Boat Transom Replacement: How Long It Takes

Mutabura says, how many days did it take you start to finish

I'm about to do my Robalo R235, which has a very dodgy transom

So we're talking about replacing a transom and how long it's going to take

And obviously, this is going to vary a lot depending on the boat and how you're doing the transom

Is there an outboard on it? Is there an inboard in it? Is there a transom bracket on there

Is it a Euro style transom? Is it an inboard? So there's a lot of different variables here as far as how long it's going to take you to do the transom

But just for simplicity's sake, let's talk about it like it's just a straight up engine mounted to the back of the transom

And you're going to do the transom from the outside. There's two different ways to do transoms

One, you do it from the inside where you've got to cut out part of the floor, depending on the access, cut out part of the floor and cut out the inside shell and do it from the inside so you don't mess with the outside fiberglass of the hole

Or the second way, depending on the boat, is you cut it out from the outside

and you cut it around, leave a lip there, and then do the transom from the outside

not having to mess with the inside. So on a lot of center consoles, that's generally how you're going to do it is from the outside

On other boats, depending on the transom, you're going to do it from the inside

So if you got one outboard mounted to the back of the boat, you're generally going to take one full day just to get that engine off of the back of the boat

get all the things derrigged. So you're going to have like through hall fittings

You're going to have the drain plug. You're going to have your deck drains

You're going to have the engine mounted on there, possibly have trim tabs on there that you've got to pull off a ladder that's going to need to come off

You're going to have to pull the rub rail off of it. You've got to get the hen number off of there

You're going to have to, let's see, what else do a lot of transducers might be mounted on there

um could be a jack plate so depending on what all's there is going to depend does it take you a full

day to completely derig get all that stuff off of the transom or does it take you only like two hours

because if it only takes like two hours to get the engine off get trim tabs off and get whatever else

is on there off then you might be able to cut the outside shell and dig the transom out so you got

one full day basically on derig and and demolition then the next day you can come in clean everything up

and then get all your stuff cut, get your coring cut, get your fiberglass cut and ready

And then on the third day, you can come in, put the coring in, fiberglass it, get all that stuff done

Now you're on day four. So then the fifth day, you're going to fare it and then hopefully lay some gel coat or paint

whatever you're doing with it. And then you're going to need a whole other day to re-rig it

Generally, it's going to be about six days. Now, if you have a bracket on the transom and you've got a lot more stuff, then go ahead and add another day

So you got about seven days. And then if you have, let's say, there's a live well or something like that on the transom

that could be a whole other deal that you've got to mess with

So I would say depending on how bad it is and what your access is, you're going to be anywhere

from 6 to 10 days to be able to completely demolish the back of the, you know

de-rig everything, demo everything, clean it all up, get it all glass, put back together

painted, buffed, and then put back together. That's going to be pretty close in there

You know, a lot of people, some people can do it within a week, depending on how much work you're putting in there

But you're always going to have like some downtime when you're doing glass and stuff like

that because there's always dry time. You've got like, you know, the first couple days are going to be

like long days and you put a lot of work in. And then like the third, fourth day when you start

actually fiberglassing, it actually kind of gets a little bit less because you, you know, lay on your

first layer of glass. That might only take you, you know, an hour or so. Then you got to wait for that

to tack up. So then you wait a couple hours, put on the next layer, wait a couple hours

put on the next layer and then, you know, finish it with one last thing

So it's kind of like the process gets kind of spread out depending on, you know

what exactly you're doing and towards you when you get towards the end. And then obviously when you paint it or gel-coat it, you've got to wait for that to dry before you derig

So the days, as far as like time-wise, it's going to be six to ten

But as many as far as like actual days, I would say same thing, six to ten

and it might go a little bit more depending on are you doing it yourself

how much time do you have per day to do it? I mean, you know, if you've only got a couple hours in the day

then it might take you a couple weeks to do it because you come home from work

you're trying to demolition and get everything cut out. You might not get everything done in one day, two days, three days like you'd like to

