Re: 14 ft. Tri-hull Boat Total Rebuild
Hey guyz!! Wow I feel like a stranger! My thread is the whole way back 6 pages!!!
Just got back from vacation today.
Ok now for a report on the boat....
First of all, everything was not A+ as many other guys have experienced one first time voyages.
As far as the boat itself goes, it was fantastic IMO. As far as the outboard goes....not so much. I suppose I was asking for it - not giving it a trial run before taking it. But I ran right up to my deadline and didn't really have any other option but hope for the best.
My first launch goes something like this. Got down to the lake late Sunday aft. Found a ramp to launch at and put the boat in. The whole family watches and waits for the great moment. I fire it up and back it away from the dock. Put it in forward and give it some throttle. Revs up a bit and dies. Cranks and won't start. Squeeze fuel bulb to make sure it has fuel. Refuses to start. Drop trolling motor in water and pull back to the dock and load it back up on the trailer. Water around engine is oily and seems like the engine was flooded. Took boat back to cabin to contemplate next move.
There. Lol! Sounz great!
On Monday we had a boat rental. There was a marina there and I had a service guy look at the motor. He said it might be a carb or fuel pump or something. We had changed oil in lower unit, changed water pump and fixed the electric primer system before we went down. So I checked with their parts guy and he happened to have a carb kit for my outboard. Got that. Had rental boat all day so didn't have time to work on the motor. Tues morn we redid the carb and put it in a bucket of water and tried to start it. Were able to get it up and running half decent.
Took it to the boat launch and launched it again. Engine ran better but not real great. Had absolutely no top end. Wound the whole way out I could only get 5 mph out of it. It sounded like it was just above an idle but nothing I tried would get anything more out of it. Got it back to our dock (slowly). Decided to try new spark plugs. Again, that helped some and smoothed it out a little but still didn't improve the power. Decided to scrap working on it down there and just put up with it the way it was. We had it out fishing Tues, Wed, and this morn. Engine runs decently smooth, not 100%, but gud enough to get you around.
So now I gotta take it off here sometime and have the local marine guy go over it and try to figure out wats up with it.
On the brighter side, the setup worked really nice for fishing. Trolling motor performed flawlessly! And I was really impressed with how the boat handled wakes from other boats.There was only once that any water splashed over the side and that was from a huge wake. It was like 1 1/2 ft high capping on the top. I dont even know where it came from. It splashed a little over the side but wasn't too bad.
So yeah....I really like my boat! Just got give that outboard a good tuneup or something. Really should have done that in the first place but.... Guess ya live and learn!
I'll try to get some pix of it maybe tomorrow or Sat. Haven't had a chance to download anything yet. Just dropping by to give you guyz heads up on the boat!
