Oklahoma Pontoon Newbies

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BuggyBabe
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2015 4:26 pm

Oklahoma Pontoon Newbies

#1 Post by BuggyBabe » Thu Jul 16, 2015 7:13 pm

Howdy folks from heat soaked Northwestern Oklahoma. My husband, myself, and our 3 little girls (7,4,& 8 months) are new to boat ownership and lake life! Enjoying ourselves tremendously with our "new to us" 1985 18' Sun Tracker Bass Buggy with a 50HP Mercury that we were lucky enough to buy off the folks when they purchased a newer ski boat earlier this summer and needed the valuable parking space that our girl was inhabiting. Our plan is to do little upgrades here and there on her throughout the rest of our summer while we save up enough to either sale her and upgrade to a newer boat or to take her down completely to the toons and customize her to our wants and needs. This is a picture the day we brought her home to the farm!
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My father-in-law bought this boat 5 years ago at a farm sale with the intentions of using her on the rare occasion him and his teenage sons were able to break away from the farm work long enough to partake in one of his favorite, although neglected, past times - fishing! After about 3 times of her toons hitting the water, he realized he had made a mistake as the boys wanted something "faster" as all boys that age do. Some months later they bought a ski boat and Dad parked the old girl under the milk barn awning where she has wiled away the years just begging for someone to see her potential and once again get her out on the water where she belongs, hence why this summer she was finally freed from her captivity when Dad offered her to us at a sweet price and why we are now boat owners.
Our maiden voyage on the ole girl was one of the most relaxing and pleasant outings that our little family has ever experienced and why we are now "hooked" so to say, so much so that Mama here has asked He-who-holds- the- purse- strings to not buy me jewelry or nonsense for our house for Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversaries, or stupid made up holidays but instead to buy me things for the boat! Our 2nd trip out with her ended up being an epic fail. We had in our excitement invited some long time friends out with us , packed a cooler and enough sunscreen to cover Mt. Everest, loaded the boat up - only to arrive at the lake, get her off the trailer and to the dock and nothing. We struggled for a half an hour trying to get her the 30 feet back to the dock, all while I'm sure those around us were thinking we were idiots! After FINALLY getting her on the trailer and pulling her the 45 minutes home , we got busy in the motor and discovered that the seal gasket under the carburetor was split and not sealing so we were leaking fuel ! Being the "shade tree mechanic" that my husband and his friend are we had it replaced and purring like a kitten an hour before sundown, just in time to NOT be able to go back out to the lake. Try as we might we have not since succeeded in getting those friends to join us again out on the lake!
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In the meantime between work, windy days, and teething meltdowns from our demon in the disguise of a child, my husband and I cant seem to get enough of working on our boat . She was/is a wreck from sitting neglected for so many years that we had to do some rewiring in order to get the navigation lights going and the trailer lights fixed but surprisingly the boards on the deck are in excellent shape. I have haunted this forum and others like it and even turned to Pinterest (which happens to be the bane of my saintly husbands existence!) to find cheap and practical solutions to cleaning some of the amount of caked on grime on the seats and Bimini top from the 5+ years she sat keeping the cows and chickens company. Wouldn't you know it but after some extensive research , I went out and bought a truckload of off brand magic erasers and boy do they take the layers of grime off. The seats in no way look new and shiny because of the many cracks, tears, and sun fading that have been afflicted on the poor girl, but at least I can cover the clean seats with a few beach towels and without my OCD tendencies kicking in! My next move in this battle until I can either recover the seats with new vinyl or buy new ones will be to use an old car guy trick of using Goop hand cleaner on the seats before breaking down and buying stock in 303.
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The console is the before and the seat itself is what it looks like now after using a magic eraser down to nothing!

