d-lo

hey guys, i got a really decent first generation miss bud. i thought it would be a fun project to do, change it up a bit, add some stuff, take away some stuff, and see what i could come up with. i know these are not as desirable as the second gens, but i wanted to do something different, with a first gen. so, she's all done, i am going to break her in real soon, and i'll let you guys know how it's going...... here are some details about the buildup.....








first off, i had to break one motor mount out due to a spun insert. at this point, i had an idea to change it to the later style mounts, so me and my friends could easily swap motors if we want, and i thought it would be better for maintenance as well. here is a shot of it cleaned up and epoxied.....





next, was the radio box, it got epoxied, and i sealed it up all around the top where it meets the upper layer of the hull. it is tight as a drum now, no air leaks at all, a far cry from what it originally was....





here is the new holes for a second gen switch....





and the switch installed......





the way the servos are mounted in these things is ridiculous. so, i made a two piece mount, the servos mount in the top section, while the lower section is held into the radio box with rtv silicone. then, with teh removal of two screws, the whole servo section comes out as one, none of that glued in permanently business....







here is the radio box being mocked up, i made all the linkages out of stainless steel weld filler wire, worked out great............





and here it is complete. there is a rechargeable pack in there now, as well as a lexan L shaped piece of plastic, to keep each side separate, and to keep the linkage off things just in case.....




grim turn fin going on.......





new metal water outlet installed, instead of a piece of hose hanging out......





i moved the rudder to the left, not sure why, just thought i would, since it's that way on alot of hydros.....





here is the hull ready for the new motor mounts.....





here are the mounts installed, worked out perfect........





oh, here is the new foam installed front to back, before i installed the motor mounts...





ouch, it hurt putting a huge hole in a perfectly good boat...........





but, this is a nice thing to have on these.....





i wanted the cowl to be one piece, ala miss vegas, and not have the turbine section in my way when the cowl was off. so, i cut out the bottom of the turbine section, and epoxied it to the cowl section, also epoxying the entire cowl for strength, added flotation, foam weather stripping on the front edge, and sides. now, its a nice sealed one piece floating cowl!





a rear shot of the modded cowl.....





i didn't like the way the pipe had to be unscrewed to be moved out of the way of the radio box, etc. so, i made it a quick release deal, by leaving the mount screw, but fastening it with an o-ring, and a small o-ring insulator. now, it pulls off in seconds......







mocking up the engine placement, had to be very exact, due to the shaft coupler......





mounts, foam, all installed, ready for the aquacraft .18 mill.............





engine and goods all installed, worked out great!!! oh, i made the water cooling outlet tubing too short, i didn't take into account it had to travel around the wood mounts, so i had to add the piece or brass tubing(thank you miss vegas extra parts...) to make the run.....




here are my second gen mounts, i had to taper the end sections, to make the drop into the coupler easier....





all the guts are in, and ready to go. oh, and i made an antenna mount from a piece of fuel tubing, the antenna just slips into it, and it and the tubing slip into the hull an inch or so, nice and flexible, and water tight......





here she is, all complete, i'll let you all know how it's maiden voyage goes, wish me luck!!!





here are the boats ready to go out..........




thanks to everyone on here, i got alot of great ideas here, i love my new hobby......

davey

gooycheese

Looks Great, only thing I would suggest is padding your RX ( I have been told the vibration can cause problems with them).


Paul

terry kelly

i really like the pipe mount and will be replacing my ugly rubberized hose clamps off mine real soon. that is a hell of a idea and proboat should thank you for the trouble you went through to perfect their faults. i have one of these and have always looked at it as a flimsy piece of junk but you have made it nice and took the time to do it right kudos my friend and welcome to r/c boating. now rip that vegas apart and mod the hell out of it.

misshydro

If your going threw all these mods.[&:] you should also put a MV rudder and adjustable strut.[8D]you cann also use the MV flex drive cable too.Most of your mods I done that long ago on my flex drive hull.[8D] I hope you got that wood seal good plus used stainless motor mount inserts. If not your motor mounts rubber bolts will rust up and when you unblot it,it will strip out/inserts will spin on you. I'm making my side mounts out of alum=no rust and no wood rot/warpage.[8D] Also be carefull you dont put to much epoxy in that hull!!=to have to plane wont go=slug for speed.[:@] These boats are very sentive to weight change.[:'(] But do like the turbine cutout and glued to cowl. Oh you may want to cutout that plastic tin cover on that cowl thow.Taking that out help create more airflow=cooler your motor will run=more speed.[8D]

d-lo

if i had a second gen, i would have gone to an adjustable strut. beings this is a first gen, and i am not a 'glass man' by any means, i wanted to try it like this first. this is all an experiment for me, to see how i could get one of these to run, and what it would take to make it run reliably, and be fun to drive. i love the learning process with these things. i have learned a ton in a short while, and will learn a ton more. i just wanted to share my experience, so, i'll do mine my way, and you can do yours your way.....

