Took the boat out, couple of ?'s

[iRich]

Hi all, We took the boat out a couple of times this weekend. First of all, it ran fine. No problems except when I was putting it on the trailer it decided to stall and wouldn't stay running. Of course five minutes later on the hose it would start with the first turn of the key. <br /> Anyhow I drove it around a couple of hours on sat. and a couple more today. Mostly pulling the kids on a tube and dhe never missed a beat. However the rpm's only got up to 4700 on my tach. I do have a problem with the fuel bulb not getting hard. It stays soft until it is running and then it will get hard. It doesn't make any difference with the tach though either way. I hooked an external tank and line from another motor to it and it the bulb would get hard before starting so I guess it is between the tank and the motor somewhere. I will sort it out next weekend. Now, back to the 4700 rpm's, supposing I get the fuel issue taken care of and it is still at 4700. How much more or less pitch prop would I want to get. I don't even know what I have now because I can find no numbers on it. I will have to borrow one from someone that looks close and test it I guess. Also if I did change the prop to get 5500 rpm's, how much faster would it push my 17' Crestliner? I would guess I was around 27-29 mph now, I forgot my GPS so don't know for sure. <br /> Thanks for any advice on this and for previous questions I have posted on this forum. We had a good time on the water and as I said no problems. I just want to get these last couple of wrinkles ironed out.<br /><br />Rich

 

[Solittle]

Re: Took the boat out, couple of ?'s

You didn't tell us what motor you have - No matter - take your prop, a picture of your boat (& weight if you know it) to a prop shop. They can tell you what you have now and what you need. I would suspect that you will need to drop down a couple of inches but they are the experts. They may be able to repitch the prop you have and add a cup to the blades. Otherwise buy a new one and use the old for a spare.<br /><br />If you boat much in shallow water or water with a sandy bottom I would go for a stainless prop. They are expensive but can be bought at ebay if you know exactly what you need.<br /><br />The speed is not as important as reaching the recommended rpm at wide open throttle (WOT) with your normal load. You are lugging the motor now which it does not like. Best effieiency is 90-100% WOT.