So that's about how long it's going to take for your average transom

Now, if you've got even more stuff that you've got to do, like if you've got to get on the inside and mess with the

the floor and mess with nonskid and other stuff like that, it could, you know, you're going to have

to add days based on what exactly you have to do. And if you're doing it from the inside, if you've

got an inboard, that's a whole other thing because now you've got to pull that inboard out of

the boat as well, because generally you want to do those from the inside, not necessarily from the

outside. So that's kind of, you know, the things that I can think about as far as how long it's

going to take to do a transom and exactly, you know, the main components of the processes

Christopher Williams, I have plenty of triple guard grease I use from my old job. I don't use

anymore. I'll give you some. Can I send you some? 100%. I'll take all the triple card grease

You got, uh, send me any of that stuff. You want to send me any, any greases, tools, any of that stuff

Send it to me. 100% I will take that all day, every day. Thank you, Christopher. Douglas, Suzuki has a

timing chain, not a belt like the rest, Suzuki much better. Well, yeah, Suzuki does have a timing chain, but, I mean, Mercury has a timing chain

I believe that Honda also has a timing chain. I think Yamaha is the only one that is still running a timing belt

And from what I can see from going forward, I think that they're going to stick with the

timing belt because the new 4.3 liter 350 has a timing belt on it

So I don't know, you know, whether or not that's really matters

It's just a, it'll be, it's a maintenance item, whereas a chain's not a maintenance item

You know, the downfall to having a belt is that it could break

And especially with Yamaha, all their engines, for the most part, are interference engines

And all that means is that the engine itself, the actual powerhead, you've got valves that open up and you got pistons that come up

So as the piston comes up and the valve opens up, opens if it goes up and down like this, if it hits that, they call that an interference

motor, whereas if it is, you know, a lot of the other ones there, they aren't interference engines

And so if the piston comes up, there's no ability for it to hit that valve, which is the big

thing when it comes to the timing of it. I don't think they've had any problems with it, in my opinion, in my experience, working

on thousands of Yamahs. they, I mean, I don't think there's a problem with having the timing belt and that the belt or the chain

either one is better. You know, the timing chain, yeah, it's maintenance free

But pretty much all the engines that they make now are maintenance free as far as the, you know

the valves and the shimming and any of that stuff, the powerheads themselves are pretty much maintenance free

So I guess yeah Yamaha having a maintenance timing belt and have to change that timing belt every I think thousand hours depending on the model They used to say every thousand or every 10 years but I think that has changed And now it just every thousand hours It doesn matter the age on the belt anymore

But whether one's better than the other, I don't know about that

Suzuki makes a phenomenal product. So, you know, there is that. Maliko de Sousa, you'd have to run a bunch of numbers

Each user will be different. We bought a heat pump for our home

I ran the numbers after a few months. The savings and natural gas versus electricity was negligible

It would take us decades to recoup the cost, and the pump has only a 10 to 20 year lifespan

He's comparing this to the share-o props and whether or not it's worth spending the money to get the propellers or not

But again, you'd have to run the numbers and whether or not you're going to burn enough fuel and have enough fuel economy savings to justify the price of the propeller

but it is a good observation with talking about this pump where things wear out

And so, yeah, if you spend money on something and you're supposed to be saving money

like, you know, if you buy a lithium battery, if you buy a brushless trolling motor

if you buy a solar panel, stuff like that, you're buying something and you're spending more money

based on the fact that you are on the assumption that you are going to either save money

it's going to last longer or it's going to perform better. It's kind of a good thing to be thinking about and looking at

Like if you don't use your boat enough to where, you know

buying, let's say the trolling motor, buying a brushless trolling motor versus a brushed

trolling motor. The price for the brushless is going to be a lot more. But if you only use your boat, say, you know, 10 times a year and you only use the

trolling motor maybe three times out of that year, the price isn't probably going to matter

because by the time you wear out the brushed trolling motor, you're going to have so many years of use out of it that it's not going to matter to you

Same thing with the lithium batteries and the lead acid batteries. So if you're using your boat all the time and you put a lot of wear and tear on it

meaning the more you use it, the more you're going to beat up the battery

the sooner they're going to die. So maybe investing in lithium is a better option for you

because you're going to get more years of use out of it, opposed to buying more lead acid batteries in a shorter period of time

because of the amount of use that you use it. Like, you know, if you're using your boat every day

you're starting your engines multiple times a day, then you're going to wear out a lead acid battery in two to four years

