Way2slow

For the ficht owners. I would suggest contacting DFI Technologies with any ECU and Injector problems. Yes, the early fichts, have serious ECU problems that have caused all kinds of problems. DFI does all the latest updates close to 50 the last time I had one done. This greatly improves the engines reliability and reduces the chances of the popped piston the early fichts were/are so famous for. Now, this is not a cheap something to do, but it's a whole lot cheaper than a blown power head or buying a new OEM ECU. Plus it's usually a lot cheaper than going through a dealer to have one reman'd. I have not had one done in several years so can't say what they charge now.

Usually, questions are not stupid. It's the things people do before they decide to ask the question is what gets stupid

If you want good, get a Mustang HIT If you want cheap, get whoever's, but you can't get both in one.

You just about can't come off plane slow enough to stop the backwash. As mentioned, as the boat is settling, just before the backwash hits, give it a little gas to move the boat forward several more feet. Pretty soon you will get the timing down to where it's almost automatic. Even after pulling the throttle back all the way from a high speed run, it will not wash over once you learn to make that little bump on the throttle just ahead of the backwash. The other option is to buy a boat that does not do it, but you are getting into a pretty large boat. My 285 Pro will soak you if you drop it off plane and don't give it some gas, but my Javelin R20 never gets water over the splash well when I chop the throttle on it.

I use the 303 Fabric Guard on my wife's Beetle convertible every six months, works great. We also get our share of UV.

That's one of the more popular ones. It's probably better known for being used on canvas convertible tops. There are a couple of convertible top dressing/sealants that work very well.

On most boats I just hook the boat to a tree or something and pull the trailer out from under it and use the winch to pull it back on. Sometimes that last couple of feet can be a little hard to winch on so I just get going and slam on brakes a couple of times and let inertia do the rest. Understand, sometimes it does not take much inertia, so start slow and easy or you could ruin your day doing it. Also, make sure you have a good front eye, some are mounted so crappy they would pull through the hull if you put much pressure on them. Now, if you boat weighs a couple thousand pounds like my 20' Javelin, sliding one off it's not something you would want to do unless 100% necessary, it's a bear to load back on. It's usually easier to just jack it up and do any repairs. I've replaced bunks and rollers many times without taking one off the trailer.

It boils down to common since. If you are not well versed on the mechanics and workings of outboard motors, make life simple and buy new from one of the major name brands if you have the funds. If the price is out of your comfort zone, buy as new as you can get that's within your budget. Just be sure anytime you are buying used you have a very knowledgeable person with you to inspect and check it out. More than one person has bought junk thinking they were saving money. Without a good knowledge of motors, buying any used motor is going to be a crap shoot. One good guide to go by, believe half of what you see, and nothing about what you hear from the seller is pitching it to you.

A lot depends on your personal engine knowledge. Being able to check out and recognize the good from the bad makes a huge difference in being able to get a good used motor. I have and regularly use an early 70's 9.9 Johnsons. I have as much faith in that motor as I would a new one. Same with my 86, 25hp Merc. Matter of fact, the newest motor I have is a 1999 225, and I have a bunch of motors. I actually prefer the somewhat older motors over the newer high tech motors. They are much easier and usually cheaper to repair.

Not my cup of tea, too hard to do it right and it's hard on a big motor. On rare occasions I troll for stripers but I put my 4hp on beside the big motor and have it so it steers with the big motor. When I was a kid that was the only way I knew because that was the way everybody that took me fished. I didn't like it and when I got where I go on my own, I cast.

Batteries are just too dang cheap to mess around with when you look at the headaches they can cause. I replace cranking batteries every three years in my vehicles and boats with the biggest, baddest battery I can get to fit and have never had one failed to start because of a dead battery. I have had a couple of no starts because of bad connections that I was able to fix rather easily, but never a dead battery. I bought my first power boat, a 14' GlassMaster with a 65hp Merc in 1965. That was before the days of onboard chargers and battery maintainers. Every spring I would put a new cranking battery in it. For that past many years, I either have onboard chargers in my boats that stay on 24/7 or BatteryMinders on the vehicles I don't regularly drive. I just replaced the three year old battery in my wife's Toyota HighLander. It's classified as a 700CCA battery. When it was new, it was testing at 780CCA, after three years use, it was testing at 455CCA. While that's more than enough to crank the vehicle for now, with summer just around the corner and hot weather creates the most problems for batteries, why screw around with it. I put that one in my welder and a new one in her car. Now, as for wasting the money on a Jump Box, putting that money in a good set of jumper cables would make much more since. Those things usually only work on batteries to weak to turn a motor fast enough, and is pulling the voltage down to low for the ignition system, and they only give you a couple of seconds of boost, so if the motor does not start readily, you are back to square one. If it's not cranking because of a failed battery, open or shorted plate, and won't crank the motor over at all, those things are going to be useless, where a good set of jumper cables off a TM battery will usually get you going. Understand one other thing, if the jumper cables have cable smaller than #6, they are junk and will not carry enough current to crank a dead battery. I personally would not waste my money on a set of jumper cables that aren't at least #2 battery cable. If you can't take the battery out of a vehicle (or disconnect the battery cables) and connect jumper cable to them and crank the vehicle, the jumper cables are too small. Smaller motors etc that don't require huge CCA's will start fine with #6 cable, but larger motors and most vehicles will need larger cable.