i took care of the wood and mounts, i won't have any problems. i'm sure the motor will be just fine like it is, i am leaving the cowl opening factory, because i run and race with guys around here, and with that wide open, i feel you would take in alot of water, because we run real close, follow, (wreck!!) etc..........

all in all, this will be an evolutionary project for all, so, we'll see where it ends up, cuz i sure don't know yet.......

davey

d-lo

hey folks, thought i would follow up on my project, i got lots of run time, (and down time!) in this weekend, on saturday and sunday.

so, saturday, not so fun, i went out with a friend, but we did not have the raft this time, just the pole. went to our usual spot, but the wind was really blowing away at a good clip. so, i am breaking in the .18, she stalled out on me a bit out, not too far. by the time i get the pole ready,(had issues, should have checked it before i hit the water...lesson learned) it was a ways out there. by this time, my friends boat had stalled too. so, cast after cast, i couldn't reach it. now they are too far to get to, and drifting torwards the mouth of the river. i hiked to hell and back, crossing blackberrys, water, and finally got to a spot where i could cast for them before it was too late. first cast, got mine. third cast, got pauls. it is now two hours later mind you. needless to say, i packed up, and rethought my retrieval plan when the raft isn't there. ended up getting a little electric, and tied the line to it.....


sunday. weather is good, overcast, water is like glass. so, i finished breaking in the .18, running the miss bud pipe, and a purple prop. it ran ok, but it seemed slow compared to the second gens, and the vegas. after running a bit, messing with tuning, i realized i had a cracked prop. it sure got up on a plane great, even from a dead stop, right up, but no top end, go figure.

so, new purple prop, ran much much better, but i thought the engine still sounded 'loaded up' a bit. so, i tried the vegas pipe. wow! HUGE difference in engine performance and speed of the boat. so, that pipe stays. next, i tried the vegas plastic prop, it was a little better than the purple, so i ran that one for a while. the boat handles great, i trimmed my grimracer turn fin, so it's not quite as wide as it was stock, probably about "3/8 of an inch came off the back edge, and it does't seem to hook and wipeout the boat like it did with it in stock form. mind you, this is a first gen miss bud, so my results may vary from second gen proboats.

now, engine singing great, power great with the vegas/supervee pipe, thought i would try my freshly cut and balanced octura Y535. wow! this thing really came alive, no comparison, she was really moving now, much closer to my friends proboats, and my vegas, in speed. (vegas still crushes this, FYI.) so, i ran a tank like this, and noticed the prop nut came loose a bit. so i snugged it down, went for another, was just about to come in for a refill and, wiiiing! lost the prop and nut, bummer! i looke for it, it was only in about 2 feet of water, but to no avail, a gift to the water gods. AGAIN.

so, out comes the grim prop off my vegas, and boy did it like this one. ran as good or better than the Y535, it was nuts. you could yank it hard right, and do donuts in the water, is was like driving an rc car, i love it! i was pulling off full throttle full turn figure eights with this thing, it was a blast.

in between the plastics and the metal props, a slow moving patch of debris started floating through my area. you couldn't see most of it, barely floating, mostly sticks. i fished out a ton, thought it was safe, and got her back out, this is with the aqua .18, pipe, and vegas black prop. cruisong along, pow! boat up in the air, and no control. shut her down, fished her in, rudder completley pulled out of the transom. so, some toothpicks later,(knew i'd have a use for them!!) screwed her back in, going again. two laps later, pow! only this time, i was full throttle, taking a turn coming at the shore. by the time i realized i had no steering, it was too late. i killed it, and watched my miss bud hit the shore at a pretty good clip. the shore is softball sized river rocks: pow! flip....tumble.......come to rest upside down. double bummer.[]
picked her up, rudder reeeealy ripped out, small hole in back of hull near rear ride pads,(don't know the proper term, flats on bottom of boat left and right at transom) small chunks out of sponsons, and bent turn fin. not too bad! so, off came the fin, straightened her out, small hole no big deal with the bailer, chips aren't bad, slightly bent rudder.

well, there was no amount of toothpicks going in those holes, too early in the day to quit, i was just getting her dialed, so i decided to move the rudder over "3/16 or so, and remount. poked some starter holes with a small flat blade, straightened the rudder, bolter her on, bent the servo linkage, booyah, back in business. got a tank in, and hit another low lying piece of crap. no control, boat doing a wide circle, so i idled her in on a low plane to shore, and killed it. new holes completely ripped out too. my transom now looks like a drive by victim in south central. well, the water is actually clear now, sun is out, and the water is glass. nope, i'm not going home yet.[>:]

