screw in a light bulb and have to pay someone to do any sort of maintenance, then you need to greatly limit the size boat you get, because there is a whole lot of truth to the old saying "the bigger the boat, the bigger the hole it makes in the water to throw money in". You mentioned storage, if you have to pay storage, that's another huge expense I don't pay, mine are all on my property, be at the lake, my sons or in my yard. Covered, indoor storage is almost a must if you want to keep a nice boat, nice for several years. My son pays about $125 a month storage on his boat, but he has one of those fancy indoor storage places at the coast he calls and his boat is sitting at the dock gassed up, checked out, ice in the coolers and ready to go when he gets there. He parks it at their dock when done with it and they clean it, flush it and put it away inside a huge building until next time. He even has it set up so the dealer gets it every six months and does the routine maintenance on it. That's all to high class and way above my budget, but he seems to think he needs to impress his clients when he invites them for a fishing trip, but he also has a guide he pays making making one of his "entertainment" trips. I guess it's nice to have money. Another thing you have to remember, you mentioned salt water use, that's the most expensive type of boat ownership there is. Aluminum, carbon steel and salt water just flat don't mix and the required maintenance and expense goes way up. I usually try to avoid buying anything that has been used in salt water, and used saltwater motors are only worth a fraction of what a similar fresh water motor is. I consider 10 years the max life for saltwater motors and most of the time you can only get scrap yard price for one then. Even then, if one has to be worked on within a couple of years, repair cost is usually a lot more because of the extra time and parts needed to replace the broken and corroded parts taking it apart. You can run them longer, but be prepared for the maintenance cost associated with that. Also, about every three years, you can expect to spend close to a grand just on additional maintenance for things like a new water pump and other long wear items. Then you have to remember operating expense. At $3.00 a gallon and many motors burning 15 to 20 gallons per hour, a fun day just running around or water skiing etc, gets pretty expensive. For outboards, the newer four strokes and high tech two strokes are almost a must to offset the cost of gasoline for a days trip to the lake, and those motors are expensive. And the list goes on, so, how do I afford a boat. I buy a used boat that needs work, usually motor work, repair it myself, however, there a number of pitfalls to buying used if you don't have one professionally check out, that can make that cheaper used boat the most expensive boat you will ever own. I don't pay storage, I do all my own routine maintenance, and done got to old to care about just joy riding and I've quite chasing bass all over the lake. OH! One other critical thing I forgot to mention, get a large boat, and you will need a truck to tow it, and he larger the boat, the larger the truck needed.

Well, I also keep forgetting, there are difference conditions for different locations and keep trying to associate everything with my particular conditions . There are plenty of places I dang near need a plow on the front of the boat to get through where the brush is so heavy. I even break props off the TM and as mentioned before, I have destroyed numbers Xducers where the cable gets ripped out of them and repaired broken single coax numbers of times. With these multi transducer unit, that's not going to be so easy.

But you can't get the side scan. If he wants side scan in the front, the only practical way to get it is the Xducer mounted on the TM, and to make it practical or even usable, it just about has to be on a motor driven steer system like the Terrova so it's steady enough to get a useable image. I'm sure some can do it with a cable steer, but I usually find the cable steer to be too jerky unless you are holding it in a steady direction. I have side scan but the Lowrance Xducer is so large, on the rear of the boat is about the only place to mount it. I can network it to my bow unit but then the image you are seeing is already 20ft behind you. That why I'm going to try the 73sv with the 52? Xducer and see if I can't get real time side scan up front. So far, it looks to me like the Garmin unit is about the only one that's even close to being practical to mount on the TM, that gives a good image.

