Boat Won't Plane
 

Hey Guys:

2008 26 Outlaw the boat will not come onto plane without lowering the trim tabs all the way down and "massaging" the throttle slowly up. Once on plane I can trim the drive out and run the RPMs to 5000. No vibration no blow out. If I don't tab down the prop blows out.

Any suggestions ?

Steve

Almost sounds normal were are you puting the drives?

Drive trimmed all the way down, never had any issues before today. Have not pulled the boat but I am thinking the hub is spun ? Merc Mirage 23 P 3 blade I think the stock prop is a plastic hub ?

Maybe,for some reason thought it was a new boat to you.If it never was like that before somethings wrong.

Check the hub.

Ditto, check the hub.

And if the Mirage has those plastic vent plugs, see if they're all there. If you've lost a vent plug or two, those hole are ventilating your prop, making it harder than anything to plane.

Also, if your boat is in the water slipped, it collects crud and algae. I've heard of boats that lose some serious mph and/or can't get on plane due to the crud on the bottom of the hull.

Thanks, I am thinking the hub also, it doesn't sit in the water I pull it and put it on the trailer after every use. Just didn't have time last night to check it out as it was late when we got in.

Well the hubs pretty easy to replace, and only about $40 or so. I pulled mine because the tach was shooting, but found out it's a bad tach or loose wire, no planing issues.

Check those vent plugs too. Very hard to get out, but if someone put them in wrong, they may be missing or lodged at an angle. My boat will do the same as yours if I use the larger hole plugs, I switched to solid pluge because my boat needs no help to plane.

Check the position of the plastic spacer for the rear trim cylinder anchor pin, if the spacer is towards the rear,
the drive doesnt trim in as far.

I've seen this happen a time or two.

Update:

So I pulled the prop and hub and the hub looks fine, was not broken or rounded out. The local "drive guy" here at the beach said he has seen the rubber / plastic hubs "spin" without breaking under high torque. Make a long story short I bought and installed a solid hub and ran the boat. No blow out no cavitation the boat gets up on plane like it used to. Could the rubber hub get spun like he was saying without breaking ? Should I leave the solid hub in ?

Thanks All

Steve

Hey Steve Glad it worked out and the boat is fixed!! I will see you on the 18 of July at the OSO get together in Kent Narrow's!! The local shop that took care of the problem was WMF Marine!!! My new boat shop!:drink:

Thanks again Bill, Andy had that hub changed out in minutes. Actually took me longer to drive to your shop than it did to do the repair !

Only reason to put the rubber hub back in is to protect the drive, if you hit something with the solid, it will f up the drive pretty good, the rubber hub theoretically protects it.

True. Merc makes two different Torque-flo hubs. One is for under 400HP, the other is for over. i have seen both. The under 400 hp is all plastic composite. The over 400hp is mostly metal, with some rubber strips in the corners. My theory is the metal one is almost a solid hub, but the rubber will let go if you hit something.
https://www2.corecommerce.com/~thepr...oducts/446.jpg

https://www2.corecommerce.com/~thepr...oducts/438.jpg

Interesting, the hub that came out of my prop was totally plastic / rubber and I have a 496 HO (425 HP) guess the dealer was too cheap to spring for the over 400 HP hub !