Good luck on the maiden voyage today!
Pretty low hours on the engines! You’ll need to either check or have the valve lash checked at 200 hours.
Did you test the bilge pump?
What was serviced at the yearly service?
Was it used in Salt or Fresh water?
Are you going to use it in salt or fresh water?
You’re correct in that there are A LOT of little things to do on the boat but many of them will take a small amount of money, the rest is your time.
First thing I’d do is order a service manual if one didn’t come with the boat, let us know if you want to get one and I’ll post the link to where you can purchase it. This will show you how to change the oil in the engines among other things, knowing how to do this will save you hundreds of dollars if not thousands over a couple of years.
If you don’t know whether not the intermediate bearings have been lubricated or not those will need to be checked and or lubricated. These require a very careful hand in lubricating as too much grease can damage them. Again we will help you out here, hopefully these were done at the yearly service. The schedule is annual and or 100 hours.
The cones on the end of the jet pumps will need to be pulled to check for water intrusion and repacked with grease. Just talked with Yamaha the other day to confirm how much grease goes in them, they should be filled, I’m going to make a separate post about that.
Good deal on the spark plugs….a lot of us put a very thin layer of anti seize on the spark plug threads to assure they do not get stuck.
Also good deal on the clean out plugs! Some folks use pool O ring lube, others like myself use silicone spray.
Is the engine bay / bilge really clean? If not you can put in the main drain plug and dump in 10 gallons of hot water with Dawn dish soap mixed in and trailer the boat around for a half hour then dump it, rinse with hot water twice in the same way, tow it around for 10-15 minutes. Leave the engine bay and other compartments open for a day to let it all dry out. You will need to pull the fuses in the fuse holders in the battery compartments or disconnect the negatives from the batteries to keep the bilge pump from coming on.
Next will be drying up the Bilge. There’s a lot of places where water can get into the boat.
-The first is the clean out tray, super easy to fix this by carefully putting down a thin layer around the edge of the tray where it meets the boat, don’t put it under the tray as this will glue the tray to the boat.
-Next will be a mechanical access hatch riser from jet boat pilot.
-Remove the cup holders in the storage pods and put sealant under them and re install, these are not sealed from factory and when water pools on top of the storage pod water will rain down onto your stuff. Remove the two front most cup holders in the bow and plug the drains as when water gets into them they drain straight into the port and starboard storage areas, seal them up when reinstalling. I also recommend sealing up all the cup holders. The cup holders on the transom drain straight into the bilge as well, you can seal these up the same way you sealed up the two in the bow, you can connect drains to these as well and route them out onto the swim step but the easiest is just to plug the drains and seal them onto the transom. I recommend Three Bond 1211 silicone sealer, its not cheap but for the cup holders as it stays very flexible. You will need to put some clear silicone on the chrome trim rings that hide the hold down screws to keep them from disappearing. You will want to put small hose clamps on the cup holder drains to make sure those drain lines stay in place.
-Rod holders, the two up front on top of the storage pods have drains that go over board, the rest do not and will drain straight into the bilge and aft storage compartments next to the helm seat. You can get universal rod holder drains from T-H marine then route the drains onto the deck of the boat where it will go out the main deck drain. Also, I’d remove each rod holder and seal it to the cap rail with UV stable 3M 4200. I installed additional deck drains and tied in the rod and cup holder drains in the aft area to those drains.. if I had it to do over again I would do it like the post linked below and just dump them onto the deck and let the water go out the deck drain, the way I did it was a pita, it works but was hard.
Well done!
About all you can do for the rocker switches would be to pop them up and bed them in a caulk or sealant but it should be a sealant that can be removed relatively easy.
Eventually you’ll find the last place that water can get into the bilge and nothing will come out of the drain at the end of the day. I was occasionally getting a tiny bit of water out of the bilge at the end of the day and I traced that to the oem slip fit connector on the raw water wash down system, pulled the fitting out and wiped it down and put it back together and so far no leak there.
Again, well done...
I added three zero degree rod holders, two were mounted 12” forward from the forward most 30° OEM rod holders, and the third was mounted in the transom behind the helm seat. These 0° rod holders I bought from Yamaha as the two OEM transom mounted rod holders are 0°
Interestingly there is a spot in the center of the transom where the non skid changes to smooth and it appears this space was intended for a 0° rod holder.
So, the reader has obviously noticed the chinger in the gel coat, and it’s circular shape, this was caused by a hail stone and...
The next area where water gets in is the anchor locker drain,
@drewkaree made an excellent post about this and my post is #118 & #125.
Replaced my anchor locker drain fitting due to leaks
I do not use my anchor very much so I keep that plug shown in post #125 in place to keep water from coming in whist on the water. You will need to pull this plug once in a while to make sure no water has accumulated there, if you’ve washed the boat or it has rained on it without a cover on it.
At some point you are going to want to replace the OEM plastic scuppers. There have been a few folks that had catastrophic failures that lead to a bad day on the water, on all the boats not just the FSH models. Sometimes these fittings will just crack and let in random amounts of water that will drive you nuts trying to figure out where the water is coming from. These are a PITA to install but well worth it.
