need help with boat.

[KillerJello]

Im posting for my friend, I am not too familiar with smaller clamp mount boat engines, im into the larger boats.<br /><br />Anyways, he bought a 15' fiberglass Wellcraft, im guessing mid 70's model. first off it has a short shaft motor on a long shaft boat he did not notice this when he bought the boat as this is his first boat. the boat will try to get up on plane but starts ventilating badly, as the cavitation plate is about 3" above the bottom of the boat. anyways, the boat sucks up gas badly (nearly a full 5 gallon tank to go about 3 miles) at a little over idle since it ventilates over 1/2 and he doesnt want to burn up the motor due to lack of water. the gas issue could quite possibly be because its not getting on plane, but even then i dont think it should suck that much gas up.<br /><br />The motor is a 1969?? johnson 33HP two cylinder. The car has like a plastic thing on the front of it that tells what the controls are such as choke, idle lean adjust, and high speed lean adjust. Im wondering how many turns each should have. the motor starts right up within a couple rotations of the crankshaft, and seems to run perfectly, yet it seems to run pretty rich. he foolishly played with the settings, and now we are trying to get them back to where they should be. <br /><br />Also, what is the cheapest and most practical way to lower that motor about 3"s? the transom apperently had a jack plate of some sort on it before, the mounting holes are there, and silliconed up. would a plate such as the mini-jacker work to get the motor down about 3 inches? He really does not want to cut the transom down any, and for $300 into the boat, it would be pointless to spend multiple times that much getting a long shaft motor for it.<br /><br />Like i said it is his first boat, and he paid $300 for everything, which is a steal in my opinion as the boat and motor are in very good condition, just the owner before him put the wrong motor on the boat.<br /><br />Thanks for your help, <br />Jason

 

[DJ]

Re: need help with boat.

Jason,<br /><br />Start by turning the mixture screws all the way in-gently. Turn each one out about 1 1/2 turns and go from there.<br /><br />The plate may help. Usually they are used for the opposite isuue.

 

[Link]

Re: need help with boat.

KillerJello <br />First of all take djohns19 advice on the carbs it works, it gets you to a place to work on from there.<br />As djohns19 also said the transom jacks are usually used to raise the motor and set it back a few inches to run in cleaner water. But I had a freind a couple months ago who bought a set up like your friends .. boat set up for long shaft with a good running short shaft.. so when he came over I told him to buy a cheap transom jack ($200.00) mount it to the same holes and lower the motor .. 5" travel vertical and it worked great!<br />I know define cheap! Boat cost 300 and transome jack 200.. Welcome to Boating! <br /><br />Link