I'm glad you asked! That was the original plan, to use a motor attached to the sterndrive shaft. When I bought the boat I knew it has a cracked water jacket on the engine, which is why I got it essentially for free. From what I could inspect from the outside, the sterndrive looked to be in ok shape, some electrolysis, but everything moved. When I got it all apart to pull the engine, however, it was in very bad shape (about what you'd expect from a not-very-well-maintained 30 year old boat, really) and I was going to have to re-build the sterndrive. Just that alone was close to the cost of the Navy 6 outboard, and I started this project to make an electric boat, not rebuild Mercruisers.
Then you have to figure all of the mechanical losses: there's no way turning that sterndrive prop meant for a 250hp gas engine and transmission would have been anywhere close to efficient. Small prop meant to go fast vs big prop meant to go slow.
Glassing in the transom was the easiest part of the whole boat restoration, and when I was done, no more giant hole in the transom beneath the waterline. A boat of this type spends much more time at the dock than underway, and I'd only get a sterndrive boat if I was going to keep it on a lift. Opinions vary on that, of course.
So for my case, re-configuring for the outboard was much easier and about half the price of using the sterndrive, and I got a better boat from it. As with all inboard to outboard conversions, it also gave me more volume in the hull (used for batteries).
__._,_.___
Posted by: kd5crs@gmail.com
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (18) |
SPONSORED LINKS
.
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment