More river time

[Papee]

I got the rest of my gauges hooked up, my new air filter on, and my oil cooler plumbed so I decided to go out for a short run and test it. I did a little fishing and headed back then I saw the local airboat builder standing at the club ramp so I stopped to talk to him a bit.

After talking to him a while a guy pulled up with this VW boat. Tom Snyder built the hull and the owner did the rest of the the work. Nice looking boat but he still has some bugs to work out. He's running a 2:1 redrive on it.







Oh, my boat worked well but I had an oil leak and got oil all over my prop and rudders. My oil temp runs between 160 and 170. My digital readout decide to work for a bit today and I have 252 hours on the motor since I put the tach on.

Here's a pic of what I ended up with for an air cleaner.



I'm not sure if I posted a pic of my dash after it was done.

[brlcla]

yall northern boys run some narrow boats....

[buster]

Papee,

The air cleaner turned out decent.

Wow, you almost live in your boat, don't ya?

Dave

[brlcla]

Papee,

An pics of his reduction? By the looks of it the reduction is on the flywheel side of the motor which that version is hard to find these days...

[Duane Scarborough]

Papee,

HIS boat looks very NICE. I'd like to see more of it. I'm sure that you invited him to join us here. That's a very clean looking job.

Yours looks nice too.

Duane

[brlcla]

did he have a bow rope???? i will never leave home without one.... looks like he is kinda scared to launch or was he loading... if he was loading just get on the throttle and pull it on up... no need to winch it in like that...

[Papee]

yall northern boys run some narrow boats....

Our boat are longer to make more room for fishing. Not that much more narrow. We measure or boats by the bottoms up here. example, my boat has a full 5 foot bottom that contacts the water, that one is wider tan mine. Same surface area we just need/like a longer boat. Remember, the more surface area contacting the water the more drag you are causing.

Papee,

An pics of his reduction? By the looks of it the reduction is on the flywheel side of the motor which that version is hard to find these days...

His reduction is a home made one.

Papee,

HIS boat looks very NICE. I'd like to see more of it. I'm sure that you invited him to join us here. That's a very clean looking job.

Yours looks nice too.

Duane

I forgot to say anything about the site, he was having troubles and had the best guy in our area there to help him. That's all the pics I got of the boat. I had to get moving down river to my ramp and get home.

did he have a bow rope???? i will never leave home without one.... looks like he is kinda scared to launch or was he loading... if he was loading just get on the throttle and pull it on up... no need to winch it in like that...

No bow rope, he seemed to be pretty new at operating an airboat. one of the pics hes was unloading and one loading. The trolling motor was loading because it wouldn't stay running and his starter was hanging up for some reason.

Our trailers have rollers on them so we can get the boat off and on in low water. As I've said before I just push mine out and pull it on the trailer with the bow line then crank it the rest of the way. You'll figure these things out as you get older, the less you have to climb in and out of the boat the better. I think it is faster if you have one person loading with no help.

[Papee]

OH and there is another feature of the new board guys, it's called multi quote. At the bottom right of the thread there is a little icon with a + beside it, if you click on it, it will add that reply to your post so you can reply to more than one post at a time.

[brlcla]

Papee,

wow man.... reading that bow rope reply makes it like I am new to airboats..... been around these boat since I was 9 yrs old.... and to me 5 ft is narrow for an airboat... anything less than 7' is on the narrow side... i use my bow rope to launch but i just drive it all the way up on the trailer when pulling out...

[Papee]

I my opinion it's all relative, For a full blown big block motor boat sure a wide hull would be better to float the weight but... When you go to a mini, think proportion, less area is needed to float the light powerplant. If you have a wide boat over what you need to float the boat you have more surface area in the water when on plane causing more drag and slowing the boat down. Bigger isn't always better. A longer hull still gives you room and is not contacting the water when you are on plane.

These are mostly fishing boats, more length is needed to get the anglers separated so they don't throw a hook in each other when casting hundreds of times a day.