the long saga...and now need a good mechanic.

graphicjunkie

Seaman
Joined
Jul 10, 2010
Messages
51
Ok so it's been a long spring/summer. I started off just replacing the engine from a 125 Force, to a 175 Evinrude on my 20' Bayliner. Thought that it would be an easy task... Ha ha...Yea....
I had to find a decent set of controls, because the force didn't work at ALL with the 'rude engine. That was a joke. Found one that had good guts, but the case was trash. Found another that the case was about an 7-8 out of 10, but the guts had problems. Got good deals on both. My 175 came with a good wire harness from end to end, to include tilt/trim wires and gauge. SO...combined all that into one really nice working unit.

Vinyl... The vinyl on the boat needed some love. Plain and simple. But I just can't fathom spending $800-1000 on having it done. Wife calls me from Joan Fabrics one day saying that they had a 50% off coupon and asked if I needed anything. So for less than $70 later, I had enough vinyl and foam to redo the sides and the back seats. I spent hours pulling staples, and then working on the rear seats first. I decided to try and mimic the factory vinyl instead of just putting on a generic cover. So I recreated the piping and everything. Got a leather sewing machine needle and some upholstery thread and sat down scratching my head...final product was really nice. It's not perfect, but I didn't expect it to be as I'm not a professional upholsterer. Got the "driver's side completely done, but since between "life" and working on the boat, the summer had almost passed me by so I decided to skip the passenger side until it's parked for the winter.

Electrical... The guy that had this boat before me had owned it since new. What possessed him to completely HACK the wiring in the boat is beyond me. It was a WRECK. So! Phase three...gut the wiring. I ripped it ALL out. End to End. Trying to be professional and fancy, I bought a marine fuse block with like 13 different fuses for all kinds of different things. bilge, radio, blower, lights, nav...all separate fuses. COOL. I ran all new wire for everything, and did PROPER wire management and all. I also added some LED lights to the underside of the interior sides. Just enough to light up the inside of the cabin floor for night fishing...but not too bright as to kill your night vision. Also, the original radio sucked to say the least. So I ripped that out and the 20W max speakers...replaced it with a Pioneer head unit in a sealed cover, and some pioneer 130W max speakers. No, they aren't marine, but they were just laying around in my shop and will last a couple of seasons and they sound incredible. Meanwhile I'm going to pickup some Polk Audio 8" to replace them. ;)

So after spending a ton of time getting this all done and then the whole thing cleaned up, today I took the boat out for the first time.
Put it in the water, did some close to shore testing first, and then ventured out to broader waters. With the 125, the boat could hit 28-30 at BEST. I worked my way up to what felt like max throttle, looked down at the speedo and I was doing about 47!! YES!
Do I need to go that fast? No way. But now I know I've got plenty of power to pull behind me without having to run the engine all out all the time.

Here's the kicker. I noticed that the engine seemed to be loading up. I also noticed that the tach was maxing out at around 4300. And it should be maxing out around 5500 - 6500. I am in need of a good tune up. So it is capable of MORE! WOW!

But I have looked on line and can't find anyone that does boat tune ups. What do I look for? If anyone is in the Fort Collins area and reads this, can you recommend a GOOD mechanic?

I'm totally stoked about the boat now. Can't wait to take the family out and play!

Thanks for reading, and any suggestions on a mechanic would be greatly appreciated.
 
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