Author Topic: Boat Batteries  (Read 11121 times)

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Offline ChrisOlson

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Boat Batteries
« on: March 24, 2012, 08:55:31 pm »
I just took my boat batteries off our big bank and getting ready to put them back in the boat:

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These batteries will have their 8th birthday in April.  They survived an entire winter of being boiled at 30+ volts (wired in series) hooked up with our Surrettes and powering our place.  I load tested them with my AVR (one hour test on each one) and they both test with the same specs as new on the RC (Reserve Capacity) test.

I'm finding more and more, as I work with deep cycle batteries, that the cause of early death of these things is under-charging and inactivity, not over-charging and deep cycling.

The Mercury four-cylinder survived the winter too   :)

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Offline DBCollen

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2012, 12:12:35 am »
And now you need an new water pump impeller, they die in less than 5 seconds if you run them dry.

Dustin
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Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2012, 12:42:51 am »
The new impeller and wear plates are laying on the workbench.  The pump that's in it was shot last year and wouldn't pump any water out the pee hole unless the engine was running at 2,500 rpm or above.

Busted the reed block on the center of the crank in 2007 and lost the two center cylinders.  So had to split the crankcase and put a new reed block in it.  Then blew the head water jacket cover gasket in 2008 and had to replace that.  2009 blew the exhaust baffle gaskets and got water in the cylinders:

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2010 lost the seal on the prop shaft and had to rebuild the gearcase.  2011 the water pump went to hell and just replacing that now.

Otherwise she's been pretty good and only left us stranded on the lake once each year   ;D
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Offline Wolvenar

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2012, 01:51:28 am »
As usual write up and images Chris
 
People might call me finicky, or maybe just lucky to never have to much trouble with boat motors. I have went through a pump every few years, but no one has ever caught me stranded on the lake. Every fall/winter I do a minor tear down the motors that I use that year and kind of do a once over. Gears, seals, pump etc are checked re lubed and readied to take out the next spring. I really hate being stranded anywhere with any kind of vehicle.
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Offline rossw

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2012, 04:01:30 am »
People might call me finicky, or maybe just lucky to never have to much trouble with boat motors.

Wow, you guys sure hard on boats!

I've not had an engine problem, leak in the hull, steering dramas, hydraulics failure, fuel leak or electrical problem in 30 years.

(Haven't had a boat for 35 years either, but hey, lets not let facts get in the way of a good story!)

Offline Wolvenar

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2012, 05:09:29 am »
Not hard so much on the boats, but the impellers are made SO cheap these days..
Seems I can get good seals but not impellers.

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Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2012, 08:35:22 am »
That Merc gets a lot of hours on it backtrolling.  I keep fixing it because it's the only one I've ever found that will idle down to where you can count the number of teeth on the flywheel with it running.  It will run like that for hours on end without complaining.

Then when we get ready to move to a new spot tell my wife, "Sit down, shut up and hang on - 'cause this ain't no hayride."  Crank the throttle wide open and it will launch that boat right up out of the water and up on the pad in about two seconds and it will go 40 mph.

They don't build motors like that anymore.  This one was built when Mercury Marine still built them in Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin and they tested every single one at full power before it left the plant.

I got the motor jacked on the transom a bit so the cavitation plate is right on top of the pad:

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I restored this boat a few years back and put all the new Alumacraft graphics on it.  Shot it with PPG Delstar/Delthane:











We've had a couple other boats but none that are as good as this one for all around general fishing.  It's got a 25 gallon aerated livewell that will hold a 20 lb northern (never put two 20 lb northerns in the same livewell because you ain't never seen such a fight as you're about to see over who owns the livewell)**.  It's got an older MinnKota 565 on it and I think I might put one of them newer 24 volt MinnKota's on it this year that has AutoPilot in it.

** You can put a couple or three 5-6 lb walleyes in there and they get along just fine.  Put two big northerns in there and they will blow the cover open on the livewell and the loser of the fight will get out.  Then you got a big pissed off fish flopping around in the boat that's got teeth that can take your fingers right off, and you have to subdue it by clubbin' it over the head with an oar handle.  And that only works for about 10 minutes before the fish comes to and starts wreaking havoc again.  Frickin' fresh water sharks......
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Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2012, 10:10:28 am »
This is still the best fishin' video of all time    8)


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Offline tomw

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2012, 10:42:04 am »
Hehe even better than I hoped for.

I figured he would gun it and drive the boat out from under her on that seat.

Tom
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Offline DBCollen

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2012, 12:28:17 pm »
I have a pair of 115 mercs on my 21 ft whaler, they idle on 2 cylinders, and idle down to 700 rpm. I can troll at 1.2kt on one engine, and they just sip fuel at idle and don't foul the plugs. but when I open both engines up I burn 25 gallons/hr @ 48mph

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Dustin.

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2012, 08:49:11 pm »
Dustin, that's a pretty nice boat.  Them Boston Whalers are pretty much the gold standard in workhorse boats.

My wife and I went to get a new trolling motor for our boat today.  The place we went to had a MinnKota 50 PowerDrive V2 with AutoPilot.  But it was 12 volt and I want a 24 volt one because the 12 volt one draws 50 amps at full power.  So we didn't get that.

They had some really nice Wise® Pro-series swivel seats on sale.  They only had two in stock and we needed three.  So we took the two they had and they ordered us one more.  They're really nice comfortable seats:

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I want to upgrade the helm SONAR too.  We got a Eagle Cuda 242 on the bow.  And we got a Eagle StrataView 128 at the helm. 

