aerokirk's build

[Papee]

Corky I have quick slick on the green boat and so far there is no damage to it after hitting a few rocks. One put a pretty good dent in but the quick slick still looks good.

[Corky]

OK thanks guys for shedding some light on the actual useage...I ask the question here knowing the bottom coating was specifically addressed in the build and was curious if it was a good investment in performance and cost ...I appreciate the updates and answers ...

[Papee]

Did you always use the electric fuel pump on your boat or did you use the stock pump at first. I'm having problems with both boats now with fuel starvation an the only thing left is maybe just not enough fuel using the stock pump and small fuel line.

[aerokirk]

I'm not using an electric pump ... My fuel tank is directly below the engine and I'm using an outboard type hose with a squeeze bulb and the stock engine pump. I cut the hose so it goes straight up to the engine and haven't had any problems to date

[Papee]

Hmm. I know I have plenty of fuel to the pump. Both boats are acting the same now. They will run fine for a while then act like they are starving for fuel. If I push on the choke by hand it will smooth out for a bit. After a while even the choke will not keep the rpms up. I can drop to idle and it will stay running. If I shut it down and start it back up it will run fine for a few hundred feet then start the same thing.

The accelerator pumps on both are still at the stock setting.

[aerokirk]

OK, Spring is just taking too long to get here and I'm getting impatient sooo ... I'll just take a romp on the ice!

FYI: No docks (or airboats) were hurt in this video
https://youtu.be/53XO4xSHOfs

[Corky]

That looks like alot of fun after you get the hang of it......I'd like to try that some day if the conditions are right....It looked as though you were really moving coming across the lake then slowed to go by the camera...

[aerokirk]

Today was the first official water ride for my wife and I on a nearby river basin so I had to try out my son's new GoPro camera!

Watch it at: https://youtu.be/oyiSOWYuLKA

[Rollbar]

Today was the first official water ride for my wife and I on a nearby river basin so I had to try out my son's new GoPro camera!

Watch it at: https://youtu.be/oyiSOWYuLKA

Very nice. What oil filter are you using?

[Corky]

I liked that forward view you can watch the tach and see what the hull is doing in relationship to the RPMs..

[Rollbar]

Where's the like button

Yes I to was impressed with the forward view.

[Bart]

Did you ever find out the problem with the fuel issue?
This almost sounds like what happened to me once, I had changed out everything, New fuell lines, filters, rebuilt the carbs, and pulling my hair out trying to figure, then a friend stopped by, opened up the gas cap, stuck a wire in the tank and pulled out a zip lock bag. I couldn't see the bag due to it being clear, and I still think my friend had something to do with the bag ending up in the tank, you could also check the tank vents. The funny thing about that, was I was out riding with the same friend when the sled started acting up. And he ended up towing me out 10 miles. He still clams that he didn't put the bag in the tank.
If you found out the problem already, at least you can get a chuckle, about what I have dealt with,
something else, with all my snow mobiles, every couple of years I have to change out the tygon pick up line in the tank,
The gas is good at rotting the lines out, that are in the fuel tanks.
Just another thought

[aerokirk]

What I thought to be a pressurizing fuel tank causing hydro-locked cylinders turned out to be nothing more than a combination of two loose spark plugs (causing dramatic power loss) and a bad battery which made it seem like the engine was seizing on startup. Sometimes your mind plays tricks and you fear the worst

Regarding the oil filter, I'm using the Fram equivalent to the original filter but I'm going to do some experimenting with larger ones to see if my oil pressure will come down some.

[Bart]

i am glad you found the problem, sometimes it is something very simple.
with the plastic bag that was in my fuel tank, it would suck up against the pick up tube, and stop the fuel flow. after the motor would stop, the bag would eventually come off the pick up tube, and i could get it running for just long enough to say oh shucky darn. then the motor would shut off again.( spent a few days on that one.)

[aerokirk]

I had a very similar situation on a friends boat in Florida ... He complained about a significant power loss that he could not diagnose and asked me to have a look. After checking several things I noticed a tiny piece of plastic on the butterfly of one of the carburetors. I grabbed it and pulled and eventually pulled out a good sized plastic grocery bag

[aerokirk]

As some of you may know, I recently narrowly avoided a very bad situation when my propellor hub cracked and nearly caused a high speed blade separation of my Whirlwind prop. The back (engine side) plate of the Circle-S hub was cracked completely across at the inner bolt location of the blade clamp blocks and the front plate had a hairline crack going half way across at the same location. We noticed a new vibration during high speed situations that I was unable to find the source of and continued to run the boat until it bothered me enough to take the boat into the shop and remove the prop which is when I saw the cracked hub. One more hour or less and it would have been disasterous!

I talked to Whirlwind about the failure and they immediately sent me a set of newly re-designed hub plates which are substantially beefed up from the originals. I am including pictures of both the failed hub plate and the new ones. Besides being wider, the new back plate is thicker than the original which should make it less susceptible to cracking through the bolt holes. Luck was on our side this time!

[Rollbar]

WoW! That could have been a big problem for everyone aboard.

Question, do they ship the new components with the thicker plate, or did they just use up their old stock first?

Seems like they know the problem exists.

Glad you all didn't get hurt and thanks for the post.

[Doozit20]

Wow is right. Very luck. I'm guessing the only thing at that point that was holding that blade in was the bolts and the front plate. Very lucky and I'm glad nothing really horrible happened.

[Bart]

just curious, what is the thickness of the old one, versus the new replacement, it looks like it has considerable more meat to it. I never really thought about how much stress is demanded from that part of the hub.

[aerokirk]

just curious, what is the thickness of the old one, versus the new replacement, it looks like it has considerable more meat to it. I never really thought about how much stress is demanded from that part of the hub.

The original was 1/4" and I'm guessing that the back plate of the new one is about 3/8" but there's more distance from the holes to the outer edge of the plate.

I'm sure that Whirlwind is shipping the new ones since they have seen my type of failure before according to them.