Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I am new to the pontoon boat and bought a Bass Buggy 18' with a Merc 40 HP big foot 4 stroke engine. One of the lakes we go on often has a 9.9 limit, so I decided to add a kicker. I tried to find a mount and couldn't find anything in production so I designed and made one myself, with some help from a friend. Here are a few pictures of what we came up with. The kicker is also a Mercury big foot 4 stroke, so they can share the fuel tank and they look alike. I am working on the steering connection now and will get the controls mounted tomorrow. Let me know what you think.
Materials are all aluminum and the steering rod is stainless, almost all of it from old computers.

Out of curiosity, on the 9.9hp limit lake, are you allowed to have the boat in the water with the bigger motor?

How's that Minn Kota trolling mounted on your motor do? I'm thinking of buying one to use as a bow thruster.

Yes the bigger motor is allowed as long as I don't run it. BUT I need it to get off and on the trailer, so I do run it at the ramp. I put the trolling motor on to get around the 9.9 limit. It runs the boat at about 2.5 to 3 MPH. OK for the wife and I but not for the grand kids. Also it is hard to control the boat when it is windy. It is a 24 volt and will run for 4 + hours of 2 large deep cycle batteries, type 27 I think.

only issue I see is the mount causing quite a bit of drag at higher speeds. I mounted mine directly inline with the outside tube so the mount and kicker have no drag when using the main engine. I have a 9.9 for the same reason, a HP limited lake but I need to remove the prop from the main engine to fish that lake. The 9.9 pushes my toon at 7mph and trolls down to 0.9mph

NonHyphenAmerican wrote:Out of curiosity, on the 9.9hp limit lake, are you allowed to have the boat in the water with the bigger motor?

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in most if the big motor is tilted and the prop removed

Just an update. We fabricated the steering rod, connecting the 2 engines. yesterday I mounted the controls next to the captains chair on the deck rail. Sorry no pictures and haven't been on the lake yet. Still need to connect the fuel line to the main tank. One question, I am planning to connect the kicker fuel line between the pump bulb and the tank and use a 2nd pump bulb for the kicker. Will let you know how this goes.
Thanks, TeddyBob.