Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

And one little gripe about Uflex

Everything I found said they are FL based, and US made parts, same with Teleflex...

The unit said "Made in Italy"
Box has a US flag on it and in small letters says "Assembled in USA"

Nothing wrong with Italy, I have a couple very well made guns from Italy, I have a very high respect for them.
but made in USA was one of the checks I made when deciding on Teleflex vs Uflex...

Oh well, atleast I supported a job of an American, even if it was just putting the parts in a box; and I did like the logic of their design.

Heck, even my truck says "Assembled in USA" most of the parts say made in Canada...

/rant off

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

To seal my transom I used west system epoxy w/206 hardner.
From what I understand that gives me a bit of UV protection...

I'd paint it.

 

[lakelover]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Weight is a worry of mine...
From what I have found, the 20hp engine I had on there weighed about 100lbs

that 3 cyl 65hp seems to weigh right around 200lbs from what I have been able to find.

That 9.8hp is about 40-50lbs

I am installing a fuel tank up front, Once I have the new floor in I will start working on some sort of platform...
I plan on installing the battery in the back for ease, and I like the idea of keeping the battery & fuel on different ends of the boat.

For the fuel line I was thinking about routing maybe some copper line up and under the port gunwales, then rubber connections going to and from... with hopes that the hard fuel line will give me very good suction.


Drawings for the seats were rough at best, not scale.

Right now I have just enough space between the seats to take a step, not much else...

Making a straight bench across will take a lot less work and less fitting
Another worry is making sure I have a solid spot to install the mounts, the bench makes it so I can run a support down the middle, boxes would mean I might not have a strong spot unless I get it right on a rib...

I'm leaning strongly towards the straight bench setup.

I would guess that your 9.8 weighs just around 70 lb., if I recall, my Merc 9.9 weighs 72 lb. My 50 weighs 200 lb., if I had to guess, I'd say your 65 is probably somewhat more, but maybe not a lot.

The fuel tank up front will help balance the weight, with that much in the stern, I'd try to push as much other weight toward the front as possible. Maybe I'm just the nervous type, but I like your idea of the battery not being up front with the fuel.

Looks like you have a lot of options for the seat design. I wonder if you could make, or have made, some replacement brackets that you could rivet in place on the sides? That might solve a lot of your concerns. I too had thought about a design of 4 individual mounts for the seats, but went with the boards for the sake of simplicity and saving time & materials & weight.

And the copper fuel line seems like a good idea to me. Maybe someone who knows more about it will chime in.

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

I'd paint it.

Yeah I'll hit it with some paint this summer, I'm really digging the wood grain though

 

[lakelover]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Yeah I'll hit it with some paint this summer, I'm really digging the wood grain though

If the epoxy claims UV resistance, hopefully you'll be OK. I would have painted it myself, but if I had it in that way already, I'd let it be. Couldn't hurt though to add more UV protection where the sun does shine!

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

I would guess that your 9.8 weighs just around 70 lb., if I recall, my Merc 9.9 weighs 72 lb. My 50 weighs 200 lb., if I had to guess, I'd say your 65 is probably somewhat more, but maybe not a lot.

The fuel tank up front will help balance the weight, with that much in the stern, I'd try to push as much other weight toward the front as possible. Maybe I'm just the nervous type, but I like your idea of the battery not being up front with the fuel.

Looks like you have a lot of options for the seat design. I wonder if you could make, or have made, some replacement brackets that you could rivet in place on the sides? That might solve a lot of your concerns. I too had thought about a design of 4 individual mounts for the seats, but went with the boards for the sake of simplicity and saving time & materials & weight.

And the copper fuel line seems like a good idea to me. Maybe someone who knows more about it will chime in.

I have a 12gal tank my FIL saved from the boat we gutted (the windshield donor), I plan on using that if possible.
Should give me some good weight in the front.
It also has a fuel sender, and I think my FIL kept the dashboard, hopefully that still has the fuel gauge...


And from what I found on the 65hp, the engine weight goes up by a bit if its the 4cyl model, and the 65 & 50hp merc are really close to the same weight...

I also looked at some of the newer 4 stroke engines out there in the 60-70hp range, they only run about 230-260lbs

Gives me something work with later on if I can get the real weight of this thing.

And strangly for power to weight, Yamaha had the best price and weight (think it was 230lbs for a 60hp 4 stroke!).

But that won't happen for years, I need to get about 3-4 years out of this engine before that becomes an option...

And my mercury 650 weight comes from here http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=178500
Made sense, and seemed about right looking at the 4 stroke 4 cyl models

 

[GLG fishing]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Copper for a fuel line on a boat is not the correct thing to do. Use rubber fuel line that is made for a boat. If you are having clearance issues with your kicker try moving the motor closer to the main. If not you can also cut/grind parts off the kicker to give you more room. If that wont work you could set the kicker back a few inches by adding a pad on the back of the transom to mount the motor.

GLG

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

My Jupiter came to me equipped with a copper fuel line run under the deck from up under the bow to back under the transom. Worked great. I just took a regular outboard fuel line, cut it, and put the bulb end up front with the tank and the rest in the back. Hose clamped it onto the copper.

 

[GLG fishing]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

You might want to rethink the use of a copper fuel line after reading this.
http://newboatbuilders.com/pages/safety_fuel.html
and this
http://newboatbuilders.com/pages/fuel.html

I would not want to risk copper lines on my boat, after all you might not want to get out of the boat if there was a problem like you could with a car.
As always do what you want, it's a free country and if it's legal fill your boots.
Another note to consider is e10 in your tank?
GLG

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

NuWave Marine has about the best deal I could find on marine grade fuel line.

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Looking at the issue with the kicker motor...

