I'm back with a 1994 Islander 221V!

[Moserkr]

Boats looking great!! Congrats (late) on the splash!!! I really like that faux teak, have it in my boat too but yes it shrinks.

As for the ATP mount, I like the easy original idea best.

 

[Gibbles]

Thanks
I went ahead with the easy route, mounted the atp brain box to the transom next to the starboard battery.

I also like it because I can pull the battery cover off and see the status lights, that should help me troubleshoot if it comes to it.

Trim tabs are fully installed and working, next step will be a lake trial and programming.

Over the weekend started organizing and cleaning the boat, getting ready for the next outing.
The alpine cd deck that this thing came with started powering off on me.
then amazon suggested the exact deck I have been trying to find.

Nearly a direct swap for this one and bundled with a remote control.
Most important thing: Bluetooth connectivity!
No CD player, but that's fine.
That arrived nice and early on Sunday morning, so I proceeded to get ready for the swap.

I was delighted to see that the plug was the same as the current unit, and the pinout is identical!
Swapped it in and connected to my phone, started with the basic setup.
The sound quality difference amazed me.
it also controls the amp/sub better with less distortion.
Overall, just a better sounding stereo with a better interface.

This is what I got

Amazon.com: Alpine UTE-73BT Mech-Less Digital Media Receiver with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology : Electronics

Amazon.com: Alpine UTE-73BT Mech-Less Digital Media Receiver with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology : Electronics

www.amazon.com

Alpine UTE 73BT

Afterwards I started doing some wire cleanup, rats nest in the starboard gunnel, hiding an Alpine speaker driver module thing.
Probably an amp, I didn't look at it too hard other than cleaning up the wiring and installing some corrugated wire protection and some new zip ties to make it pretty.

 

[Gibbles]

Picture from last year, tube and the little rope with the spacer to keep the rope out of the water.




Pretty decent setup, the islander pulled it great as long as I knew where the trim was.
even overloaded it did great.

Main complaint from the kids, it's hard to get on to.
the best way seemed to be from the swim platform.

I'm keeping an eye open for something a little easier to use but it worked good enough.

I had no problems making it interesting, driving side to side so they hit the wake and sometimes go flying.

Once I was on it, people seemed to really want to torment me on it?!
I played a little nicer afterwards, taking it as a hint.

 

[Gibbles]

I finally had a chance to try out the new trim tabs this last weekend.
Night and day difference, and it's nice having functioning trim sensors again.

For the most part i never needed to adjust the engine trim, the boat just went!

The auto trim pro feature is neat once i had it programmed.
The more i let it run, the better it got.
I also liked how when under way, it sensed chop and deployed to smooth it out, you can watch it work by the status lights on the controller.
Pretty neat

A few times i had to take over, like when they deployed at weird times and did weird things. Or when they wouldn't deploy when i wanted them to.
It got better as the auto feature learned, so I probably just need more time with it in auto.

Setup was frustrating,
First google won't resolve the bennett website for some reason, so i got different versions at first.
Later i used duck duck go and it found the bennett site right away.
Two versions of the instructions depending when the controller was made.

On the water doing the setup, i saw one step where before I swear there was two steps.
Programming never completed so i found it on youtube.
I kept missing step one where you set the stationary position, so that got frustrating until i slowed down and watched the video from the start... lol

Then finally all steps completed, and the blue lights turned off indicating Programming has been completed.

Then Programming the fav buttons so I could start messing with the auto feature.

I like having the control, and the auto feature.
Even with the tabs retracted the boat planes faster.

Running the tube was also much smoother, never needing to use engine trim.

I feel like some of the auto weirdness would be resolved if the controller had speed data, but it still does a great job once it started figuring the boat out.

 

[Fj40fiji]

Are you happy with the 12x12 tab size? I have a 97 221v and am considering the 18x9 or 12x9. My floors are out right now so backing it up is no issue, nor is relocating the hull anode. I just put brand new through hull fittings for the live well, I don’t want to mess with those. I’m very happy to read your feed back auto trim pro, it sounds like the way to go.

 

[Gibbles]

Are you happy with the 12x12 tab size? I have a 97 221v and am considering the 18x9 or 12x9. My floors are out right now so backing it up is no issue, nor is relocating the hull anode. I just put brand new through hull fittings for the live well, I don’t want to mess with those. I’m very happy to read your feed back auto trim pro, it sounds like the way to go.

They say go as large as you can.
The 12x12 is great, better than i expected.

You really need to figure out how much space you have to work with before ordering.

For me i couldn't install them as far to the sides as they reccomended due to the trailer straps on the back.
Then i have hull the annode and fish finder on one side, then the livewell fittings on the other side.

I think I could have gotten away with a few more inches wider, but it's better safe than sorry.

 

[Gibbles]

Well, another boating year is starting.
It's taking a long time for it to get nice and warm, so the boat hasn't been splashed yet.

this year i went after the throttle and shift cables after doing the bellows and the lower shift cable last year.
that one lower shift cable made such a nice difference in the ease of the throttle controller I knew it was time to do the rest.

