Newbie question. Need your advice.

[Catigale]

My girls all had to pass the outboard test of starting cold, hot, flooded, draining carb bowl of water before they were allowed to go off on their own in Cape Cod. Nissan 4HP

[vizwhiz]

Cat, you sound like one of those big "meanie" dads that makes their kids mind...
(Good idea...kudos to you!)

Sum, the motor wasn't on the boat when I bought it, so I was basing this on looking at your pics and your comments about how tight this motor is. I thought about mounting this motor on a bracket, but because it's a short shaft, I'd have to mount it on a kicker type that lowers also, and I think that would put the motor so far back and low that I wouldn't be able to reach the tiller over the transom space (without sitting in the motor well!) so I'm thinking it's best to just back up and get a motor that fits and is the right length (extra long). I realize that I won't get what the motor is worth, but I should be able to come out ahead on the deal - I wasn't planning to buy a brand new motor. (should I?)

What if you fell overboard can she get the outboard started to come back and get you?

You're assuming that if I fall overboard she'll WANT to come back and get me!!

Of course we'd like the electric start for convenience but we've talked about it, and we'll just have to check to be sure the admiral can pull-start one with or without the electric start - as Cat and you both pointed out, we need to be able to start it in many scenario's...she's petite, but she's a toughy (she works out and has bigger muscles than mine...well, all but my table muscle!).

With all that said, it's hard to determine what the exact electrical situation is going to be like...I'm ASSUMING at the moment that the motor I buy will have an alternator/charging circuit on it. For the day-sailing and overnights we'll be doing, and having a pull-start on the motor, it may not be ultimately essential to be able to charge, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to want it once I get some experience under my belt and start to get...adventurous!

So the PO's had run the motor connections into the lazarette two ways...one through a hole (greeeaaat!) but they also had a three-prong electric cable connector (looks like the plug for the power on your computer) mounted in the motor well. Any preferences about routing wires from the motor into the boat?

[Sumner]

......Any preferences about routing wires from the motor into the boat?

I put the PVC fitting above in the side of the boat for the wiring to the Eagle Cuda 350 that slides on the life line. It is ugly, but effective. We can't see it in the boat and we are not near other boats, so don't care about the looks part. When we are ready to trailer I pull the Cuda off the life line and pull the line back through the fitting into the Laz and....



...put a plug in the fitting.



Above is what most of the rest of the wiring runs through. The PO had the wiring from the outboard and gas line running through there, but as I mentioned before we moved the gas tank out of the laz. The orange cord did go to the single 40 watt solar panel, but now that we have 3 panels up there that wiring has been changed. The other extension cord plug is used at home and that cord goes up forward under the sink to a power strip and is only used at home while working inside the boat and/or for trickle chargers to the 2 batteries.

The clam vents are kind of crude, but cheap and seam to work fine, at least for us. We use another one to run the gas line from the inboard tank out to the outboard.....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-36.html

Good luck,

Sum

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