New to me toy.
 

I went over today and picked up my new to me CAROLINA SKIFF. It is an 04(not 05 like I initially thought), with an 04 75HP HONDA outboard, and 04 MAGIC TILT aluminum trailer. The trailer needs new carpet on the bunks, the boat itself is pretty much ready to go except for swapping out to the bigger 20 gallon fuel tank and hooking the bilge pump back up, but the engine needs some attention from sitting for so long. The carbs were green inside despite him having put it up with no fuel in them, both fuel pumps are pouring fuel out the covers from the o-rings being dry and hard, and the lower unit was froze on. I ended up pulling the threads out when I eventually got the bolt out because of how much heat I had to put to it to get it to move, and after getting all the bolts out I got the lower off as it was just frozen to the dowel pins, so a few wacks with a hammer, and a prybar got it off of them. The oil in it is still bright in color as it has no hours since I changed it for him, and I bet it doesn't have 100 hours on it total run time.

I remember saying before I would never own a 4 stroke because of how much parts cost for them, and this HONDA is proving why I said that. I won't mention how much the parts for the engine are setting me back to get her back up to par, but she'll be right when I'm done.

Great looking boat. I wish our climate out here was more conducive to a center console - there are just too many days that are cold and wet enough (when there are fish).

20,gal. tank and a 4 stroke, your range should be somewhere near Greenland.

Enjoy the new toy.

Looks good Ferm! Where are you mounting the new tank, and what manufacturer/model are you using?

I see something vaguely familiar on the extreme right of your picture.

Nice buy Ferm. When you get used to the quiet/efficiency of the 4-stroke it will ruin you.. The horny part, not so much... And it all costs big $$$ to fix them these days..

Yep, that's your old engine bradford(need to make soem time and finish her up to help offset the cost of the new boat). The tank is going in the console. it was the tank that came with it, but he put a 12 gallon in it, so I'm going to put the 20 back in it. And I know they're quiet and effcient, but almost $500 for some basic parts to perform maintence, and over a week to get them because nobody stocks parts sucks. At least if it was a YAMAHA parts are pretty easy to get, but HONDA parts are all scarce to find. Looks like it will be next weekend before I get to actually use her. Going to add some rod holders to the console, and find a new grab rail for it. Was REALLY hoping to use it next week as it's spring break and my wife is off since she's a teacher, but I DO still have my jon boat for the time being.

wazzat, a 16 footer??

19 foot DLX model. Wished it was the 80 inch wide model, but it's the narrow 65 inch wide model.

let me know if you need any Honda parts

Already ordered them through boats.net. Was hoping to have it going this weekend, but most everything is special order for this thing. I just have to remind myself of how much fuel I will be saving from now on. And having the fiberglass boat will be nice as it won't be no where near as hot as the aluminum gets in the sunlight.

the place my wife works at is set up as a Honda dealer if you need anything. I'm not saying they have it in stock(:fight:) but they can order it

You're gonna love the fuel mileage. My old 2 stroke Tohatsu 90 burned as much fuel as my ETEC with nearly half the horsepower, much lighter and more efficient hull, etc. Not to mention how loud the old ones sound after you get used to the newer ones.

Was looking at a 18 or 20 for mine, under the console. I want the fill directly on the tank and the fuel line on the same side to facilitate easy K.I.S.S. rigging. Also would prefer a translucent tank to be able to just look at it and know my fuel level. Do you have a model # for yours?

Well I lied, it's a 27 gallon tank. It is a translucent 27 gallon MOELLER tank with the filler on top, model FT2739. Mine has a hollow console with no storage or anything in it(all open underneath).

Sweet! Thanks Ferm!

Thats nice Ferm! I bet she sees a lot of use!

Got to take it out today for a shakedown run to see how she does. 1st noticeable drawback is how quiet the HONDA is, now I can't use the excuse that the engine is to loud to hear the wife talking. 2nd drawback is I wish this one had EFI. I cleaned the carbs THOUROUGHLY to say teh least running tip cleaners through every jet, syncing em when I put em on, and setting the idle speed with a digital tach in the water. It runs great once your up to 1500RPM's or more, but at idle it MUST be trimmed in till the engine is level for it to run smooth. It will run smooth as silk with the engien level or trimmed in, but trim the engien up to go shallow and she starts coughing and shaking on me. Trim it back in and clear it out, and she goes back to purring like a kitten. My GPS only worked for a few minutes before my batteries died(no power outlet installed yet), but at 3800 she cruises comfortably and flat, and was running right around 22-23 MPH. I've got a 4 blade prop on order for it to try out as she wants to run bow high until I get it up in the speed(I'm sure that 400 pound HONDA hanging off the stern don't help), hoping it will lift the stern up a bit better at slower speeds. I have to also put a steering cable in it as it is pretty good at idle, but at speed it gets pretty stiff. Not looking forward to changing it as this is one you have to pull the outboard off to change the cable out.

