Way2slow

Thanks Tom, but it don't bother me. I'm not the one buying the batteries. My hope is at least one person will read some of this stuff I post and think maybe that's what they should do. Two very popular thoughts I see constantly about batteries that is just totally wrong, one is the term "slow charge". Slow charge in the battery world is the 10% rate. Most automotive batteries, because they are cranking batteries can charge at 30-40 amps and are charged at that most of the time. How many times have you looked at the amp meter in you vehicle and see it on 30 or more amps after first starting it. The other one is that makes my skin crawl is the one where people think you need to totally discharge a deep cycle battery before you charge it, and then charge it back at that stupid 3 or 4 amps or it will develop a "memory". The idiots don't realize, lead acid batteries can't develop a memory, that's only for the old rechargeable NiCads some of the lithium ion batteries Talk about destroying a battery, that's a great way to do that. Since most probably don't even know what a cycle count is, they wouldn't understand doing that "GREATLY" reduces the cycle count, and charging at 75% capacity, greatly increases the cycle count.

yes, it will work, just like a paddle will work for moving the boat around. Is it the best tool for the job, not by a long shot. First, the charger is too small, second, using that type of charger is just causing a slow death of your battery. To properly charge the battery, the charger should be approx. 10% of the rated capacity. That's 10 - 15 amps for most TM batteries. Second, those chargers are only intended to charge a battery every now and then, not constantly keep charging the battery every time its used. Their voltage output is not suitable for that and actually cause harm to a battery every time you charge it. Also, to fully charge a battery, it has to be overcharged slightly, those chargers are not designed to do that, as soon as the battery reaches a certain level, they shut off if it's and automatic, or can easily over charge one if not disconnected about 10 - 20 minutes after the battery reaches 100%. To properly charge a battery that's recharged on a regular basis, you need to use one that's logic controlled. The stand alone chargers that do this are usually sold as Logic Controlled, Smart Chargers or Intili Chargers. Many also have a maintenance mode so they can be left on the battery 24/7 and keep it properly maintained. Some of the cheaper ones that advertise this feature will actually fry the battery in several months because their maintenance voltage is not that well regulated and too high to leave them on 24/7. A good charger will pay for itself on the first battery. You might get a year out of a good battery with a cheap charger, and five or six years with a good charger. Bad info, don't use the 2 - 3 amp setting, it needs to be closer to 10. A battery must gas a little bit when charger to keep the electrolyte mixed. A slow charge like that will not make it form gas bubble and the electrolyte will stratify, causing the acid to settle to the bottom and water in the upper layer. The heavy concentration of acid eats up the bottom section of plates.

A hydrofoil will help any of them get on plane. Since you didn't give much info, it would be hard to help. Boat size, HP rating, type motor would help. Unless it's a 20' boat, there are probably other issues going on that's causing your problem. An 18' boat should pop out of the water with a 150, a 19 can be a little slow with the wrong prop and a 20' can be down right sluggish with the wrong prop and weight distribution. Some issues can be: motor performance problems Weight distribution. Under powered hull Hull problems like water logged flotation foam. Poor setup in general.

DO NOT wire two batteries in series for a 12 Volt motor, you will fry it. They must be wired in parallel. Now, a couple of facts that affect your run time if you have a big concern over that. First, if you are considering two batteries, go ahead and get a 24 volt motor. A 24 volt motor is about 25% more efficient than a 12 volt motor, so that's already 25% more run time. Also, if you get a variable speed motor instead of the ones with four of five fixed speeds, that will greatly increase run time at speeds slower than max. At casting speeds, you can get as much as 75% more run time. If you are stuck on using a 12 volt motor and plan to use two batteries. Connect the two batteries in parallel and run both at the same time, that will give you about 25% more run time than running one battery until dead and then swapping. Many suggest using one battery and then the other as backup, but that's not the best way. As the load on a battery increase, it's efficiency greatly decrease. so if you have both batteries in parallel, they are sharing the load equally, so each is only seeing half the load, significantly increasing the efficiency of the batteries.

Man, I don't know what you did to p**s him off that bad, but it must have been something serious. I feel the same way about those as I did the International Scout. If you wanted to make your best friend your worst enemy, give him a Scout. Not sure how old you are referring to but if recent old, look up parts for a Tanaka 300. If very old, the powerheads were made by Tecumseh and almost no parts are available for those things. If it's just the rope, any small engine shop should have replacement pull rope on bulk roles.

There's one problem with your math. Due to the inefficiency of a 12 volt motor, and the fact that as the amp load on a battery increase, efficiency goes way down. At 50 amps draw, your 125Ah battery is probably closer to being a 75Ah battery. It's only a 125Ah battery when it only has about a five amp draw on it.