I haven't researched it yet but the guy at Bass Pro Shop says there are a couple videos on how they run the cable up the channel in the shaft. I'm waiting for the Garmin 73's to go on sale to do the same thing. Garmin is supposed to be discontinuing them and I'm told we should see some pretty good deals them. Apparently it requires taking the head off but I'm not concerned about that. I've torn up too many transducers running them up the shafts of my old MG's and don't care to take that chance with a $250 transducer so my plans are to glue the cable in that channel.

plug wires may be bonded into coils and not changeable, but if the are, I would be hesitant about changing them. It's not often they give a problem. You CAN NOT use regular automobile plug wires

That's one of those questions that's best asked at the dealer. I don't know anyone that owns one and have never seen but a couple on the road. I would definitely be leery of doing it because of the electric motors. It does not take much of a load to make electric motors heat up. Even if it's only a few miles and not at highway speeds, you still have the strain on one to launch and retrieve the boat at the ramp. Some ramps are rather steep. For two years I used a VW Carman Gia to tow a 14' glass boat with a 65hp Merc, but the ramp was only five miles from my house and level road. I still burnt out two clutches getting the boat back out of the water and up the hill at the ramp though. I will say, my wife has a Toyota Highlander with the factory towing package and I think it's rated for well over 5,000 pounds but I know enough about automatic transmissions to know I would not tow my bass boat with it's 3,600 pound tow weight behind it for any distance at highway speeds.

I'm like the rest of them on the TM wrap. No, I don't launch it hard, just a little nudge off the trailer when I use this method. Most of the time the boat does not even clear the back of the trailer and the trailer just slides out from under it. However, when Murphy's law comes calling, s*** happens and I don't care to have a $1,600 TM being involved in any part of the equation. On mine, it's just a matter of putting one hand on the bow to hold yourself and reaching under to undo the clip, no major problem. On my last boat, the rope would sometimes want to hang the front of the bunks as the boat slid back and I would lay the rope over the TM's skeg to get that little extra clearance to get by the front of the bunks, but it easily slid right off as soon as there was any drag on the rope.

Ya'll make it too fancy and complicated. I use a piece of rope the length of the boat with hooks that snap closed on both ends. One end goes in the bow loop, the rope is run down the side of the boat and snaps into a loop on the back of the trailer. That gives 20 feet of space between the back of the boat and trailer. After launching the boat, I just ease forward until the back of the trailer is clear the edge of the water and it's pulling the boat along behind it. The boat usually drifts right on up to the trailer, as long as you don't pull forward too fast, then the boat might want to try and knock the trailer out of it's way. Then I just unclip it and put the boat where I want it or get in it an park it at the dock if there is one. Just make sure the trailer does not have things that can hang the rope as the boat is sliding back. My bunk boards are in a way it doesn't hang the front of those and there's nothing else on my trailer to interfere.

Engine Expert??? I'm ok with some of them but I know OMC's pretty good because I've built an modified them for the past 25 years. I'm best with the 90 degree V-6 loopers. I can very easily take a 200/225 or 250hp and get 300hp out of those, and a lot more than that out of the 3.3/3.4. The motor the OP has in the 60 degree Eagle series block they used for the 150hp and 175hp starting about 1992, and those are not really worth what it would cost the have one modified. The exhaust chest on those is so restrictive, about the most you can get out of one is a little over 200hp without some radical rework. Even 200hp requires some extensive port work that would be expensive and the motors just don't have the CC's/CI's to make good torque to launch a heavy bass boat. You will spend a whole bunch of money and still not be very happy at the end. I've got a 1996 model sitting on a stand now I recently built for my son. I did all the port cleanup and matching, and made changes to a couple of the angles, probably about 20 hours of work with a die grinder (but didn't change any port heights so as not to affect hole shot) and put a set of 175 carbs on it, and it might make 190-200hp, but that's probably being very liberal with the estimate to make him feel good. To pay one of the few that know how to make these mods would make it cost way more than it would be prudent to spend. A lot less money could be spent on boat setup, hull prep and prop work and see about as much performance gain. I gained eight miles per hour out of an old 285 PRO I once had, just blue printing the hull and working on the setup (props, setback, engine height etc). That's way more than just going in a doing some average engine mods would have given.

