Re: 63 Sea King-Montgomery Ward 12' boat info needed.
i have a 76 12 foot sea king that i put a thicker and taller wood transom on and a few hull reinforcements.. it has a 40hp motor now and it pulls so hard its scary. you need a thicker and taller transom because big motors dont fit on the thin stock transom. i think i just about doubled its thickness and added about 6-8 inches in hight. but the sea king is not a typical aluminum jon boat. it came stock with extra hull reinforcements, seat reinforcements, etc. the front of the hull is a very deep vee, the rear is a semi vee. so you can take some gnarly waves and not worry about cracking the hull. i added even more hull and seat reinforcements to cope with the bigger motor. i have jumped waves big enough that onlookers could see the bottom of the prop spinning. that is some serious adrenaline.
back when i first got it, it had a 9.9hp motor. that was JUST barely powerful enough to pull a knee boarder or skier behind it. now with the 40, i can pull 2 or 3 at a time. the cool thing is i have 9.9hp stickers on the 40hp motor, so its all slick like and the boys in blue dont give it a second glance so long as i dont do anything stupid around them.
just be safe and dont do anything dangerous when others are around. you dont want to have an accident and have people blame you for putting a motor 4 times too powerfull on a boat thats as long as 2 people are tall. a 40hp motor still idles like a 9.9, so you dont need to use all the 40 horses . infact when im on plane i usually dont give it more than 1/5 throttle. well maybe more. but you get my point. just because a motor has 40hp doesnt mean you have to use all of it.