Finally mounted my SailPro; first impressions.

[Billy]

my friend has a brand new sailpro and I notice the tiller throttle on his is very loose as mine (a 2011) stays put. Must be the newer longer tiller?

[Shawn]

"One puzzling thing, the manual says that this particular motor is designed to operate between 5-6K RPM's.  Post break in WOT only gets me to 4800.  could be the tack is faulty, but it only measures spark plug fires so not sure.   Could that be the impact of the high thrust prop?"

A non 'high thrust' prop would reduce your WOT RPM, not raise it. If you are getting to 4800 you could maybe go even lower pitch (higher thrust) but it would be hard to find a prop like that. There used to be a company listing a 5" pitch prop for the Tohatsu but I tried ordering one as an experiment and it was never delivered.

Shawn

[brackish]

OK hopefully the final report on this thing.  I went out today and motored a lot.  The purpose of the trip on this hot, windless day was to try to find a place on Bay Springs Lake that had a gradual sloping sand bottom where I could anchor in waist deep water and clean the bottom in water.  Mission failed due to big storms coming up when I finally found a suitable place (most of the lake drops off deep quickly from the shore), so I scratched the mission and went in.  However, some things I've learned about the Sailpro.  It will not give me hull speed (6.02 knots) at least with a dirty bottom.  I can get about 5.7 out of it at WOT. Admittedly, I'm running a little heavy with 3200 displacement on the IV model and with the things I've added.   However, it will give me a nice steady smooth 5.2 knots with the twist grip open about 35% but the RPM's at 80%.  That is all I ever ran the old motor at.  I've run this motor about 4 hours by the meter, and the fuel gage shows I've used less than a quarter of a 3.2 gallon tank.  It is a gas sipper.  I've found that unlike the old motor that needed to be at the lowest mount setting, this one works better at the middle which gives better access to the controls.  The lower setting is always available if I'm ever in heavy seas to avoid cavitation.  I'm using alcohol free gasoline with no additives and it continues to start on the second pull every time.  I also never disconnect the gas line from the motor or the tank, it has been hooked up for two months now. I've had the best luck at avoiding condensed water by following that procedure and I never run it dry.  Subjectively, I think I have much better control at slow speed and reverse which is a good thing for docking.

It will do just fine. 

[BruceW]

good info on this thread. I'm about to put my new Sailpro on my CP 23.

I feel like my motor mount is not necessarily at the same height as others, because it was user installed. I can see other holes in the transom higher than where mine is mounted.

In the spirit of anticipation, haha, I am going to see how it all works, with various heights of mount, etc.

I also see that my mount is a west marine aluminum one, and all the mounts I saw at the local compac dealer were stainless and looked like the Garelick ones.

Do any of you folks have pictures of the mounting brackets on your boats, so I can see about relative heights, etc?

thanks in advance, and if you want to email them, that would be fine too.

[Greene]

Here is Wrinkles mount for reference.





Sorry about the large pic sizing.

Mike

[BruceW]

Cool, Mike,

That looks like about the same position mine is in; you seem to have the stainless one that looks more sturdy than mine. Mine seems a tad wobbly, but I think I can tighten the locknuts to minimize that. It does seem plenty strong.

I guess the next step will be to just try it and see how it fits!

Oh, nice looking ladder; all I have is one of those that you hang over the side and put away after use. I might like a real ladder before long.

[Salty19]

Don't tighten the mount. It's supposed to be loose. I would take it apart, clean and grease then reinstall with bolts not tight. This will allow the mount to operate smoothly. I fought my mount the first season only to realize the mount pivot bolts wee too tight.

[BruceW]

It looks like there are two places: one is just a tad loose, and the other is real loose. I was thinking that was why the mount is wobbly. However, I'll put that thought in abeyance or, haha, obeyance, and just see how the motor fits on the mount as is. No sense looking for trouble.

[Salty19]

Well, if it's it's loose like finger tight, that's too loose.

Seriously, take that thing apart and clean up the crud in there, perhaps lightly sand to smooth wear areas,  regrease the pivot points and reassemble leaving some play in the mount so it moved up and down smoothly.  You might find the bolts are really worn, or more likely the holes the bolts pass through are (alum is soft) causing the play.  These old aluminum mounts tend to need some TLC by most "new" owners.