Actually, I wasn't going to get into this because jack plates and not that magic bullet that many people seem to think they are. A jack plate alone is probably not going to make a big difference in hole shot or speed. They primarily help optimize performance once you get it close. Getting it close means making sure the engine is at peak performance. Making sure weight distribution is good. Making sure the hull is good, no hooks, or high/low spots, and the boat has not been left sitting out in the rain a lot over the years and flotation foam is saturated, if it's early enough to have open cell foam in it. Not sure when Stratos changed over to closed cell foam. Then there's the prop, because good SS props are pretty dang expensive, and sometimes it can take trying several different ones to find just the right one, most people are not willing to put forth the money or effort required to find the perfect prop and perfect setting that a jack plate is intended to do. Once you find that near perfect prop, and everything else is good to go, then you add a jack plate to finish tuning the setup. If the motor is not turning near 5,600 rpm, (5,500 is by the book but I prefer a little over spin) with your normal load, you need to work on that before first. If it can't turn at least a 23" Raker, don't waste your money on a jack plate. All they really do for a slow boat is get the motor up for a little more clearance in shallow water, unless you can't get it up where the cav plate is a fraction above the pad with just the motor mount bolts. Normally, you can get enough height just with the motor mount bolts.

Just remember, generator requirements have changed greatly in this modern high efficiency generation. If you have a refrigerator, freezer or air conditioner made in the past several years, check with the manufactures on backup power requirements. Many, if not most, newer units run variable frequency/speed motors and compressors and can easily be damaged by the wrong power source. They must have a clean, pure sinewave, something not all generators produce. I used to run my Miller Legend welder, which gave 10KW AC, but not any more. I finally had to break down and buy me a good Generac.

Where it's stored makes a huge difference, in a garage, under a shelter, or outdoors. Even outdoors, is it where the sun will shine on it or shaded. If outdoors and especially in the morning sun, they really need to be fogged. On a cool/cold morning, after the sun has been on it for about a 1/2 hour or so, open the cowl and it will look like someone sprayed it with a water hose from such a heavy condensation. I've seen numbers of two stroke motors ruined over the years where the condensation rusted the cranks and sleeves. If you are one the disconnects the fuel line and let it run out of gas that makes it even worse because that also pulls the residual fuel and oil out of the crankcase so there is little to no oil film left in the crankcase. Even on four stroke, the sleeves and parts can rust. Also, if stored where it's exposed to freezing temps, the live wells and drain systems need all the water blown out of them or possibly some antifreeze poured in them. Two other things that are often destroyed people don't think about is the water pressure gauge and speed ohmmeter if you have them. The line needs to be disconnected from the backs of them and blown out, and the inputs to the meters. Water can freeze in them, creating enough pressure to destroy of make the very inaccurate. There is a bunch of other stuff that should be done to the boat and the trailer no mater where it's stored. There's plenty of info already written on those.

I will answer this with a PM since this is supposed to be for boats and not WFO's. I can give you some good info if you plan to build one. I should also mention something I forgot in the PM. The oven is only part of the work. What you don't see is all the other work building the oven generated. The concrete counter top to the side of it or the 12'x36' concrete slab I had to pour for a patio the wife insisted on to mate up to it, and the flower beds around the patio. Then there's the log splitter I had to build and a 3'x10' lean too to keep my un-split wood dry so it doesn't rot. Now I trying to decide on a fire pit or a fire place, gotta have one of those.