That's something you have to figure out yourself. Is the battery permanently mounted in a boat or one you have to take out and put in every trip? The bigger the battery, the heavier they get. Flooded cell batteries are heavier than AGM's. Depending on your size and age, you may not enjoy handling a big flooded cell every time you want to use it. How long do you plan to use it each trip? Batteries have a very finite amount of capacity so run time is limited to that capacity. The smaller the battery, the shorter the run time. A 55# TM is going to have a significant current draw when running at max power, smaller batteries may only give you 45 minutes of full power running. Is the battery only used when casting, or is it an electric only boat and TM used constantly. Just used for casting, if you kill it, you have the gas motor to get home. If electric only, you have the paddle to get home. So, if you only go for a couple of hours to some farm pond of small lake, most any size will work. If you go for a whole day or and fish large lakes, you may need two of the biggest, highest capacity batteries you can get to keep from paddling home.

AGM, can be used in any orientation, even upside down but has 10% less capacity when used on it's side or upside down. Flooded cell batteries, even the ones with sealed caps must be used in the right side up position. AGM is safer for salt water use. AGM can cause problems with charging systems of outboard motors not designed to use them, so if the motor is more than a few years old, it's probably not designed to run AGM's. Also, any charging system, car, boat, or battery charger not designed to charge AGM batteries will shorten the life of the battery. For similar physical size batteries, (same or similar group number) the AGM will typically have 25% less run reserve minutes than a high end flooded cell battery. A quality AGM that's properly charged and maintained has a higher cycle count than a flooded battery. AGM does require less maintenance than flooded cell batteries but you should make it a habit to clean/maintain all battery terminal connections at least annually.

Well, I don't see a picture, but since that motor has no oil any place but what's mixed in the gas and what's in the lower unit, it's difficult for it to have just an oil leak.

For my 2 cents worth. Doesn't that motor have something like a five year warranty. If it's still under warranty, why not have a professional answer your question on if it has a problem or not. Also, just to double check things, I would go to a dealer and get a gallon of XD-100, dump what's in the tank back into a jug and refill it with the dealer's oil, then run it long enough to purge the system and then see if it smokes. I know Domo is a big company, but anytime you go outside the OEM network, there is always a chance for fakes, and at what a gallon of XD-100 cost, there is plenty of money to be made selling fakes. Don't think they can't fake it, you have people selling fake medications everyday, they have gotten to the point you have to hope what you get, even from and big chain store, is the real stuff. If there is money to be made, somebody will counterfeit it. Another thing, looking at your video, it's hard to tell if that's oil smoke or water vapor, and with synthetic oils, it can be hard to tell them apart. If it's water vapor, you darn sure don't want to run it until it's repaired because even a small amount of water getting into a cylinder will melt a piston in a heartbeat. Steam disappears almost immediately as it leaves the engine, oil smoke will kind of linger around. Also, if you hold you hand in front of the exhaust, it will usually form a lot of condensation on your hand if it's steam, but in humid areas, any exhaust will do that. With all that said, to answer your question, NO, that motor should not be smoking and there is a problem somewhere and if it's fake oil, the BRP will stick you with a huge bill for repairing it.

Careful buying used without a title. Some states make it very difficult to title one, and you have to title it to register it, which you are normally required to do it you put any kind of a motor on it in most states, even a TM. There's a whole bunch of them lifted from ponds where land owners just leave them on the banks, I have one floating around out there somewhere that was stolen from one of my ponds.

A couple things to be aware of if the boat was stored outside. Back then Stratos used open cell foam. If the boat was left uncovered, water can soak into the foam and is almost impossible to get out, adding as much as several hundred pounds to the weight and can rot the stringers. Being in GA where we see a lot more rain than you probably see, this is a very common problem with older boats that used open cell foam.

When shopping, make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Two key components that affect the price of boats that size is the thickness of the metal and if welded or riveted. The Tracker is a .050", riveted boat, and Alumacraft is .058, a Crestliner is .067, and Lowe won't say what it is but probably .050 also. You also looks at a boats dry weight/hull weight. The thicker metal boats are usually going to be considerably heavier.

What you have is something that might be a deal for someone like me that can do everything needed to fix it up themselves but even then it could be questionable. For someone that has to pay for the repairs, you are looking at a whole bunch of possible/probable problems that could make that boat cost several times what it's worth. I could give you a whole list of problems with this deal but it sounds like you are already convinced it's a great deal so I will just say "good luck".

QC??? Are you serious. Look where this stuff is made. These companies are at the mercy of what the contractor making them sends them. That's why they strive to make customer service so good. They have little control over the quality of the item they ship you so they try to keep you happy by providing excellent service when it does fail. After all, they are normally making tons of money on the item, so they can afford to swap out several if need be. My son's brother in law is the chief engineer at a Trico Wiper Blade plant in mexico, just across the border from Texas where he lives. He gave me several sets of their top of the line consumer blades for each of my vehicles that cost approx. $17+ for each, depending on where you buy them. Those blades are sold by Trico for about $3.50. The rest of the price you buy them for are the different markups added to them by the time you buy them. He also said you can't buy their best quality blades, they only sell them to OEM manufactures.