Sorry to say you CANNOT get parts for them from the manufacturer.

Be careful of the spring pressure, and I'm not suggesting folks should take apart the more heavy duty stainless mounts.  The spring pressure on those is much greater than the old aluminum mounts, and looks a bit dangerous.  Would hate to see anyone get hurt, I sure do not want to take mine apart!  But I've had the aluminum versions apart with no problem.

[BruceW]

I'll have a look when I get back to the boat; the spring is definitely strong! What I'll also do is take a picture of the parts I'm talking about, and we can discuss further. That will give me a chance to try to put in a picture! haha!

Oh, and credit where it's due: I had lost an end cap and nearly lost the pin that goes through the upright part of the mount. In other words, the handle! I couldn't find the part anywhere. I went to West Marine, and the guy tried to call his ops dept. They put him on hold. He said, heck, we have this in stock; so he opened a new mount, took the endcap off, gave it to me, and said, I'll return this and get another one for stock. The ops people can replace the endcap I took, and you are good to go.

Not too shabby!

[brackish]

I'll have a look when I get back to the boat; the spring is definitely strong! What I'll also do is take a picture of the parts I'm talking about, and we can discuss further. That will give me a chance to try to put in a picture! haha!

Oh, and credit where it's due: I had lost an end cap and nearly lost the pin that goes through the upright part of the mount. In other words, the handle! I couldn't find the part anywhere. I went to West Marine, and the guy tried to call his ops dept. They put him on hold. He said, heck, we have this in stock; so he opened a new mount, took the endcap off, gave it to me, and said, I'll return this and get another one for stock. The ops people can replace the endcap I took, and you are good to go.

Not too shabby!

VERY SHABBY.......I USED TO HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENED!   Look at it from the manufacturers standpoint.  Our dealers used to do that all the time.  I made stationary woodworking machinery, the Delta and Biesmeyer brands.  Guy comes into the store, says I need this piece.  Dealer says, no problem I don't have the part, but we have that unit in stock, I'll open this box, pull the part and order a new replacement from the factory.  He gets busy and forgets to order, or orders and the part comes in and no one can remember what it's for.  In the meantime the unit that is missing the part is sold.  Customer is P.O.ed blames it on the factory, dealer just says Oh Well, factory isn't perfect.  My quality cost score, which was all important to us, goes down.

And if he returns the whole unit, guess who takes the hit.  The manufacturer has to pay for the return freight, inspect and rebox the unit, and then the whole unit return cost goes against the warranty cost of quality record. 

OK, off the soapbox now.

[atrometer]

AND if manufacturers were very responsive to needed replacement parts at a reasonable cost, none of that would happen ("Your call is important to us....)  Sure

[brackish]

AND if manufacturers were very responsive to needed replacement parts at a reasonable cost, none of that would happen ("Your call is important to us....)  Sure

OK back on the soapbox

When I was there, we made service parts for units that were over 60 years old.  Can you imagine that, being able to buy a part for a 60 year old saw.  Longest wait would be thirty days, because we did old service parts in monthly batches as needed.  Were they expensive? yes, of course they were not mass produced anymore they were one offs or small "lifetime" service batches that required long setups with very short runs.  Some of the parts the setup was 8 hours, the run was ten minutes. 

So I guess your position is it is OK to for a dealer to shaft the manufacturer by stealing a part out of a finished good, then parlaying it into the next box, then the next............and on and on.  Because in reality that's what happens.  The dealer generally still sells the part at service markup, he just gets to sell many of them at that markup because of the manner in which he fills the order.

Today, you won't find parts for a 60 year old machine.  Your service part life is generally as long as the contract with the most recent Chinese manufacturing facility.  When that contract ends and Marketing goes elsewhere, that manufacturer will not make any more service parts, and generally the new manufacturer will not either, volume too low.

climbing back down now.

[BruceW]

I expect that the WM company needs to talk to their mfg and get some spares. That would fix everything. Especially those little covers that supposedly keep the handle on! ;0

Anyway, now I have it on there, I need to know how to keep it there. All I had was some caulk, and that doesn't look like it's going to do it.

[atrometer]

My point was when he called for the part he was put on indefinite hold rather than being able to get the part.  He knows customer service counts and the party called doesn't.