Need ideas for mounting a kicker motor to my tri toon

[greezzmunkei]

I bought A 15 hp kicker for my boat, however the tri toon design is presenting some issues with the mounting. Has anyone attempted to mount one on a tri toon or have a solution to this problem?

[jimrs]

I might ask, Why? I don't understand the need for a kicker motor. What do you intend to do with it?

[ROLAND]

My boating education continues.... what's a kicker motor? The first thing I thought of was a trolling motor, but that can't be right can it?

[Bamby]

My boating education continues.... what's a kicker motor? The first thing I thought of was a trolling motor, but that can't be right can it?

In a sense a kicker motor is a trolling motor of sorts. A kicker motor is installed and used because it's far more efficient fuel wise than the primary motor. They are generally used when trolling for fish using down-riggers for instance usually in bigger open waters. When fishing using this method big open circles or oblong loops are made to continually circle back through hopefully schools of fish sometimes for hours presenting lures to them and hoping one or more of the fish will actually take it.

[Bmac]

Bamby pretty much covered the why. That's how I used them. You can have your go-fast motor and troll with a quiet and effecient lil 4stroke. A great way to cover a lot of water on a new lake,studying the graphs looking for fish.


greezzmunkei, I was wondering the same for mine. Thought a guy might be able to weld brackets on the outer tube cap to mount one of these tilt-n-trim assemblies like I had on this rig. You'd probably have to tie the brackets into the risers or deck stringers to carry the weight.

Tie the two units together with a steering rod,and find another set of controls for the kicker. Then you can operate from the captains chair and watch the bottom/cannon balls on the graph. You may have to be a switch-hitter with the beer at times.

[greezzmunkei]

Bamby, your right on with that definition. The reason I'm mounting one is more so for emergency reasons as my native waters happen to be the Chesapeake Bay. Getting stuck out in waters that big would suck something fierce. The secondary uses would be fishing. I have a second set of controls and the steering rod that goes between the main and the kicker, however I'm going to have to engineer a mount to which the jack plate will be bolted. I'm trying to bolt it to the starboard side as I am also installing an onboard charger, inverter, and dual battery system that will balance out the weight of the kicker on the port side. The down side is the rear of my starboard toon is curved (as opposed to flat) and it sticks out further than the rear most stringer and the deck. Any other photo's of other boat kickers would be appreciated also as eventually the light bulb will flicker then illuminate..haha.

[Bamby]

Pictures may be pretty had to come by on a pontoon/kicker setup they're a bit "uncommon". There are a few posted on the iboats forum, but on many you've got to be a member to view them (a sucky feature IMO). From what I know of them I'm not aware of any real out of the box bolt on kit readily available for pontoon boats. But with some good Yankee Engineering their are a few that could be quite usable for such an application.

Here's a pretty sweet system http://garelick.com/liftmovie.html but you'd need to make something substantial to bolt to the boat to bolt the unit too. You also may want to glean iBoats for potential ideas also, but you'll probably haft to join to view the photo's .

[kenbob62]

yo greezzmunkei,i am trying to put a 9.9 kicker on my toon also,we have large reserviors here in jersey that have a 10 hp limit,i had a 9.9 kicker on my bass boat next to my 48 horse for 15 yrs and it was great ,any problem with the big motor and just switch over to the kicker,please post any ideas/plans u have since this seems to be a hard project unless you have a tig welder and alot of free time.thanks kenny

[slowdog]

I have a 7hp on standby for this too. We boat on texoma its a big lake .

[cbavier]

Pictures may be pretty had to come by on a pontoon/kicker setup they're a bit "uncommon". There are a few posted on the iboats forum, but on many you've got to be a member to view them (a sucky feature IMO). From what I know of them I'm not aware of any real out of the box bolt on kit readily available for pontoon boats. But with some good Yankee Engineering their are a few that could be quite usable for such an application.

Here's a pretty sweet system http://garelick.com/liftmovie.html but you'd need to make something substantial to bolt to the boat to bolt the unit too. You also may want to glean iBoats for potential ideas also, but you'll probably haft to join to view the photo's .

I am an iboat member since about 2006 and so I'll do some looking tomorrow. And I can post the question if I can't find out anything from any previous posts. I'll even see if anyone has pictures on Photo Bucket or Flicker you might be able to view. There aren't too many Pontoon owners on iboats though. I'll just post the link on this site since you can't copy and paste pictures here on this forum, nor on iboats. Anyone can surf on iboats but you must be a member to post.

[cbavier]

Here's a link to the subject on iboats.

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php ... or+Pontoon

If you look at the bottom of the page there are several older posts covering the same subject. I think it will pay you to read the different posts. It seems a kicker is not recommended for a pontoon for various reasons but some better options are also suggested by different members. I hope this helps you and you can find the answers you are looking for. Remember EVERYBODY , anyone can read anything on iboats except "Restricted for members only". Non members can't post though. This is to keep spammers from invading the forum. You can't get in a hurry reading and searching on iboats because it has over 10,000 members. Thus multiple posts in an hour. In fact it almost gotten too big. Don't be afraid to use the search option on the top of the page too. Hope this helps you.

Chuck

[cbavier]

greezzmunkei I found another link on iboats with great pictures and explanation

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php ... or+pontoon


Here are some more links to the same topic. There are as lot more than I thought there would be. Some of course are not pontoon related. You just have to wade through them.

http://forums.iboats.com/search.php?searchid=178989

Let me know what you think.

Chuck

[greezzmunkei]

Found this idea for a bracket. May require some fancy welding but it looks like the best way.

[cbavier]

Found this idea for a bracket. May require some fancy welding but it looks like the best way.

That was in the link/ picture I sent you. All you had to do was to click on the picture in the post. He has two different pictures on that post.
Look at both of them. They are small in the post though. I thought they were very good shots. Notice the two motors are linked together so
he can control either one from the helm. I don't know how he would start the kicker motor though, probably a separate starter switch. He
urely wouldn't start it with the pull rope after spending that much money to put it on the pontoon.
Chuck

[greezzmunkei]

I think this setup is going to work. I already have the control bar that links the two motors and the seperate throttle control I bought had an igniton switch on it and had the provisions for it in the wiring harness. I'll be basing my design on the picture above, but instead of aluminum, i'm going to fab mine out of high end Stainless partly because of strength partly because i'm already set up for TIG and not heli-arc. Before I mount it i'll take pictures and post them. thanks for the ideas all.