Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

[Highwood]

My old Merc 40 hp needs a new bottom end and I'm not shure its worth fixing.
I can buy a 115 hp outboard jet drive that produces the same amount of thrust as an 80 hp prop driven outboard.
Are there any issues with using this type of motor on a pontoon?

Thanks for any help with this!

 

[lncoop]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

Welcome to iboats. You're talking about hanging a lot more weight off the pod. What size is your barge and do you know your motor capacity?

 

[Highwood]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

My barge is a 20" Bass Buggy and is rated for 85hp.
The weight of the moptor is about 380lbs.

 

[jusfloatin]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

The thing about a jet is it only steer's the boat when it is reving up, when you throtle down you are just two logs moving in the direction the jet was last pushing you in.
Where if you have a O/B the lower leg will still direct a boat even though you are idleing down.

Not to mention the problem you would have trying to feed the jet with a constant uninterupted flow of water.

 

[5150abf]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

Can't say i have ever seen a jet on a toon, my first though was shaft length, don't know if they come in a long shaft or not and as the p[rvious post said, the water between the toons is pretty torn up.

This could be a really expensive experiment.

 

[jusfloatin]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

Can't say i have ever seen a jet on a toon, my first though was shaft length, don't know if they come in a long shaft or not and as the p[rvious post said, the water between the toons is pretty torn up.

This could be a really expensive experiment.

There is a company http://www.outboardjets.com/index.php that sell jets to fit anything size and manufacturer of O/B (20hp and up short 15", long 20"or extra long 25"leg)

Money trumps all

But back to the original thread, it would like peeing into a very large hole which you could never fill.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Outboard jet drive on a pontoon boat?

On balance it sounds like a bad idea. If you're sure the Merc's not worth what it will take to fix it you might be better off just looking for another outboard.