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Unusual dinghy motor
On 17 Nov 2003 21:09:48 -0800, (Parallax)
wrote:
Here in N. FL. I see the crackers do all kindsa strange things and
this weeknd along the Econfina R. saw an unusual motor. A guy was
siting in a Kayak with a large yellow DeWalt cordless drill with a
long thing that looked like a paint stirrer for a prop. Dunno how
long it would take to run down the batteries.
I heard what I thought was a weedeater or leaf blower running at the
marina one day, only to find it was two kids in a rubber dingy powered
BY a weedeater roaming around in the marina. When they got back to
their bubbleboat, I ambled over for a look to satisfy my curiosity.
What they had done was take a conduit bender and put a bigger bend in
the bottom of the simplest of speedometer-type drive weedeaters so the
MinnKota trolling motor Lexan prop would point back, not down, that
replaced the weedeater head. They filled the tubing with grease to
keep the salt water away from the speedo drive cable before mounting
the prop.
To hold the weedeater on the boat, they used a MinnKota transom mount
made to fit the tubing shaft of a MinnKota trolling motor that had an
adjustable height collar on it. The weedeater's aircooled motor was a
comfortable distance above the transom with the prop in the water flow
under the dink. A U-clamp clamped a piece of conduit to the shaft
just above the mounting and stuck out to provide a tiller handle to
steer it with. The weedeater's little throttle was placed on this
tiller so you could use your thumb to control RPM.
Voila the air-cooled, $69 outboard motor. The owner saw me looking
over his creation and commented it was so cheap he couldn't afford to
fix it. When they wore it out, they simply moved the prop to a new
weedeater, about once a year or when it started running funny. Hell,
$69 will replace the 6 resistor plugs in my Sport Jet engine....only
if I do it myself.
Pushed the dink around pretty fast. The kids had a ball but the
neighbors had to bare the brunt of the noise. Sounded like home on a
Saturday....(c;
Larry W4CSC
"Very funny, Scotty! Now, BEAM ME MY CLOTHES! KIRK OUT!"
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