I spent some time trying to figure out how the heck the Mercury 3000 controller came apart.

I had limited success trying to find info on how this 3000 facia came apart, but i finally figured it out.

For reference, this is what mine looks like.



Nice slick sporty looking facia, turns out the button in the middle comes off, but it needs to rotate out of position so it can be yanked on.
From there it's an 18mm socket to get the handle removed.

then the plastic facia comes off along with the trailer button on the lower right.

I found mine had been off before, and they broke a couple of tabs on the lower facia.
they used some trim rubber glue to hold it on...

Most things are NLA, but i did manage to find some new old stock parts.
the lower panel was the hard one to source.

I found one, but it's original 1994 still in the plastic wrap.
I also sourced the top facia to go along with it.

Recieving the parts, one minor problem.
it appears there is a "shiny" and "dull" color difference.
Separated by a -1 and -2 in the part numbers.

I have a mismatch!
Minor, but i haven't decided if it bothers me yet.



the hope is the top panel installed on the boat matches the new lower, since that's the part I actually need to replace.


Once the plastic facia has been removed, it shows a bracket that's mounted on the boat, then the control box bolts to that bracket.

The hard part i had was understanding how that actualy worked since I couldn't find any info searching around.
So i went in and poked at it until i figured it out.

Key being to only remove the bolts that hold the control box to the mount.

from there it was easy to pull the back plate off of the box, and then disconnect the cables.

Getting the cables out was a chore.
I couldn't see what was happening, but in the driver area the cable was getting caught up.

After fighting it for a bit, I finally decided to chop the cables in half, then remove the easy way.

Once out, the fun begins of figuring out what legnth of cable i need.
I also found a nice 1994 date stamp on the cables.
One of them had a nice part number, where i could clearly see it was a 15ft teleflex cable.

I scored a nice "platnum ptfe" set from the local boating store in town.
$150, but i didn't have to wait.

then the fun began of routing and reinstalling.


With my control box free, I was able to take a nice look at it on a table.
Everything looked great, the ptfe grease was in good condition, only some areas were showing darkening, so i cleaned that up and re-applied fresh merc ptfe grease to the inner workings before re installing.

Now getting the control box back behind the panel was a chore.
That took a couple hours of trial and error to get the bolts to line up and getting the cables in the right area.

Finding some sharp sheet metal as I worked and bleed.
being careful to remove my blood as I know it will eat the aluminum if i allow it to sit there.
(I have a dirtbike where blood ate up the engine case, I bleed all over that thing!)


Finally, everything is back together and adjusted.
it's much smoother.
I also found the shift cable was pretty good, but that throttle cable was done.

On hand I also have the shifter bushing
Removal of the handle, I found a little plastic bushing in there that was chewed up pretty badly.
Maybe some dirt got in there at some point, it also damaged the handle surface a bit.

So I found what I believe is the correct part, the orignal being black, this new one being off white.





While I had everything apart, I also took the handle apart to wrap some of the wires up, the original protection had worn off, so I used some 3m super 77 (a little thicker than super 33).

Hoping to get all of this installed this weekend and the control handle torqued to spec before the next outing.


anyways, I hope I never need to pull that control box off ever again.
not fun.

 

[Gibbles]

And I still have one more part to install on the boat.
So, this thing still has a water leak that fills up the bilge.

the PO had no idea, he went crazy with the gulvit rivet sealer stuff while he scratched his head.

I blamed it on the cracked engine block.
but now that it's no longer cracked, I found water was still slowly working its way in.

What I found was a water spray when the engine has some rpm when on the water.

It's still up in the air if it's related to the engine exhaust or the water inlet.

When I had the drive off last year for the bellows, I noticed the water inlet tube is plastic, and probably original.

I believe the PO said he did the bellows thinking that could have been the source of the leak, but it didn't fix it.
I don't know if he did the tube or not.
I saw an old tube on the external side, so that got replaced since it was in the bellows kit.

I thought I should do the inlet tube while everything is apart, but the part was 1-2 weeks out, so I opted to skip it.

Now here I am, knowing I should have tackled the job.
and I have the part with a fresh rubber bushing ready to go.




All I need is motivation!

I'm thinking I'll end up lifting the engine up and out of the way to get to the inner part of the clamp/hose.

The concern would be the transom, I can see it's discoloring it a bit from water, so that's making me concerned.

As it is, the bilge can get enough water in there to touch the bottom of the transom.
I can suck it down by using the manual switch on the rear most bilge pump, but I'm still not happy about it.

Enough so that I don't run the boat late in the year, I want to take it out of the water to ensure the wood has a chance to fully dry out before it gets cold.
So that rules out fall fishing.

So yup, soon.
tempted to knock it out this weekend, but man it looks like a huge job.

 

[jbcurt00]

Welcome back