There is about a 99% probability the synchronization is on the carbs and linkage off and the idle mixture is off. When I get done with one, you can sit a full glass of water on top of the engine and it won't shake out. When it comes to sync'ing the carbs and the linkage, close is not good enough. It's a painstaking task to adjust, check, adjust again, check again and keep doing this until perfect. You can help the idle some idling it up some. Just don't get it too high where it bangs the gears when you shift. If you look on top of the motor you will see a black plastic shaft piece with a knurled knob on it. Turning that knurled knob adjust the idle speed by increasing the idle timing. It has no affect on WOT timing, that's another adjustment, so you don't have to worry about it changing on you. Also, this has to be done after the motor has been warmed up and is sitting in the lake trimmed down so it's sitting fairly level, vertical with the lake level. You CAN NOT adjust the idle on a hose or in a tank. It must have the proper back pressure on it to set the idle speed. Also, do not use the linkage stop screw that rest against the block to adjust the idle. Turning that throws the whole synchronization off on everything, and can make the whole thing worse. On a stock motor, I usually run spark plugs about 100 hours. The set in my 225 ficht have been in it for about five years because I haven't been using it that much. If you fog your motor for the winter, then do like J Francho. Run the motor in the spring to burn the fogging oil out and then replace the plugs. I have on more than one occasion had fogging oil to leave a residue that caused a miss fire if the plugs are left in after burning it out.

That's like the Ford vs Chevy argument. In bow mounts, I've always preferred MG's, in transom mounts, it never mattered to me. I have a like new $1,500 MinnKota with I-Pilot sitting in the corner of a storage building I took off my boat and put the 10 year old motor guide back on if that's any indication of which I prefer.

Since you are obviously new to boats. Be sure you have someone with you that's very knowledge of how to check a boat for rotted transom, floor, etc. It's obvious the boat has been refreshed with new seats and carpet in the recent past and mostly sat out before that. It's very common for a boat that age and left out to be rotted to the point it's not safe to operated, and the cost to repair those items greatly exceed the cost of the boat. Also, that's probably only a $1,300 boat if it does check out good, and pure junk if the floor or transom is bad. One other point, since that motor does not have factory tilt and trim, someone has added a CMC aftermarket one. They will probably say that's a $700 unit, to try and make it sound more valuable. It really does not add that much value to the boat, a couple hundred dollars at most, from the $1,000 it would be worth without it. It primarily just makes the boat easier to sell, if it works properly, because most of the newer motors that big will have it built in and just goes along as part of the motor, and it would suck having to raise and lower that motor by hand every time.

That's the way most bass boats are. The biggest difference is the fuel tanks are usually are just one aluminum or plastic tank instead of using the old five gallon cans

Most are adjustable by raising the shaft up and down but the problem you are going to run into is the huge difference in the two boats deck height. Most pontoons need a 60" shaft to get the TM deep enough in the water so it won't blow out every time it hits a wake. When you raise that 60" up enough to keep it from being three feet deep in the water on a jon, the head is sticking up a a couple of feet in the air and totally in your way trying to cast. The jon needs something more like a 42". So, trying to switch the motor between the two boats would not be very practical.

I don't see where you would have a problem running a 15 two stroke. It looks pretty well braced at the transom so it would probably run a 25 two stroke or a 15 four stroke they would probably make the bow rise up a bunch when starting off when in it by yourself without figuring out a way to move some weight forward. Good luck using that casting deck make sure you keep a flotation device on. I had in mind a jon when you first described it.

I'm not real sure why you buy a monster size motor that weighs a ton and then turn around an run it on 2/3rd voltage so it's only making about half the power it should make. I'm actually surprised if ran on two batteries, especially after they were partially discharged.

You should be fairly safe going with a 15 two stroke on a 1448. Also, if it's an early model, before the early 80's a 15 is actually only about a 12 with todays ratings. Those early Johnson 15's were just a 9.9 with a bigger intake and carburetor on them anyway. I haven't looked much at the weight of the new four strokes, I think they run in the 130 pound range, but if there is one less than 100 pounds, you could probably use a four stroke if buying a new motor. Before I put a 130 pound motor on the back, I would add a transom brace and make sure the plywood is still good. There are several different types of transom braces you can buy for jon's. With a transom brace and the plywood is strong, you could probably use a 130 pound, 15 four stroke. This all based on my personal experience and since there not a lot of info on that early of a boat, you would have to evaluate what you have for yourself. If it's that thin beer can aluminum, then you would have to be careful what you put on it. If it's good, heavy gauge aluminum, those things were built like tanks back then.

12 volts is probably not enough to make the control board work. You have to remember, there's some electronics in the head of that motor that actually makes the motor operate. You are not just feeding voltage into the motor windings.

I have a 1436 Lowe I use in some of the smaller rivers and lakes. In the rivers I run a 9.9 because the smaller LU does not hit those underwater trees, limbs and obstacles as bad. The rest of the time I run a 25hp Merc. I think on a 1448, a 25 two stroke would be a nice size engine However, I'm sure it's probably not rated for that much hp so you have to see what your state laws are on over powering a hull. Some states get down right ugly about having a boat with more hp than it's rated for. Even on my 1436, a 9.9 seems mighty slow when you are on open water with two people in the boat. If it has the coast guard data plate with the max hp rating on it, I would not go any smaller than what it has on it..