Whereas you might get 10, 15 years out of a lithium. So, you know, you might be able to save money there

whereas someone else it might not justify the price to get something like that because by the time they wear out with the normal thing

like his example being the pump, it's negligible. And did you really save any money

Did you really get a benefit out of buying that product or not? It's just something to think about in a way to look at things

Chrissom, 242, have owned both. My last two engines have been Yamaha 250 SHO and a Yamaha 300

on a 22-foot and a 24-foot bay boat. Really like both. My Yamahs have run perfect

so did my previous Suzuki that I ran hard for 12 years

Don't know about now, but previously if a person purchased during a promotion

the Suzuki came with six-year warranty. My 2019 and 2022 Yamahs came with a five-year warranty

Think it's typically three years without promotion. My experience, Suzuki is quieter and more fuel-efficient

Yamaha has larger dealer network and easier to, find certified Yamaha service. Both are extremely reliable engines. I really like my Yamaha engine

That being said, if I decided to change to a different bayboat manufacturer with Suzuki 300 or

350, I wouldn't hesitate on the Suzuki if I like to boat. I'm with you 100%. I think Suzuki's are

super reliable and quieter. Yeah. Honestly, Yamaha is probably the loudest engine out there

Mercury is probably the quietest outboard out there As far as like, you know, quiet and loud goes

Honda's probably somewhere in the middle. I think that they're pretty, pretty quiet

So they're probably neck and neck with Suzuki. Suzuki's super quiet, super reliable

You got 12 years out of yours. I would be in the same thing that I wouldn't not buy a boat

because it has a Suzuki or a Yamaha. I think they're both reliable engines, both really good

I think Yamaha does have, six year warranty now. This is 2024. I don't know

You know, back then, yeah, you got five years. Generally, you, every manufacturer generally gives you three years of warranty

And then you can purchase whatever you want. You can purchase, you know, Yamaha's YES for extended warranty

And I think you can buy up to three. There for a time, you were able to buy like five years extra

Same thing for Mercury. They come with three year factory standard warranty. And then you can buy, you know, one, two

three, whatever years you want. Mercury is a little bit different because they have different levels

Like you've got a platinum and a gold, and, you know, that could get kind of, uh, depending

on what you're doing. That might be something to think about. I don't know

It's hard to explain. You know, if you have platinum, pretty much everything's covered

If you have gold, very minimal stuff is covered. So I generally tell people to buy platinum if you're going with mercury

Captain Pepin, the 300 AP Suzuki is equally reliable as the Yamaha

yes equally both are spectacular engines Suzuki is quieter used to be substantially less expensive but still less expensive

I can't find anyone with over five years and five hundred hours on an AP 300 that can say anything bad about them

but all outboards are overpriced I think they are up there up more than 35% in the past few years

and the yen has actually softened the US dollar so everything you got right there I'm I'm with you 100

Suzuki being just as reliable as Yamaha, yep, I agree. The 300 AP probably is a little bit underrated

Then it really should be. I think you're right. It doesn't get as enough credit as it really should

I still think that the Suzuki 140s don't get enough credit as they should either

I mean, those are super reliable and they last a long, long time

Them being cheaper, yep, they have always been cheaper. and that's kind of the image that Suzuki has right now in the market because they have been selling everything so much cheaper than everybody else

You know, you go buy a, it used to be almost $12,000 to $15,000 less than a Yamaha or Mercury

depending on what you're buying, like a set of twins or something like that or a 300, 350

But Suzuki, again, quieter, yeah, Mercury probably quietest. Yamaha is probably the loudest, but again, super reliable

Shred Flintstone, quick question, I'm no expert expert, but it seems to me that crossing the lines at the stern of the boat

could potentially damage the engine or propeller, or the prop could straight up cut through the rope

Am I wrong? If so, can someone please explain why? So we're talking about, you know, how you tie up a boat

Generally, when you tie up a boat in a slip, if you've got a tide swing that you've got to deal with

like anywhere near the ocean, even a lot of, even some lakes have a tide swing

So as the tide goes up and down, you need that boat to be able to go up and down with it

Because if you don't, then you could have the boat get caught on a rope and tip over and sink