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The StrataView 128 is a better SONAR because it's more sensitive.  But I like the Cuda 242 because it's got water temp display and will show the thermocline.  It also displays system operating voltage of the boat's electrical system so you can keep an eye on it when running high draw units like electric trolling motors along with night time navigation and deck lighting in the boat.

But I'd like to upgrade the helm SONAR with one of them Humminbird LakeMaster ones that got GPS, 360° imaging, and you can load all the inland lake cartography in them on mini-SD cards:


There's a lot of times we'll find mid-summer walleyes hanging off the edge of dropoffs in 20-25 feet of water and they'll bite if you entice them enough.  Depending on the weather and water temp sometimes they don't even move up on to the flats, or in the shallows, to feed at night because they're kind of dormant at that time of the year.  It's all about presentation and knowing where the fish are to catch mid-summer walleyes on inland lakes when the surface temp is up to 75+ degrees.  We usually give up and go to Lake Superior at that time of the year.  Lake Superior rarely gets much above 45 degrees and you can find mid-summer walleyes on Superior at only 8-10 feet and catch them trolling with a spoon.

If we had one of these high-precision GPS/SONAR units so I could precisely position the boat over where I KNOW them fish are at - then it's all presentation and if you're good you can catch mid-summer walleyes on our inland lakes.  Going to Canada isn't even a challenge because walleyes up there are like crappies - they'll bite on anything.  It takes a real fisherman to catch 'em with the water temp pushing 80 degrees in mid-summer around here on our shallow lakes.

My wife and I LOVE to fish walleyes.  Some days we'll catch 15-20 of 'em and keep a couple nice 19-22" fish for supper.

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Some days we'll work the good spots for hours and never get a bite because we're either 20-30 feet off where the boat should be for proper presentation, or there's no fish there at all because some other conditions changed that we can't see down there.  Chasing "clouds" of baitfish on the SONAR don't work in mid-summer because the walleyes could give a crap less about chasing baitfish unless one swims right in front of their nose with a sign on it that says "eat me"    :)
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Offline DBCollen

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2012, 12:51:20 am »
Do those fancy seats have that rocket powered eject fearure?  :)   I just upgraded my furuno gps32 and fcv662 fishfinder to a Humminbird 788ci hd di, I really like the down imaging sonar, it looks like a black and white tv picture of the bottom. The 50 channel GPS gets a cold fix in under a minute and tracks well, has built in maps and high definition maps are available.
Dustin.

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2012, 09:08:00 am »
I was scared to get them Rocket Seats.  My wife is actually a better fisherwoman than I am a fisherman.  She has patience and I don't.  Sometimes when we're working a sandbar or dropoff and we don't catch anything right away I want to reel in and move to a different spot, while she wants to work deeper or shallower because she's convinced we haven't finished fishing that spot yet.  I'm afraid she might go, "OK fine, I'll send you over to the new spot but I'm going to fish this one" and hit the Eject Button    :o

We looked at some of the Humminbird units yesterday but I don't know which one to get.  If I can find a 24 volt MinnKota trolling motor with iPilot in it that's the first thing we need.  You can load your lake map and select a place that you want to fish, then run the target area up to two miles using the Humminbird.  Meanwhile you set up your iPilot to record the track that you just ran, turn around and go back to square one, shut down the outboard, put the trolling motor on auto, and it will take you precisely back over that track while you fish and the boat steers itself.  If you set the speed to 1 kt, or whatever, the iPilot will automatically adjust the speed of the motor to maintain the track and speed regardless of wind and current.

We could get the 12 volt motor because that's the one all the marine outfits stock around here.  But I'd have to upgrade the wiring in the boat for that motor.  The wiring to the bow mount motor runs thru a conduit under the deck from the stern where the power bus is, to the plug for the bow motor.  They only put #10 wire in there at the factory when the boat was built.  The ends of the conduit are in such a gawd awful place that it would be dang near impossible to pull #6 wires thru that conduit.

My old MinnKota 565 foot steer motor only draws about 22 amps and it has 28 lbs of thrust at the high power setting.  The PowerDrive 50 V2 has 50 lbs of thrust but it draws 50 amps at full power on 12 volt.

When I told them I wanted a 24 volt motor they looked at me like I was a weirdo and told me, "Those are for bass boats."  I said, "No they ain't - they're for any boat."  And then they started into the big spiel on how I can't use a 24 volt motor on a boat with a 12 volt system.  I was ready to club the dude over the head.   >:(
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Offline rossw

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #13 on: March 26, 2012, 02:21:00 pm »
They only put #10 wire in there at the factory when the boat was built.  The ends of the conduit are in such a gawd awful place that it would be dang near impossible to pull #6 wires thru that conduit.

If you can't pull a #6 through, could you at least pull another #10 through and parallel them?

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: Boat Batteries
« Reply #14 on: March 26, 2012, 02:37:03 pm »
That could maybe be done.  If I could carefully tape four strands of #10 together so it don't have no twists in it, then use the existing wires to pull the new ones thru it might work.

The conduit terminates in the bilge under the splash deck and there's barely room to get one hand in there thru the hole in the deck where the wires come up thru to the power bus.  The other end terminates under the bow storage compartment and that would be the end that would have to be pulled.

I'm pretty sure I could never get #6 wire to go down thru the hole and around the corner back there in the stern. - unless I could feed the wire in thru the bilge drain plug hole in the transom while my wife pulls on the other end, but that wouldn't much fun either because it's not a straight shot from the bilge drain hole to the conduit.

I laid upside down standing on my head under the splash deck last night, shining a flashlight down in the bilge, for about fifteen minutes trying to figure out how I would accomplish that feat.  I was going to pull the bilge pump out so I could see in there better, and even that's not easy to get out of there.
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