Actually, batteries in series need to be matching. After a battery has gone through a number of cycles, (most experts put this number at 25) or several months difference in shelf life, due do plate degradation changing the internal resistance, they are no longer considered to be identical to a newer battery of the same make and type. So, all batteries in a series configuration need to be changed to prevent damaging the batteries. If they are not matching batteries, you can find yourself playing battery yo-yo every several months An example of how critical matching batteries are in series. A man was wanting to try setting a world 1/4 mile et record for an electric car. Excide shipped them two full pallets of batteries for their expert to go through to select about a dozen matching batteries to use. At the loads they were going to be pulling for that few seconds could cause a mismatching battery to explode. Actually, even in parallel they should be matching batteries but it's not as critical as in series batteries, because in series the load is equal through all batteries. This is not the case in parallel batteries.

I have a Raytek I've been using for probably the last 10 years. Mine was about $90 when I bought it but I think they are a little cheaper now. Not too sure how much faith I would put in one of those super el chepo ones though. I know most everything we get now days seems to come out of china but I find most of that super cheap junk to be just that, pure junk. As for checking hub temps, I've always just felt of them from time to time when I stop for gas or rest.

I don't know when you made the deal but might want to check your state's buyer protection laws. Many states have laws that give you a certain number of days to cancel a signed contract. Since that's already considered a one year old motor, upgrading it could cost you a several thousand. I also agree with going to a 225 over a 200 on a boat that size if you want a boat that will put a smile on your face when you have it loaded.

Oh! excuse me. I guess with 55 years of experience racing and running outboards I don't know what I'm talking about so paying a dealer $100 per hour to make a few simple checks would be smart.

Motor too low on transom. Motor is not trimmed out enough when up to speed. Trim tab needs to be adjusted more to help counteract torque. Could be a combination of all three of theses.

Good luck!. I see you are new so welcome to the site, it looks like you will be back many times. I hope someone paid you well to haul it off for them. Those are very cheap built boat and many actually used OSB instead of plywood that completely falls apart after it gets wet. Meaning there is probably not a piece of wood in the thing that won't need replacing. A difficult and expensive undertaking even for an experienced boat repair facility. The cap will also have to come off and if you don't have experience with that, you can ruin the hull trying to get it back together. Then, after doing all that, you still have a Force motor on the back

If you have already signed the papers and brought it home, it's still a used/previously owned motor. That should have been a consideration before buying it. You are probably going to take a serious hit trying to upgrade it now. This is strictly my personal opinion but I consider a 150 on a boat rated for 250 grossly undersized one of those packages BPS is famous for to get you in what looks like a lot of boat for a cheaper price.

If the batteries are flooded cells and have caps, one of these are a must have. These take all the guessing out of it. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Otc-4619-Profesional-Battery-Hydrometer/150348085? wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1330&adid=22222222227051235443&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=146962832356&wl4=pla-262776216665&wl5=9011203&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=100362769&wl11=online&wl12=150348085&wl13=&veh=sem. Many parts store have them, just make sure it's like this one, the ones with the pointer or floating balls are almost useless.

This is probably one of the best in the country http://www.teamcandomarine.com/custompage.asp?pg=fiberglass_repair

As others have mentioned, support and flotation. If you look, they only use .043" aluminum and it's rated for 10 hp. With a 36" width, they probably felt in needed that extra support. Many of the wider 14' that only have .064" aluminum have that same design but the ones with .072" doesn't. The 10' didn't but it's only rated for 5hp.

Is it a deep open crack or just a fine line stress crack. Maybe a close up picture?

Actually, the biggest you feel like you can handle, but no matter what you get, you will need to learn how to manage its use or plan on doing some paddling.

One of the 500Ah from a electric pallet jack, probably only weighs about 300 pounds.

My wife's is a 2008 with the factory towing package. Since we live in a hilly area, I would never try towing my 20' Javelin but I have used it several times towing smaller boats. You just have to pay attention to what, how and where you are towing. Towing up hills, towing fast and towing in overdrive can all cause the transmission to over heat so you have to pay attention to how much you are loading it and how much shifting it's doing. If you are going to tow regularly with it, a temp gauge in the transmission would be worth it's weight in gold. Also an external cooler if it doesn't have one. You want to keep it below 190f degrees. Stopping from time to time and Using one of the laser temp readers to shoot it would be wise to get a feeling for how its doing.