Hoping to get to take her out for a shakedown feeshin trip this weekend. Hoping the spanish macks are still off the beach waiting for me.

sounds like the float level might be a tad too high

1 of them was, but I set them all. I was BEYOND paranoid going through these things this time around. This engine has ALWAYS been a PAIN to sync the carbs on, and get it to run right. Trimmed down she purrs like a kitten, starts right up when I hit the key, trim it up and she's another story.

lean sneeze or flooding out?

It acts like it's flooding out, but I can open up the idle screws a touch(you only have about an 1/8 turn of adjustment in them) and it doesn't do it as bad when trimmed up. But trim it down and it definately loads up. This engine has ALWAYS been a pain, just figured it goes with these carbs I have read so many horror stories about online. Why HONDA felt they needed a 4 circuit carb instead of just adding an accelerator pump is beyond me.

I have to say one thing about this HONDA, it is pretty stingy with the fuel useage. Took it out most of the day SATURDAY fishing, and it ran for a good portion of it idling or trolling, then took it out again Sunday running on the river for 2 hours, and it still didn't even burn 8 1/2 gallons of gas. The 2 trips before that we took it out and ran for a good 30 minutes out to an island to go swimming, then ran offshore to do some trolling, ran 10 miles south to another beach, all the way back in, then ran up the ANCLOTE RIVER, and back to the river. Then I took it out another time where we ran down the WEEKI WACHEE RIVER and offshore a bit to look around, then ran all the way back up the river almost to the spring in the park, and looked at some houses off the side canals, and after those 2 trips it still didn't use but maybe 11 gallons of gas. I'm not burning much more fuel with the 75HP HONDA than my old 35HP JOHNSON did on the 16 foot jon boat going a heck of a site slower. It may have some quirks I really don't like(the main one being it weighs almost 400 pounds), but it is good on fuel. I've yet to use a full tank of fuel in 4 trips.

Well I got reminded why I DIDN'T want a fiberglass boat. When I took the boat out a little over a month ago, I ran across a rock bar trying to get back to a beach to let my son out to play. It initially looked like I got lucky and only hit the prop and a little of the skeg, so I replaced the prop and took it out Monday. When I got home I noticed a chunk of gel coat hanging loose, looked underneath, and seen my worst fears. I gouged up about a 2 foot section of the gel coat, with about a 4 inch section down into the glass. So I have spent all afternoon sanding out the old gel coat to bevel it back to accept a new coat, cleaning up the glass, and recoating it. It would have helped if I could have found some ge coat paste because of the depth of the gouging, but all I could get was gel coat finish. So 3 coats later, I'm now ready to sand it out flat, and hopefully finish sand it. The other catch was they were out of brown AND yellow tinting, so I now have a nice WHITE section on my hull bottom. I figured it was better to have a white section, than to allow it to wear into the fiberglass. Days like today make me remember why I LIKED having an aluminum jon boat, it just scratched up the bottom and kept going, not 6 hours of fiberglass and gel work to fix.

Run it in Anclote river for a couple times and it will blend in lol.

Ended up on coat #4, and some water dripped out of the gel coat. Checked and a section flaked off. So sanded the spot back down, put a 500 watt flood light on it, and waiting for it to dry out fully, THEN do coat #5. I HATE FIBERGLASS WORK!

Just learned a new trick. If you get teh fiberglass good and hot with a halogen lamp. leave it on while you put the gel coat down, you can build it up in layers very quickly. I found it took about 2 minutes to skin over with the light on it, and I was able to brush on a layer, smooth it over with a flat paddle, let it skin in about 2 minutes, and repeat about 4 times before what was in my cup bagan to harden. Got the spot all taken care of it looks like, so should be good to go for Thursday.

Just do like I do and say F-IT. Mine spends its life on the trailer or boatlift so who needs gel anyways...