New Sea Captain of the SS Shark Bait!

[Perfections]

That's awesome Mike, your son looks to be having a great time

[RaskyR1]

So do you have him cleaning and polishing it yet Mike?

[Mike Phillips]

Are you able to trim the outdrive or just tilt it up? As I recall it was tilt only.

This boat is equipped with only a tilt feature. One of the hydraulic rams and one of them was leaking so I called around to all the local Marinas and was lucky to find one that matches the ones on my boat. I joined iboats forums and asked a few questions about the proper way to remove and replace the leaking ram and then how to bleed the system and one of the forum members shard the link to a PDF file for the manual on my Mercruiser outdrive. I followed the directions and did the swap and the and bled the system in about 20 minutes using just a few standard wrenches. One thing about old technology, it's easy to work on and just another success story thanks to a discussion forum.

The guy behind the counter where I purchased the ram told me they're no longer available to order and he'll try to get me a seal kit so I can rebuild the one I removed in case I need to replace the other side down the road.

One other question please sir.........do you run a lead substitute in the fuel or is it happy on unleaded?

I run premium and no additives. I'm fairly familiar with the lead issue with older engines without hardened valve seats have owned my share of pre unleaded gas engines. So far I haven't experience any problems and the boat was used regularly by the original owner so could be he's had the head off or could be there's never been any problems, I don't know for sure. Everything, including the engine looks to be original and never taken apart.

I broke speedometer tang that sticks out of the back of the boat off by accident, it was very brittle and haven't replaced it yet but when it was on there I think the fastest it went was 35 mph and plenty of power to pull tubes.

So do you have him cleaning and polishing it yet Mike?

He's very good at helping to keep her shiny as well as launching an then loading her back onto the trailer. This boat is actually very easy to launch and load, my drag boat was the fastest and easiest boat I've ever launched and loaded or even seen launched and loaded, just run her onto the trailer, attach the pin to the hook and v-bracket and go...


Back to work tomorrow...