The kicker has three positions.
1 down
2 bracket that holds it up at an angle marked "troll"
3 all the way up

#2 is not far up enough to run at power (I don't think)
#3 is to far up, and makes it so I cannot turn, steering mount/tiller hits side of boat

I looked at the locking bracket for pos #3 and I think I can cut another notch in there to give me a #4 & allowing me to steer with the engine pulled out of the water.

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

I got the external wiring harness installed yesterday

I decided to solder the connections together, then shrink wrap the splice.
...as the original internal plug was shot, and I'm not paying $170-$200 for a new setup

Previous owner of the engine had bought an entire new external wiring harness & key switch trying to figure out the issue with the engine.

Bad news for him, awesome for me

One issue is he bought a newer type of key switch; it’s the push to choke...

I had figured out most of the wiring and even got the choke to work, but all of the markings are different than my manual shows, so it will take some time with a volt meter to get all of the wires in the correct spot...

And the original key switch is still in the control housing; I may just yank that out and use as an example, or clean and see if it still works...

I found some shrink wrap in all sorts of colors, so I kept with the same color scheme as in the wire loom
(Yellow, black, red, gray, white, and brown)

I also had some left over wire protectors from when I was installing a few new lights in my house; came with the light kit...
I thought they were fancy shrink tubes, so I saved them...

Before using I decided I better test and see how far it shrank, thing did not react to my lighter or propane heater flame, did not even darken, very cool!

I installed those under the shrink wrap on each wire for why the heck not.

I sealed everything with splicing tape (marine rated) and bundled it all together and used a tie wrap to hold it where the plug useto sit...

later on I'll install a plug down the line a bit more when it's needed, for now this works

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

And I found another glasser to strip and junk, it has a working twin of my engine; it may even have the newer ignition system (76+)...

One issue; it's in southern Utah, and that?s about a 3-4hr drive, and I don't think the trailer will make it home...

But, my FIL is technically a resident, and has a condo down there...
We could drop down this weekend, limp it to his place, remove the engine and controls, and maybe the windshield, toss it in the back of my suv, and then take the rest to the local dump, and pray they take it...

The engine may make a great parts engine, or if it has the newer better ignition system I can fix it up, and swap engines after I get my use from this one...

My FIL is ready to have me drive him down this weekend, and he wants to go to Vegas while down there...

So I may give the guy a call tomorrow, and see if he still even has it...

FIL is talking about me hauling his boat down there while we are at it and do some fishing in the nice warm desert weather as I don't trust my trailer with that drive.

 

[lakelover]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

And I found another glasser to strip and junk, it has a working twin of my engine; it may even have the newer ignition system (76+)...

How much better can it get?

Man, you're moving along a lightning speed on this, great work!

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Thanks
The part I'm not looking forward to is the floor & seating. :facepalm:


I also got a $75 gift card to cabelas for Christmas, I'm looking at either new seats, or using it for half of the Garmin echo 200 fishfinder I have been looking at...

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Well I got a little done yesterday...

I drove out to west marine to look at battery cable.

Looking at the stuff; the copper strands, and the casing seemed to be the same stuff we used in car stereo's back when I was young and still had my hearing :redface:

Price also seemed a little high at $3.99 a foot

I use to have a source for cheap super flexible super fine copper cable via using welder leads, but the shop where we use to buy the stuff looked at me like I was crazy and tried to sell it to me by the 100ft roll...

so I tried a car stereo shop up the street from me to look at their power cable, it was $2.50 a foot and it's the same stuff in every way except it does not say "Marine" on the side, and it comes in a bunch of perdy colors!

I also found a long time ago if you go to a car stereo shop they are usually much cheaper than places like autozone, radio shack, or other fun places for things like relays, water tight fuse boxes (for under hood), wire, switches, and battery connectors.

And they usually have some very high quality battery connectors, with high copper content, and plated with gold or silver.

Another thing I like is the manf of the power cables for stereos will tell you the % of copper used in the cable, and the strand sizes and count.

But back then we found that welding cable was the same, but more flexable due to the thinner casing, and half the price of the car stereo shops...

Anyways, I used 4ga, and crimped, soldered (to form a nice seal/connection), shrink wrapped, and installed my new battery cables.

Next; floors, seats, and finish wiring the key switch

 

[lakelover]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Good tip on the car stereo places. I wanted something quick when I hooked up my battery so I got "marine" connectors at WM but expect to put something better in. The only thing I could see that made them "marine" was that they had some paint on them.

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Yeah I saw those as WM, It looked like that finish they put on standard connectors, I forget what it is...

And the wire I picked up from the stereo shop also had that flat silver colored coating on the strands, solder sticked to it very well

And the Marine battery cable over at WM had the same coating

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

And looking at the picture I took of my mounted engine and reviewing my mercury manual, it looks like I might need to raise my engine a little...

It's a good thing I have not drilled holes yet...

but being lower may be ok, it's not like I'm going to need as much speed as I can get out of the thing.

 

[Gibbles]

Re: Merc 65hp on a Jet Star? (now with pictures!)

Well I did not head down south this weekend

And I got the floor pulled!

It was a big pain in the butt...

Those 2x4's mounted to the floor were screwed right into the ribs, and I could not get any of the screws out...

I finally got the idea to drill around the screws and then using a crowbar rip them out, broke two brand new bits doing it, but I finally got everything out!

there is blue foam under the floor, I saw what looks to be a date code of 01/02 on the foam.

the wood from the floor may be orignial and it was treated resin plywood, I'll get some pictures later.

Most of what was holding the floor down were steel screws.. but there were about 3 aluminum rivets still there

and the front most part had some aluminum sheets that had aluminum rivets holding it down...

I'll get some pictures shortly