Bolar

Ha, it is a rats nest under there!

The drive sleeve is suppose to give also .

The fix is you bend them a little so they are on tight.

The boat comes pretty complete. You have been out twice so you have PFD's. You and the boy could take a boating course. You will both learn a lot from that (I did). Spare tire, extra boat plug, extra kill switch cord, maybe some basic tools in a small box. Lunch. Food/water is always a good thing. That's all I can think of as necessities.

Wow, that's a little pricey! Will you have to purchase the whole 96"?

Ha, you mention a boat hook. The last time I went out a guy was launching the same time as me. There was a dock between us. I had tied up and was going to park and I heard a bit of a struggle. The guy next to me didn't tie up very well and his boat got away from him. He ran back to his truck and quickly grabbed a boat hook, but by the time he got to the end of the dock the boat floated to far out. I went back and untied and idled over to his boat and towed it back in. He thanked me. I was glad the new guy with the new boat was able to help one of the "old" guys . As I was pulling out there was another rig waiting in front of me to get out of the way. I didn't notice him until I was pulling out, so i don't know how long he waited. I know there is the dock etiquette thing, but i didn't think it right to park first while this guys boat floats away . Fashion .

I've had problems with the pedestals unscrewing. As you swivel you unscrew them. You really have to crank them down to stay tight. I have a strap wrench I'm going to try next time out. I've never had much luck with a strap, so either it will work or I'll break the wrench . I do have a plan B if the strap thing doesn't work. I've had some creaking from the seats as I swivel, which was very irritating. Just a small amount of lithium grease at the top of the pedestal will take care of the noise .

So a few pages back I posted my fix for storing the stern light. The foam was awfully white under the console. I don't have any brown but I do have some orange paint on hand. Heritage orange. That's pretty much it and modification for awhile. I might get some transom straps, but it's not a priority. I'll run it as is this summer and see what I want to change, maybe a bimini. I'll be glad when more people get their boats and see what they do to them.

It's about two months for me and I don't have my $400 card yet. The other day I flashed them the e-mail on my phone and they used that .

I got them from Amazon. They are the Flagship Plus White Face with Chrome Bezel Family Gauges. The thing about Amazon is they don't show pictures for the gauges on their site. You have to know the part numbers. https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6DCAGU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6DAXHS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 If you want to see pictures with part numbers, Mercury is a good site: http://www.mercruiserparts.com/flagship-plus-white-face-with-chrome-bez

OK, so I wrote awhile ago about maybe adding some gauges. Right now from what little time I have on the boat, I decided that I want an hour meter and voltmeter. I put one of those cheap wrap around the spark plug wire meters first thing when I got the boat, but I have to lift the engine cover to look at it and I figured since there is a matching timer, why not? I've done some searching and noticed not many people have a voltmeter for their trolling motor. I'm not sure why, I guess once it's gone it's gone and you can't charge it anyway. Anyhow, I want to see my TM voltage and my engine voltage, so I put a switch on the meter, down engine voltage, up TM voltage. I put in fuses for each battery, playing into the fuse theme already on the dash. In case anyone was wondering, the carbon fiber dash is fake. It is most definitely plastic . I had a heck of a time finding a matching disk retainer for the switch. I went to BPS and they had to look it up, and it was some other brand, not something that Tracker sells. I found a couple online but with shipping it would have cost me the same as I paid at BPS. I still have to get some lettering for the switch, but so far so good.

I tightened up my caps and they are on pretty good. If they go they go. I'm going to run with them

Same here .

I've smacked mine around often enough. I even kind of got stuck on one. What do you plan to do? Are you going to go back and look for the plate?

I just checked mine, they are still holding strong. It does look like they used nyl-nuts there. How bad is the fender, it's hard to tell from the picture?

So in my quest to find new places to launch from, I noticed the marine forecast for Lake Michigan had wave heights of less than a foot yesterday. Most people go pale when talk to them about going to Lake Michigan, but I knew I was going to try it when I bought the boat. It was fun, but it is a small boat and there is a lot of rocking and rolling even with what looks like no waves out there. This is a good time to see if you get sea sick easily. Zooming along at full speed can be taxing, you do tend to jump the small waves and get hull slap. I found it easier to cruse half throttle or less. I didn't do any fishing, but it was fun to get out there and explore. The lake water temperature was 37 . I spent a coupe of hours on the big water, then came back and fished a couple nice tributaries for the lake. Caught a couple small bass. I'll be back .

I don't know so I'm asking...wouldn't it be more beneficial to have the bigger finder at the bow where you are fishing and driving the trolling motor?

Well...no. I had a one and he jumped off when he got close to the boat. I guess he wanted to check out the new boat . I bought a 12lb river anchor and I'm really liking that. I was a little worried it might not be heavy enough, but it worked out great with a steady wind.

Today is suppose to be the best day of the weekend. I stole away some time this morning to try out a new lake by me. It's still COLD . Lower 40's, I was using a hill by the shore as a wind break. I had fun anyways...

All part of the process I guess. In about a week I should have everything, and if the weather cooperates, I should be on the water with everything complete.

It took me just over a month to get the paperwork from Tracker to register my boat. In fact I went yesterday to get everything set with the state. In the old days I would have walked out of the BMV with a plate, tax stamp and numbers . Now everything is mailed, and I wait again.

It's your boat. You can add whatever you want. On the Heritage the bilge and aerator are on the same switch so you may or may not want to change the bilge switch out. There is the lettering on the panel also.

There is no timer on the live-well. It is either on or off. You set your aerator flow screwing in our out, and the extra water exits the overflow at the top of the live-well. I messed with the live-well some my first time out, but haven't had a chance to get out and really spend some time with the boat.

If your going to the trouble of installing a volt meter I would suggest something more. That small meter only has 5 segments: Charged(probably), mostly charged, mostly dead, and dead battery. What is the voltage between segments? I would suggest if you don't get a meter with an actual read out, get one with more segments (the more the better) so you have a better idea of what you have in your battery. Also, if your want to use one meter for both batteries (12V & 12V) you can use a DPDT (on-off-on) switch on your panel. This is what I plan on doing, although mine will be analog meter.

I use the copy of my sales receipt and I got an e-mail saying they accepted it. Nice!