Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

New guy with a seller rebuilt 24'1986 Sanpan with a 1977 85hp evinrude. I had some problems and fixed most of them. Now I need some advise. I don't have tilt and trim. It seems to get out of the water ok where it's set. Step daughter said she clocked me at 23 on her jet ski. Is there an aftermarket unit and is it worth getting? I guess i need to send pics of transom. seller said i might need to lower the height. The motor is adjusted all the way down now. The top of the transom is a couple inches above the side brackets but again, it seems to move along ok. I don't have any gages. do i need them and if so, which ones. Can I put them on this motor. She pulls to the right. the trim tab on the bottom of the motor is all the way right. The stering wheel makes a clicking noise when I turn left. I straightened out some wiring issues and put in a fuse block, battery switch, and a two battery charger. It has two new marine batteries, one is deep cycle and one cranking. I added a marine vhf radio also. I am mechanically inclined and no problems with electronics, just learning about my toon. The seller did a ok job on a rebuild. New deck, carpet, they re-apolstered [sp] the seats, not the best job but ok for what I paid. ($4500) He had the motor gone through with 4 carb kits, cdi, inpeller, and prop. two new 12 gal tanks, new hoses and pump bulb. It had four different tires on the trailler, some not trailer tires so I put new tires and wheels on it. One last thing. I have to push the control pretty far forward until I start to pick up speed. Same for reverse. Is that adjustable?
I hope you can understand all this. Any advise is apperciated and please excuse the spelling.

I had an old Johnson 85 on my first boat. Great motor ran right up until I sold it 10 year later with many, many hours on it. It did not have a tilt and trim on it and I never missed it there was plenty of adjustment on the motor manually. You said you have no gauges in the boat. That is where I would start adding. Voltage, Tachometer, Water pressure, are what I would start with. The rest you just have to get started somewhere and work your way to what you want. Enjoy your boat and the time you spend on fixing it up to your needs and wants.

i had a '77 Evinrude 85 on my bass boat and ran the fool out of it for over 20 years with zero problems. It was a great motor We skied behind it hundreds of times and fished often in fresh and salt water including some tournament bass fishing. The only thing I ever did was change fluids, plugs and impeller. It did not come with a water pump pee output, so I had it added to be able to see if the water pump was working or not. The power trim failed but my brother rebuilt the cylinder and used in quite a few more years. I recall that he changed the exhaust manifold to one from a 115 hp and increased the HP. It finally threw a piston rod but he rebuilt it and used it a couple of more years.

You used to be able to buy aftermarket power trim/tilt units that worked well. You have to decide if you need it on your toon. Probably could get by with only power tilt if you need to raise the motor to load on a trailer or clear trash from prop. You probably would not need trim.

hey oldsarge,

i don't think i would trust the speedo on a jet ski, get a gps if you can for your speed. you will need that and rpm's to optimize your boat. as for your motor height while running at wot have someone check the anti-ventilation plate on lower unit and see where it is in relation to water. i found that the steering problem can be caused by the motor running to deep. as for the power tilt and trim i found a used motor (blown) and changed those parts.it was not the easiest thing to do but worth it to me,especially when pulling up to sand bar. there are a lot of those old motors still out there and many classifieds on the internet.

The only time you may miss tilt and trim may be when beaching. My first boat had none but I did change it due to that one thing. A shallow drive position is very handy.

jimrs wrote:I had an old Johnson 85 on my first boat. Great motor ran right up until I sold it 10 year later with many, many hours on it. It did not have a tilt and trim on it and I never missed it there was plenty of adjustment on the motor manually. You said you have no gauges in the boat. That is where I would start adding. Voltage, Tachometer, Water pressure, are what I would start with. The rest you just have to get started somewhere and work your way to what you want. Enjoy your boat and the time you spend on fixing it up to your needs and wants.

Agreed