New Owner

Ross,
The prop is not soft brass. It's Nibral and harder than you think. Try it if you want but I feel you will end up doing more damage. Sent it to a prop shop and have them do the job on it. Then you'll have a good spare prop for when you get the new one.

If the prop has been properly installed, you will need a puller to get it off.

When you get the new prop, there's a thread on how to lap it to the shaft. I'll see if I can find it for you.

Thank God!!! I think I've found the problem... you guys are great. So I had time to dig around this evening and it looks like its the tranny fluid cooling lines leaking. Not sure if the hose is bad or if it just needs to be tightened up...does it have an o-ring inside the fitting? Anyway here is the pics of what I saw. You can see the outer cloth on the hose is wet with fluid, some under the wire for the temp sensor "i'm guessing that's what that is" and some in the threads were the hose connects to the cooler.

I think it's leaking at the end connected to the tranny and running down to the cooler before dripping down. Would that end be a double wrench job as well?

I would pull the fitting out of the case & re-seal those threads, it looks to me that it is leaking there. Fluid usually doesn't run uphill. I had a similar leak, I think I used teflon tape, be careful not to let fragments of tape get inside the case.

8122pbrainard wrote: Ross, The prop is not soft brass. It's Nibral and harder than you think. Try it if you want but I feel you will end up doing more damage. Sent it to a prop shop and have them do the job on it. Then you'll have a good spare prop for when you get the new one.

Gotta disagree with you there, Pete.

The old school hand finished props perform pretty poorly on these larger ski boats, as compared to the new CNC wheels with big, accurate blades. Night and day performance difference... which is why that old prop, even in mint condition, is only worth around $100 (maybe less if its been repaired). He'd have more into it than its worth if he got it fixed. I suspect that a few minutes spent with a hammer and a file will get it back into very useable shape. Probably no perceptible performance difference either.

Id save the $100 repair costs and put it towards a new prop instead! Or, if you dont care enough about the boats performance to justify spending $350 on a new prop, put that repair money into the gas tank. Either way, its not worth investing a dime into a professional repair on that prop, IMHO.

I'm gonna try to address the hose issue this evening if time allows and might take a look at the prop some more.

Morfoot wrote: No one adressed your speedo problem so first thing to do is check to make sure the pitots aren't clogged up. That's usually the culprit so I remove the rubber tubing from the top of the pick up (Pitot) use a syringe with rubber tubing filled with water connect it to the pitot and force the obstruction out. If you don't have the means to do this a small fish hook usually works to dig out the trash partially blocking the hole.

Just to add some visual to this as I had forgotten that I had these pictures saved for future reference and stumbled across them.

Syringe tool I keep in the boat for back flushing the pitot if I have one clogged while out in the water. Works 95% of the time unless I really have an obstruction in there. The other pic is where your obstruction will be if speedos are slow to respond.

Thanks for the pics. Gotta find some more time to work on it.

If you're using a syringe to back flush the pitot and you are getting dribbles then you've got blockage in there somewhere. Water should come flying out of there like a squirt gun. I've used a small fish hook to dig in the hole at the base or use a drill bit smaller than the hole and hand drill it till you free up the debris.

Brian, the tubing was actually laying round the shop for a couple of months as someone ordered the wrong stuff. We needed hard plastic tubing for a job not rubber so I found a use for it.

We use syringes all the time at work to inject resin into parts or for small applications where we use them like a baker would icicing to apply resin to small bushings or inserts where you don't want a huge mess or applying resin on parts similar to a caulk gun.

Tiger76 wrote: I have the wench strap ....

Just for clarification:
Wench: Verb:to associate, especially habitually, with promiscuous women

Woah.
now a winch strap I understand , and I do use one on the front of the boat.   probably a part to be replaced every couple years so you don't run the risk of breakage.   Also probably good to carry a spare if you are using this as your primary method of holding the boat down.

You shouldn't run the tranny when out of the water it's hard on the cutless bearing and the driveshaft seal.

As for launching...I launch in a river that has a pretty good current what I found helps is don't put your trailer so deep. Back in till the fenders are just above the water, that way they will help guide the boat off and on.
Once at night(in a hurry) I put it too deep and when I pulled it out the current had pushed it to one side of the trailer and it ended up on top of the edge of the fender and smashed the fender and took a chunk of gel out of the bottom edge of the boat. DON'T DO THAT!!!

Put my new winch strap on this evening and installed my new fuel guage that I ordered from nautiqueparts.com
Thanks for the sticker

I also fired up the boat on my new free fake a lake and let it warm up and run 5-10 minutes and didn't see any leaks from the tranny. Will check again in the morning, but all still looked good 1-2 hours after running.

Replaced tranny hoses and spark plugs this past saturday. Maybe I can put it in the water this weekend to give it another go.

Congrats on your boat. This is my first boat and I'm learning alot from all the great people on this site. The first time I put mine in the water I had to adjust he packing around the shaft because it was a pour not a drip every 7 seconds. Check for other leaks water, gas, oil and tranny fluid. Make sure prop spins freely by hand and prop shaft looks good and straight. Enjoy everyone checking out your toy...

defsc wrote: I'm also a new owner. just bought a 1969 barracuda any important things I should know about this boat? my first boat I live in Maine cant wait to get it in the water!

What part of Maine do you boat in?

As far as things to know...hmmm. Make sure you've got oil in the engine, fresh gas in your tank, a charged battery. Make sure that any parts of the cooling system that were taken apart for winterization are put back together.