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    Would you trust auto mechanic to winterize?

    While reading through our local town free newspaper I noticed an ad for a $189 winterizing service - placed there by our local auto mechanic. I've never been to this mechanic, but the cars out in front of his shop are usually foreign and/or higher-end brands. The marine shop another 10 miles...
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    Mercruiser warning sound; & need manual

    Boat details are below. For some reason I'm hearing what sounds like a warning sound/beep from the dashboard. For those of you that have similar engines (or boat) the sound I'm hearing is the same one you hear when you turn the key to the accessory position - except it's not a long, prolonged...
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    Bayliner storage near engine

    I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question is going to be "no", but thought I'd ask anyway. Can you safely store items back by the engine in an I/O (see our boat details below)? In our boat the engine cover runs the entire width of the boat. It's great for sitting on top of it when the...
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    How do I free up storage in Lowrance GPS?

    I have a Lowrance LMS-520c GPS unit installed on our boat (details in signature line). The previous owner had this installed on the boat and to date I've only used it for simple depth readings, water temp and speed. However, over the weekend we took the boat out on Lake Minnetonka, one of the...
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    Need to winterize if storing boat indoors?

    [Basic boat info in signature line below] I'm wondering if we store our boat in our garage this winter if I still need to winterize it? Our house is two years old and we have a 3-car garage. It's an insulated garage, but not heated. I don't know exactly what the inside garage temps were this...
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    Keel guards REALLY necessary?

    Yesterday we were out on Lake Waconia in the southwestern Twin Cities area. There's an area along the east side of the lake that is sand/beach for maybe 200 yards. There are lots of boats pulled up and people hanging out - a very relaxing spot. This was our first full day on this lake so we...
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    snowmobile - which one to buy?

    Yeah, I know, it's the wrong time to be thinking about snowmobiling. We're new to boating and we're getting a ton of use out of it and having a blast. But I bought our boat in the dead of winter in Minnesota because I had a hunch we'd find decent deals at that time. Now my wife may be ready to...
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    Thanks to all for shortening my learning curve

    Wife, kids and I took our boat out to a local lake this weekend for five hours of fun. Everything went great. As my signature line states below - we're relatively new at this, and don't really have any veteran boater to show us the ropes. But after taking a boating course, watching some videos...
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    Is VHF really necessary on small inland lakes?

    Although we're in the land of 10,000 lakes, so far we've only boated on three of them. I can see us getting around to five area lakes - all smaller inland lakes. The smallest is closest to our house and is around 100 acres. The largest (about 10 miles away) is 3,000 acres. Last week we had...
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    Great website for tying common knots

    http://www.animatedknots.com/usesboating.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com Just found this website as I was looking around online for common knots. I didn't grow up as a boy scout so I'm lacking skills in this area. This site has pretty cool visual step-by-step...
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    Need to find a home for my anchor line

    I'm just about fully outfitted on my boat, and finally have two anchors aboard. On Friday I needed to use both of them and wound up with what felt like a birds nest of anchor line, mingled with ski rope, and tube, and towels, etc. I swear we're generally very clean and organized but you get some...
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    Need help ordering a replacement prop

    I'm on the iboats parts website right now trying to order a few things and I'd like to order a prop. The two props that I have right now (one is heavily damaged; I'm replacing that one) both have the following information on the ring of the prop: J14 X 23P, M, V I was told the better aluminum...
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    Do you change prop in the water???

    I recently had some prop damage and had to change it out (see thread here: http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=320206). Granted this was my first time and it was a steep learning curve, and it looks like I misthreaded the nut so I have a minor repair yet in front of me. But even if things...
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    Prop damage, and more???

    I have three main questions: 1) what happened?; 2) how do I remove this prop?, and 3) can this prop be salvaged? Long story, but I think I did two bad things to my prop and/or engine today. First, we were going slow through a channel and hit "something". I still don't know what we hit but it...
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    what's a good hobby?

    During a chat with my boss the other day, the boss tells me I work too hard - I need a hobby. I'm not sure I necessarily agree, but it got me to thinking: what the heck kind of hobby would I take up?! :confused: I'm about 40, happily married with a couple kids in elementary/middle school. I...
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    Fuel gauge not working

    On the water yesterday our fuel gauge was "bouncing" between the full mark, and the 3/4 mark. Any thoughts on why it might be doing that? And is there a simple fix? Our boat details are below. Thanks!
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    how did a gallon of water get in my boat?

    Stupid question, right?! Yesterday was our first full day on the water (we're new boaters, details below), and we had a blast. We went with some boating veteran friends - they had their own boat on the water - so we had anywhere from 4-7 people in our boat at various times. We were out on the...
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    Engine pinging/knocking after shut off?

    Boat details below. Yesterday we took the boat out for it's first full day on the water. We had a great time; very glad we bought the boat! We did have a few minor issues which I'll post in the appropriate forums on iboats. The main issue I'm concerned with is that towards the end of the day...
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    Converting bunk trailer to rollers?

    We have a Karavan bunk trailer (other boat details below). The bunks work ok, but I keep hearing from others that rollers are the way to go. This weekend I finally found out why. We went boating at a local lake with some friends (they have their own boat; roller trailer). The ramp area was...
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    are these buddy bearings?; do I need grease?

    Sorry for the cell phone camera pics, but I'm hoping you guys can help me with two questions: 1) do these things look like buddy bearings on my trailer wheels? 2) by looking at the inside picture, does it look like I need to pump some grease in there? If so, can I just pump it in and then put...
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