I’ve seen all the posts about the nylon scuppers breaking, and
@drewkaree offered much encouragement to change out the OEM nylon scuppers. I found stainless steel scuppers on Gem Lux’s website and I just put them in. The Starboard side takes two people for sure, one to hold / back up the fitting while the other tightens the nut. The Starboard one is ……. Difficult to install, best bet is to remove the starboard side exhaust hose and push it up out of the way.
This is the starboard side scupper for the live well drain and overflow. It’s proximity to the exhaust fitting increases...
Check your live well fittings for snugness. When I installed my electric raw water wash down pump I knocked one loose and it took me a while to figure that out. Also there is a little black fitting on the bulwarks of the transom that is the air inlet for the aerator, there is small black hose that goes from this fitting down onto the suction side of the aerator fitting in the live well, some folks have had this hose come off and a small stream of water will go into the bilge when ever the live well is full. You can access this by removing the starboard transom cup holder and reach down in there, you will have to feel around a bit to find it, take your time and you will figure it out. You will either discover the little black hose is connected or you will feel the small nipple on the fitting that is attached to the live well.
All that seems like a lot, but just like trying to eat an elephant, you take one bite at a time. The end result will be a dry bilge. Most of the time I do not get a drop out of the drain plug at the end of the day, sometimes I might get a tiny bit if I use the raw water wash down a lot and I suspect some water gets in around hatch seals from the high pressure stream of water, and or gets in through jump seat seat back slots. And you will have a good time doing all of these projects and create a great deal of pride in ownership!
For working on your boats engines you can make one of these on the cheap.
I have monkey arms but they’re not long enough to reach all the way to the back of the engine bay! There’s no where to support yourself when you boom out to get to the oil filters or intermediate bearings.
I bought a 2X8 and some 3&1/2” deck screws and threw this together today. This gives you some place to put your hands and a place to lay your body when you’re reaching into the engine bay, and your not putting weight onto the coil packs and injectors….
@drewkaree @WiskyDan @Ericd @Can0n11 @Dixemon
Dimensions;
32&1/2” cross board
7&1/2” drops
2&1/2” top...
As far as the trolling motor goes, there is an OEM trolling motor mount that is intended to be mounted on the port bow area, this area is reinforced from the factory. This OEM mount does flex and some have built there own out of thicker material, I’m still using the OEM mount with my 112# thrust Rip Tide Ulterra, it is on the list to get upgraded but that has not happened yet. I also recommend the heavy duty Minnkota quick disconnect electrical plug for the trolling motor, which ever one you get, it is very burly. This brings us to what type of MFD / Fish finder you have, do you have one? Or are you going to get one. Which ever one you have or are going to get, you need to look at the compatibility of the trolling motor and the MFD. I have a Solix MFD and a Rip Tide Ulterra trolling motor and they work seamlessly together, Garmins from what I understand work well with their Kracken brand of trolling motors, Lowarance and Simrad have a brand new Recon trolling motors that work well with theirs. I think but am not sure about Motor Guide trolling motors working with Garmins, pretty sure those work with the Simrad units that come on the late model 222, 252 and 255 FSH boats.
Next is how are you going to power the trolling motor? With lead acid or lithium batteries? The lead acid are the best if you do not have the dough for the LFP batteries. The brushless trolling motors will work without limitations with the lfp batteries, the brush type are limited to 85% of max output due to the LFP batteries higher energy delivery potential at high prop speeds. However, if you decide to go with LFP batteries, my recommendation is to not go with the off brand inexpensive ones, I only can recommend Battle Born as my highest, ReLion as second choice and Dakota Lithium as my third choice, I’ve seen enough of the problems with the inexpensive LFP batteries to recommend shying away from them. AGM batteries are nice as they gas very little and are very clean but do not have the capacity of flooded lead acid batteries, its close but the FLA batteries usually have more Ah’s / KWh of storage. Here is a link to my journey with LFP batteries.
Conversion to LiFePo batteries
On board charger… if your boat did not come with one, then you need to get one for your boat. NOCO is the most popular brand here, Pro Mariner and Minnkota are others, but I have switched over to Victron Energy IP 67 chargers mainly for their 25A output for my LFP batteries, LFP batteries do not need 25A of charging power but they can easily take more than 25A, but the 25A charger cut my charging time from 12 hours to 3. Which ever charger you get, just make sure it is 10A per battery. Then we can talk about modifying your dvsr so that each battery charges independently which is best for your house battery. Just be sure the battery chargers are set for the chemistry of the batteries you have. Our boats have pretty limited charging power, roughly 13A’s per engine above 3500 rpm, and about 6-7 at idle. If you are going to keep the batteries that came with the boat, be sure and put a good charge on them as soon as you can and check the specific gravity if they are flooded lead acid batteries.
You need to sort out why those speakers wires were cut, did the owner not tell you the reason? Sounds like there was some additional stereo equipment that was removed and was powered by that third battery? Speaking of which if it is not connected to anything get it out of the boat..no sense in carrying around all that weight for no reason.
For your snap issues..
DIY canvas fixes...plus some best left to the pros.
www.boatingmag.com
I hope you enjoyed the maiden voyage today! You’ve started on a great and fun journey! Your boat has tons of potential for all kinds of fun at a pretty low cost. The TR-1 engines are thrifty on fuel and our boats are simple and not too expensive to maintain.