It could get caught under a dock and sink. It could get, you know

hung up in the air and rip cleats out of the boat. Multiple bad things can happen if you don't tie up your boat properly

generally when you tie it up in a slip, you want long lines

So you want a line from the front all the way to the back and from the back all the way to the front And then in the back generally most people tie them up with a criss so that way you can get that long line So if you got a line from like if this is your boat you want a line from this corner going to this corner and from this corner going to this corner

So they cross over each other. Yeah, they do get on the engines

They do get around the propellers. But generally, when you think about it, the line is not like, you know, taught

all the time. It's mainly like, it's just there. And the boat's going up and down and the boat's

you know, floating around and the wind and kind of moving around. So it never really like, you know

has this position where it's going like a propeller is going to cut the line and cut through it

I guess over, yeah, a long, long time. Like if you're using the same lines for 10 years, you know

over that period of time, the prop might be able to cut it. And then also the water, it's

floating, it moves around. It's not enough pressure. The line will give, so you're not going to mess

up the propeller by, like, bending it or anything like that. Worst case scenario, if you leave your

boat in all the time and you have to go through a lot of storms and stuff like that, it might

the line might rub a little mark on the chap on the side, like the bag of the drive shaft housing

or something like that. Other than that, just the way that it's floating and the boat will

push down, come up, it'll move around. The lines just kind of

of find their way to where it doesn't. And again, the boat's floating around

So having them crossed and long allows the boat to, you know, move a little bit this way

And then as soon as this line gets tight, it pulls back and then the boat floats back this way

And it just kind of like floats back and forth in between those lines

And it's like, you know, suspended there based on the tension. But it's not enough tension to where the lines can't move around with the boat as it goes

up and down. So hopefully that kind of answers that question. question solo burrito

I don't see how you can call it a hoax, maybe marketing, but the performance of a lithium battery vastly outmatches lead for sure

Sure, there are some downsides, and it doesn't fit every application. For a 36-volt trolling motor, you definitely want lithium

100%. So being a hoax, I'm just saying that, you know, there's a lot of people out there that think

it is a hoax. So when a lot of people that take somebody that has never been in boating at all

someone that works in an office, administrative, they don't do outside stuff

They're not a mechanic. They're not, you know, a DIY person. They're not, you know, they don't have to deal with mechanical stuff like that

They're coming from an outside perspective in. They look at a battery and they don't know the chemical makeups of a battery

There's so many people that don't. And so they look at it and they go, oh, this battery is $1,000

This battery is $200. And obviously to them not knowing anything about it

they're like, you know, this is a hoax. There's no point. Why would I spend $1,000 for this when this one's $200

That's kind of the angle there is to try and get those people that don't know anything about it

and to be able to reach them with something that can educate them and help them to kind of

understand where things are going and show people the technology that's out there and that it is safe

that, yeah, they do, it does have its downsides and it is going to be continuing to change

but for sure lithium trolling motors, I mean, by and large, any trolling motor should be on a lithium battery

Because you have that constant power, you have, you know, power all the way down to the end

and your battery is going to last a lot longer. So on a lead acid battery that might get maybe a thousand cycles tops for a $500 lead acid battery

for a $1,000 lithium, you're going to get 6,000 cycles out of the battery

So it's like, why not? have a battery, you spend $500 more, but you have a battery that lasts five times as long

And you can use that battery all the way down to like 20%

Most of the BMSs will, you know, start to tell you, give you warnings, and like they don't

let you generally take it all the way down to 0%, but 100%

It's lithium, the performance aspects of it vastly outweighs those of a lead acid battery

depending on the application, anything for a deep cycle, house, or stuff like that

The bigger thing is that people want to use them as starting batteries, and I think you're going to see them being used more for starting batteries, 100%

And, you know, we just saw Yamaha, this is probably, by time this video comes out

it's probably going to be a few weeks ago, that Yamaha bought Torquito

Brunswick being mercury, bought Relyon years ago. So now you have the top two, you know, brand manufacturers of Albor

in the electrical space. So, I mean, lithium's coming for starting batteries

whether people want it or not. It's just going to be that way. Lead acids not going away

but you're going to see lithium a lot more because it is more versatile. We talked about it, I think, last week

where we talked about solid states, sodium, and all these other chemical makeups

So the change in the market and the change in the industry is coming

and it's going to be awesome. Things are going to last a lot longer. Hopefully the price will come down, but like you said, the performance aspects of it do vastly outweigh it