Here is a picture of what the vast majority of our Bimini top looked like when we had it open for the first time. Some really drunk friends that were sitting on the beach July 4th refused to go for a ride for fear of the diseases they might catch just by being near it.
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This is a picture of what most of it looks like after I used a mixture of vinegar, dawn dish soap, water, and a ton of elbow grease on it. What we once believed was yellow is actually supposed to be white - who knew? I guess with some time and a few more scrubbings I may be able to take a turd and turn it into a polished turd! I would welcome any advice on getting her to a semblance of clean (aside from buying new as it just isn't in the budget at the moment with the oilfield taking a downturn!) Maybe I can be good and use my womanly wiles on he-who-holds-the-purse-strings and a power washer will be under the Christmas tree this year! I also drug out my new vacuum and went to town on the carpet of the ole girl. Amazing what a pair of scissors, a staple gun, and a balmy evening will do to make it look a little less unloved. This also may have included a few glasses of wine , which sheds a rosy light over things!
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Last week our beautiful blue eyed 7 year old bundle of joy decided that she just had to have a tube - so she batted her eyelashes at her Daddy and like magic later that same week our UPS man was delivering said tube to our front door! (Can we say SUCKER!) I don't blame him too much though, the look on her face when she was finally able to get it wet was what it's all about! Don't tell but even Mama had to have her turn and can we say - Complete Blast!
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However - here is where the majority of the questions I will be bugging ya'll with is coming from in this post. After fixing the gasket on the carb , we took her on another trip to the same lake. With my husband, myself, our 3 kids, and a normal loaded cooler, the app on my husbands phone that measures speed said we were going around 17-18 MPH at top speed. We brought her home , noticed that the primer bulb had a crack in it which we assumed could be contributing to our cold start issue we had. After replacing the bulb, she now starts on the 1st revolution but it seems that when my husband and his friend opened her up the other day before returning to the dock to load me and the kids up after we parked the trailer they could only get it up to 14-15 mph. When loaded down with 4 kids (baby shouldn't count!) and 3 adults she would maintain the same 14-15 mph at 5100 RPMs, all out, with a full tank of gas but would bog down a little when pulling the little ones on the tube. I did notice though that when we shut it down and anchored out for swimming that our RPM gauge was sitting between 0-1000. No idea how to fix that!
I said all that to get to this. Here are the questions I am posing to you readers. You will have to bear with me as I am a question asker.

* Thoughts or ideas on what could be causing the motor to occasionally bog down when pulling a light load on the tube? Any way to resolve the issue ourselves and gain the 3 mph back that we lost short of taking her to our local marine mechanic? ( Our guy out here just opened his shop in town and is already booked solid for 6 months!) Would changing the spark plugs help in any way?

* What is the largest 2-stroke engine that ya'll would recommend for an 18' Sun Tracker? (Husband is adding a new engine to his wish list if we keep her and restore her)

*Since we bought the boat for a steal and aren't afraid of the work involved with rehab - would you consider it cost effective even to refurbish her from the bare bones up or just enjoy it until we are financially able to invest in a newer boat?

* What are some pros and cons of adding a center tube and making it a tri-toon?

* Anyone have any experience with the new fangled water glides that have hit the market? Do they live up to the hype and increase MPH and fuel efficiency? Ballpark figure on what they might cost?

* What size prop would ya'll recommend for an 1985 Mercury 50HP? How in the heck do I go about finding out what is already on the motor?

* What are the pros and cons of a 3 fin prop versus a 4 fin prop?

* Can someone explain in dumbed down English to this hillbilly what in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks pitch is and how to figure out what it is we are running?

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the many informative and sometimes humorous posts that I have found here and other forums this last month and would gladly accept someone else's (besides my husbands) 2 cents on these matters - hence why I am writing a "book" on this first post! Now I leave you with some pictures of our "crew" enjoying making memories on our toon!

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geronimo.jpg (406.79 KiB) Viewed 1974 times
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Happy Tooning![/b]
BuggyBabe
1985 18' Sun Tracker Bass Buggy

User avatar
BuggyBabe
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2015 4:26 pm

Re: Oklahoma Pontoon Newbies

#2 Post by BuggyBabe » Thu Jul 16, 2015 7:15 pm

Sorry ya'll about the pictures ! I'm still trying to figure out this forum thing and so far the hardest part is adding the pictures in the right places ! I tried though! :donno
BuggyBabe
1985 18' Sun Tracker Bass Buggy

RcgTexas
Posts: 2656
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:37 am
Location: Texas

Re: Oklahoma Pontoon Newbies

#3 Post by RcgTexas » Thu Jul 16, 2015 8:48 pm

Good try! it will get better. :wink:

Welcome to the forum! there is a lot of knowledge here just simmering below the surface. A lot of us have already done rebuilds and may can save you some time and money as you get into your boat renovations.

Good looking kiddos! They will enjoy the boat more than you guys will! they have no expectations, its a yacht to them!
1995 beachcomber conversion to tritoon with Honda 135 ,

Link to rebuild [url=http://www.pontoonforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19016][Knot Normal][/url]

God Bless America

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curtiscapk
Posts: 5393
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:31 am
Location: OP KS\Hillsdale Lake

Re: Oklahoma Pontoon Newbies

#4 Post by curtiscapk » Fri Jul 17, 2015 6:00 am

Welcome to the big forum! :nana

With your 50 you probably aren't going to get much more out of it. To find the pitch look all over the prop for a set of numbers and post those here we can help you out. :biggrin2
Craig and Paula
"THE FLOATER" rebuild Spring 2013
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15328
94 Party Barge 24' 115 merc
Turning Point hustler 14 x 13 prop
22mph gps 3 people
12 F150
Overland Park Ks
Hillsdale Lake, KS

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