Wedges between Transom and motor yes or no??

[gran398]

Tabs are great on these hulls, but I'm with the boys. She should JUMP on plane with that Suzi, tabs or not.

Walk through the advice, especially the pin position and inner hull water retention/weight.

And when you say "transom patch work" where do you mean? Tx.

And thanks Tabman for your presence and professional advice.

[Capt. Bob]

And when you say "transom patch work" where do you mean?

I'd venture a guess in that Smitty is referring to the "denting" you see in the photos where the front of the lower unit has been striking the transom.


Better to fill in the dent than to "grind" the plate.

Just a guess.

[gran398]

Gotcha, missed that.

Thanks CB  

[smitty 1]

Capt B........You are right on target.. fill in the dent is exactly what I meant. Moving the bolt up, will negate the need to grind the fin. I have an eye on new 12x12 tab plates as we speak. The transom seems fine, but I did pay attention to what JD wrote about his transom flexing under load. I'll have to keep an eye on that just to make sure.
We have another issue with the steering cylinder, hard steering, it was an off breed, not the seastar, So we're replacing it with a new seastar cylinder HC5345. While I'm changing things, whats your opinon on changing out the fluid in the trim tabs? It has the bennett motor and tabs, It was in there when I bought the boat 18 months ago, seems fine, but no tellin how old it is.

[Capt. Bob]

Smitty,

I think Aquas in general are, by their nature as a planing type hull, bow high riders. You can see this in the Photo Gallery of both the 84 and 86/87 model pics. My personal experience  confirms (at least on my boat) this. That stated, the tabs are your best friend. I'm not sure the actuators are needed to be moved to properly function with the longer planers (unless they use a different size ram) if you change to the 18 x 9  planer but assuming that you gain 6" total length (from 12" to 18") it would move the planer 3" closer toward the motor and quite possibly cause ventilation. That would then require that you would need to relocated the actuators further outbound. That stated, the 12 x 12 would both help overcome squatting and save you the extra work.

I use about 40% down tab and a neutral ( or slight +) motor trim on take off. I find this works very well and at the same time doesn't require jamming the throttle full forward to get on plane and bring the bow down quickly. I'm a big fan of trim tabs and I think you can solve your problem very easily with the longer chord planers. Tabman has already confirmed this and he most certainly knows.

Good luck.

Edit: I'm editing this post to once again give a big "Atta Boy"  to Bennett's customer service. I, as well as several others here have touted  Bennett's service after the product is purchased and IMHO is matched only by the quality of their product.
Once again they have helped me with my tabs (which were originally purchased in 1996) and provided me with both product and advice. You cannot go wrong with this group. If only every business in this country were run like this, customer complaints would be non-existent.