Like most everything else I do, it's somewhat of a high end professional style. I was originally going to build it with refractory bricks but getting to fit right I was going to cut almost every one twice. I was not going to just put mortar between them to hold them at the proper angles. To limit build cost I reduced my design from 42"ID to 36"ID. Then I looked at Forno Bravo's and went with an industrial grade castable refractory and built it modular like theirs to reduce the chance of cracking. Half way through casting the second section, it dawned on me I had planed on going back to the original 42" size but I was already on my fourth bag of refractory, and at $70 a 55 pound bag, ( I think I used 18 bags) I was not willing to trash what I had done, and start over. 36" is a small as I would want. It's large enough most of the time but still wish it was 42", that leaves more room for the fire and your larger pizzas are not so close where you have to be very careful about burning the edge. Also if cooking 16" pizzas, you can only do one at the time. That's the reason my stand is approx. 6', I could have made it smaller for the 36" but it was for the 42". It's cast in four sections with 3" thick wall, and 2 1/2" floor which is in five sections. There is a layer of 2200 degree insulating fire brick under the floor (hearth) and the concrete slab it's sitting on. The IFB are sitting on a 1" raised island on the slab to ensure no water could possible get to the IFB and also something to fasten the metal lath for the stucco that covers it. The oven is insulated with four layers of 1" thick 8# fiber blanket 2/3 the way up and 5" the rest of the way over the top. ( pretty close to 100 sqft) Then it's covered with metal lath, then a stucco scratch coat, a brown coat and then a hard coat with a two rows of tile to add some design trim. The stand is built with 2x2 angle approx. 6' square with a 3 1/2" thick concrete slab, highly reinforced with 5/8" rebar all welded together. I wrapped it in 3/4" plywood, felt paper, metal lath and stucco like the oven. I use the stand for wood storage so I put a divider in the middle put arched openings on both ends. Fired for 18 hours at over 1200 degrees curing the refractory, the bottom of the slab only reached 160 degrees and the top of the dome 130 degrees. The sides of the dome were only 117 degrees. The benefit of being modular and high grade refractory is I can build a massive fire in it and have it ready to cook in an hour and after almost a year, there are no cracks, not even a small one. The IFB can not get wet, nor can the insulating blankets so I put a metal roof over it, just to make sure no water got to it. The propane tank in the first one is for the torch I use to light the wood.

Tennessee Boy, I don't even use the term "how much I make" mines more like how little I make. I came from a large family, my biological father was a fulltime professional gambler until he became a fulltime acholic deadbeat. The man I referred to as My dad was really my stepfather who married my mother with six small kids (I was four with two younger bothers and three older) when he was a private in the Marines. The man was always able to come up with some method of having food on the table and at least having us something under the Christmas tree. A man I totally respected and had a great admiration for as I grew up, but money we didn't have. When you are not raised with a descent financial background, sometimes it's hard to understand money. That's stuff you need to have a good time and buy all those things you want, but don't really need. The more you make, the more and better toys you can have. You are not thinking about 30-40 years down the road, there is not a thought in your head that someday, if you don't kill yourself from some stupid stunt, you might get old and tired of working, or unable to work. Then comes along a wife, and some kids to go along with all those expensive toys and things you like. Not enough income left over to even think about saving and all the stock market is, is something you hear them talk about on the television. Next thing you know, you're having your fiftieth birthday and things start to sink in, it's not going to be long before you will be retiring (or wishing you could) and start doing a little financial evaluation. That's when you go into the financial crises mode, but about 20 to 25 years later than you should have. That's also about the same time you start well, I could always pickup some side work or get a part time job, but guess what, not many companies want to hire old farts, or you may not have the physical ability to "work". I have my military retirement, social security and a small savings I managed to put together during that financial crises mode that's enough to keep me out of the soup line but nothing to brag about. One saving grace it my medical insurance, my insure through the military along with medicare pays almost all medical expenses, but not dental, so that still bites.