Sea shoes, I love my lithiums. I run an AGM for starting electronics, but my trolling motor is on lithiums

I can run days on them before charging. Some of the lakes I fish are electric only, and I could put around on the trolling motor all day long without an issue

By switching to lithiums, I dropped something like 70 pounds out of my. boat, which is huge

The boat handles and performs, that boat handles better now and picked up speed

So there you go. Just like what we're talking about, the lithiums, the advantages are there

Like, you know, generally you can't go all day and even that days without charging the

deep cycle batteries just because of the state of charge of the lead acid

So you might be able to run one full day on your trolling motor with your deep cycle lead

acids, but after the state of charge of those batteries get drawn down to like 50%

The next day when you go out, you're going to drain those batteries quick and it's, you're

not going to get the same performance. Whereas the lithium, even at 75, 50%, you're still getting the same amount of power

output that you were when it was at 100%. So definitely all of the advantages there

Mudabura, again, only issue I have with lithium is that if the BMS has a fault, your

battery doesn't work. LTO batteries are worth looking at if you DIY, no BMS, and can run off an alternator

So LTOs are lithium titanium oxide. I don't really know a lot about LTOs

I don't know if that's true or not, whether you can run them off an alternator and no BMS

Again, I don't know that much about them. I know a little bit about lithium

I know a little bit about sodium. I know a little bit about all this stuff, but I don't know everything about it

So that's something that I need to look into being the lithium titanium oxide batteries

Yeah, if you don't have to use a BMS, that's very interesting. I would like to know what the cycle count is

And then also whatever they call that where the one side will eat over to the other one

that like that thing where they're talking about like plating. So like whenever the lithium, the anode and the cathode

the one makes it way over to the other one and it starts to build up deposits and then it can actually short out the battery

and then also it just breaks down and doesn't have the same power

I think they call that plating. I'm not 100% sure, but I would like to know about that with the LTOs

But, yeah, that's the biggest thing with the BMS is like we said last week

with Yamaha and a lot of the engine manufacturers, they don't like lithium because cheap lithiums have a bad BMS

or the BMS is just cheap, and it will actually disconnect from the engine

So that way, if you're running along, and the BMS just straight up disconnects itself from the engine that going to cause major issues with the engine It could burn up the computer It could burn up other parts of it

It could actually just, you know, cause the alternator, the stator to burn up

That's one of the bads and downsides to it is the BMS. Is it a good BMS

Is it a cheap BMS and, you know, that whole deal? But I think most of the good lithium battery companies out there have all figured all that out

I mean, you know, epic. Abyss, stealth, like they really have, they got it locked down as far as, you know

figuring out and solving those problems where they don't have those problems anymore like they

used to. So, again, the technology is advancing, and a lot of those problems are slowly going away

Again, I don't know much about LTO, but now that's something for everybody to go look up

Richard Lovis, 16-foot flats boat, 90 horse, Yamaha had a three-blade, 17-pitched prop

was bouncing off the rev limiter, went to three blade 21 pitch, and top ends good, but lost a

hole shot. It is vented with quarter inch vent holes. Would it help to open the vent holes

Also is porpoising hard once I started t out. I also am running a jackplate

So a couple different things here. The porpoising fact and the t out, that's going to have to do with weight

and engine location. So that has nothing to do with your whole shot

prop, pitch, all this other stuff that's going on. Whenever you start porpoising

it's because the weight distribution of the boat, how high the engine is, how far back it is

and the angle of the lower unit. So you've got a whole other thing going on there with the porpoising

and the jack plate and the t, all that. You know, that's a whole other subject

all in of itself. I would look at the engine mounting height and whether or not you've got that jackplate