Remember, you are living in modern times. When the "Transom Saver" was introduced, things were a lot different. Power tilt and trim was an option (a fairly expensive option) and lots of motors didn't have it, and a lot of people hauled their boats with the motors down. This left the chance of backing into a curb or hitting something much greater and damaging the transom and lower unit. They just happen to pick a great name a product to support the motor up to prevent this damage. With that name and because it was effective it became a mind set in boat owners that it was an item they must have. Even as hydraulic tilt and trim became almost standard on modern motors, it was still not recommended to be use when trailering because with the advent of the drive own trailers, if it leaked down, you were almost guaranteed to damage something. Many engine manufactures quit installing motor supports, probably because it saved them a few dollars, so you were still stuck with either having to depend on the hydraulics holding the motor up or some other mechanical means. I think the theory now is, that 500+ pound motor sitting up on top of the transom is going to damage it from the stopping, starting and road vibrations when hauling it. The funny thing is, the first time you go full throttle from the start, you are creating more stress on that transom that any hauling could ever hope to create. However, it you don't have an OMC or some other motor that has a trailering support built in, you need something, because I don't think it would be smart to use the hydraulics. So, there's the Transom Saver, good for the boat, but not really good for the motor. Realizing this a seeing the damage they have caused, better mouse traps are being built. There are several good devices that mechanically lock it down though the hydraulic system.

You will probably be better off just leaving it out. If you epoxy a broken piece back, it can actually make the magnet weaker because the two fields are going to be reversed were the break is at. You might see if MK sells a whole replacement magnet that you could epoxy in to replace the broken one. As for power loss, there will probably be a little but doubt it would be enough you would ever notice.

I don't know if BRP still puts the engine supports on their motors but when they were OMC and for several years after the change over in 2000, it was recommended by (Johnson/Evinrude) to use the support. It was actually called the trailering support. It placed the motor at the proper angle so it did not put stress on the transom. Now, Mercury was just the opposite, those that had the support, was only intended to be used as a stationary support, not to be used when trailering. I think they quit installing it all together. As for the other brand motors, never messed with the saki burners so don't know what they had or recommended. I still run the OMC motors and absolutely will not use anything that is going to place a bar between the trailer and the lower unit on my motor. I've seen bad things that happened to motors with that setup. One guy I met didn't even have his lower unit when he got home. The only thing left was the bolts and pieces of metal that once held it on. You will find boat manufactures like them, most motor manufactures are against them.

Like this. The bottom one is what they looked liked. I had already pulled the back and cushion out and recovered them for both seats before thinking about taking the picture. They were still good, just cruddy looking like the bucket part. The sun reflecting off some of the stitching makes them look like they are showing, but it doesn't really look like that. They look fine. Like I said, they were still very serviceable, just looked like crap. I had just finished installing the vinyl on this one, after some warm sun warms it up some, it will smooth on out. That's my wood fired oven in the background. Gooood pizza's and breads.

So much for that days work. I found out those injection molded bucket seats are a total pain in the butt. My one day job turned into 2 1/2 days, and that was doing them back to the way they were made. Just finished bolting them back in the boat. Now it looks like I may be doing another recliner

Brad Reid, sounds like we have a little in common. I worked with mostly teachers in one of the larger Texas school districts and many teachers had never done anything but Teach, all they had was their state TRS fund and didn't understand it at all. Having not worked a job in the social security system, that was not an option for them at retirement. Many had no other forms of savings and when you sit down with them and do the numbers, you show them where they either won't be retiring when they think they will, or be like so many other retired teachers, forced to get another job or substitute teach.

I'm just the opposite, I retired in 1996 from the military with 22.5 years, have not missed it for one minute. I was going to stay to 26, but right after I was selected for promotion and re-enlisted, they said they were going to assign me to Mississippi and I said no you're not. Turned down the assignment and the promotion and was a civilian six months later. I had to give them a six month notice, but with my accrued leave and other retirement benefits, the following day was my last active duty day. I had already bought a house, moved the family and a business to GA, and gone to work in a civilian job when my retirement date finally rolled around. I had a GS11, civil service job available at a base near were I moved to and wouldn't even take it, wanted nothing else to do with the military

Don't know your finances but there is always a need for a good machinist. There are CNC mills and lathes that can be picked up at reasonable prices. Then you could work at your own pace. I've been fully retired for seven years and still haven't gotten totally used to it.

Don't have a clue on cost, I've always done my own, but you can bet it won't be cheap You might want to check into Wise seat, https://wiseseats.com/collections/pro-angler-series. They have several different lines you can look at