Is the engine buried? Is it not buried? Because you could have the engine buried

and that little bit of trim, water going over the anti-ventilation plate

and that's sucking it down, which is giving you that porpoising factor

You know, the weight distribution, the engine, you know, maybe it's too light up in the front

because you've got a jackplate, it pushes the engine back, and the whole weight of the boat is

it's not centered the way you want it to be centered. So that's separate issue

Now, as far as the propeller going from a, so we got a three blade 17 pitch prop

And we went to, that had a three blade 17 pitch prop had a good whole shot

but it was bouncing off the rev limiter. Went to the three blade 21 pitch and the top end is still good

but the whole shot went away and you want to vent it. So the vince isn't going to help your hole shot

The vents basically just let exhaust gas out and it gives you slip on the prop

You're going to add slip to it. So it will let you rev up a little bit more

Might give you a little bit more top speed because it releases drag

But slip does not mean grip. When you are talking about a hole shot and getting up on plane, you need grip

Which means, you know, whether that's a bigger prop, a four blade prop

you know, less pitch, but those are going to be the variables there as far as being able

to get a better hole shot. Most likely the three blade 17 pitch prop might have been a little bit bigger than the three

blade 21 pitch. And that's why you got a better hole shot because it's less of a pitch and it's bigger

in diameter, which gave you more grip, which gave you a better whole shot

Now the three blade 21 might be a little bit smaller, so therefore you've got, you know

you've got a bigger pitch which brings your RPM down and you've got a smaller prop

which loses your grip and your whole shot, but yet it's able to keep your top end speed the same

That's kind of what I think might be going on, not 100% based on the details that I have

but that's what you need to be thinking about is diameter of the prop and the pitch

which is going to affect the grip that you get on the water

If you take those vents out, it's going to add slip. You might gain your top end speed

You might hit the rev limiter now, but you're probably going to lose your whole shot even worse than it already is

Hopefully that kind of helps. I know it's kind of difficult to go off of what you've said here

but we'll do one more for this week. We got Frank Coffee. new types of batteries are coming to market every year now

There is already one car for sale in China that uses sodium batteries

We talked about this last week. You know, the whole lithium, sodium, all this stuff coming out, 100% sodium

There are some downsides to sodium from what I understand. Yes, it is readily available

It is going to be cheaper. But I want to say that sodium doesn't get the same cycle count out of it

And then one other thing, I think the sodium has trouble where it, goes back to that plating issue or whatever they call it where, you know, the anode

it, it eats, it has deposits that leaves as it goes through and it, you know, it just

it wears out quicker. And sodium doesn't have the same capacity. I want to say sodium, like, you know, if you get so much energy or power or density

energy, density, I think is what they call it. Like you get, let's say you get this much density out of a nickel manganese cobalt

and you get this much out of an LFP. I want to say that you get like this much out of a sodium

So the capacity is a lot less, which means less range. I'm not 100% on that being the only problem

I'm sure there's some political stuff that goes into this too with, you know

sodium being so readily available. But I don't know all the ends and outs of all these chemical makeups

where they source the products and all that, but 100% that is definitely on the market

We've been talking a lot about batteries lately. Let me do one more since I was just another battery comment

The Diplomasta 2005 DFI 150 here, it appears that these air and fuel injectors don't have any screens in them

When looking at the microfish, is that true or are they simply not shown

by and large pretty much all, you know, electronic fuel injection engines on the injectors have like a filter or a screen built into the injector

So on the back of it, there is going to be some kind of filtration element to it

Usually they're not going to be on a diagram, microfish, whatever you want to call it

because it's not technically a serviceable item. It comes in the injector

It's like built into the injector. some injectors you can get it out some you know for the most part you just take the injector out

and you can spray it out and clean out from the back so yeah my guess is that they do have them

there might be some air injectors that don't have filled screens on the back but by and large

i would say 90 95 percent of injectors have a screen or a filter or something on the back of it to

catch debris and make sure nothing gets into that filter. So that's why you don't see it on a diagram because it's not really a serviceable item

It is just built into the injector. It's part of the injector. And that's just kind of what it is

So anything you guys want to talk about, we appreciate all the topics. We thank you for all the comments and everything like that

If you want to talk about something, comment below. Email us at ASPAB at born and boating.com

Check out our boaters program at bornagainboating.com. that helps, you know, fund this whole operation and keep these videos coming

Other than that, we will look forward to seeing you next week