out come the zip ties, i cut "1/2 inch strips, put them in the bullet holes, two per, and threaded the screw between my plastic spacers. tight as a drum again, last shot i figure. by the time these repairs are done, the water is really clear. so, aqua .18, vegas pipe, grim 36X55 prop, ran like a top. burned through a half gallon on her, having a blast the entire time. after three tanks of uneventful thrashing, i decided for fun to throw the original dynamite .15 in her that i cleaned up. my new motor mount setup worked flawlessly, i swapped motors and had it running in less than 5 minutes. put a purple prop on it, it ran an planed good, but obviously a lot slower. tried the black vegas prop, ran a bit faster, but not that much improvement. i could hear the engine loading up at a lower rpm than the .18, oh, and this was with the vegas pipe. so i put the bud pipe on there, no difference really, so, just wanted to see how it behaved in it's stock form, and now i knew. i didn't even try the grim prop, wish i would have, but i forgot, i wanted the .18 back in there!

so, 5 minutes later, .18 in, vegas pipe on, grim prop swingin' out back, goods times again for another hour or so, until i ran out of fuel.



in closing, i really see the short comings of the fixed/angled prop. every once in awhile you would hear it bear down and really bite, but you could just tell it wasn't the prime setup. it was alomst as if there was a teeny bit of cavitaion the whole time. ran fast, but not like it could me thinks. not like my vegas, which, when you come out of a corner, you hear the rpm's drop a tad, and it just digs in and goes. the miss bud would do great with an adjustable strut, and that might be on the books over the winter. the vegas rudder is already on the way,(man, i wish proboat had a breakaway rudder, and not a break away transom!) i have to deal with the torn up transom, not sure how i am dealing with that yet, maybe a thin plate of aluminum, we'll see, i'll update in here. back to the prop angle, so yes, it was nice to see it run this good, but i know it would run much better with the prop level with the bottom of the boat, and adjustable, or even at least at a good fixed midway point.



i want to close this post with this disclaimer: i know most of this is not new news to most of you experienced boaters. plenty of you have been here and done this. i just wanted to give a detailed blow by blow real world fact finding post, not desktop speculation, of an experience with a first gen, and all my discoveries, since alot of these are still being sold on ebay, etc. in my mind there is never too much information to be had, so i thought maybe the newcomers can learn a thing or two, and the oldschoolers can share tips in here if they wish as well, or, just say, "yeah, i already knew that."

thanks for everything i have learned in here people, see ya around.....



davey

d-lo

howdy kids, just sharing the latest fix on the bud:

so, i had a transom full of holes,(made more!!) so i needed a fix for mounting the new vegas rudder system.


this is the carnage after a brutal days running on the water.......





this was the first plate i made, only to find that the wood behind the 'glass in the boat wasn't wide enough for my screw mounting holes, AFTER i drilled two of them into the boat........doh!





so, i made a new plate, here it is..........





here is the rear of it, i made a recess for the vegas plastic boot portion.......







here is my sad sad transom before the facelift........





and here it is installed with the vegas break away rudder setup............







i also needed to make a better pipe setup, since i am using the vegas/supervee pipe, it wasn't quite long enough to reach the bracket, and still sit low enough to clear the cowl. so, i made an extension out of "15/32 brass tubing, man, it fits the vegas pipe PERFECT. i jb welded it on, came out fab me thinks......








so, this is where i'm at for now, until next time!!!!

davey

goldendesign04

looks like your getting the hang of "finageling" good job on the transom I like how it looks. Any difference on the cg with that plate back there? You made it out of alum Im assuming. Keep having fun an keeping us posted!

misshydro

That plate might make your back end more heavyer.[&:]It's bad enough that the Miss buds style hull are back heavy=slower speeds=harder to get up to plane.[:'(]Thats why alot of guys are cutting the wing off of they to lighten the back end up.[8D]I got a 3.5 MAC tune pipe on my other Miss Bud it has a.18 vegas motor in it.[8D]For now I have a plastic Traxxas nitro V prop on it.[8D]My boyfriend sat that up for me,when I was having health proublems.[]Here's the video[link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18MZZWSB11M[/link]Plus this is my Blue Angle,Thats the strait shaft boat like your with a vegas.18 too.Has a 3.5 MAc pipe and vegas 535 plastic prop.It was a short video,ran out of fuel plus forgot to bring fuel too!![:@][link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuIrFukyZAM[/link]

Grimracer

Fantastic report... Great job..

Grimracer

gooycheese

Looks Great, nice work.


Paul

p.s. I havent seen pics of a bud boat with the wings cut off?

misshydro

They have and other Miss Bud style proboat hull too. Mostly the guys who race them or somebody that wants to go fast![8D]

gooycheese

I stand corrected, sorry I haven't seen either of these boats on the forum.

Paul

misshydro

Here a Miss Bud with no wing. Dont know why it wont enlarge from member galleries page 75.All the other pics were also from the member galleries too.

d-lo

lil' update for those interested. so, i got to try the 'new' rudder system for the bud out this weekend. saturday was a decent day here, kind of cool, upper 50's, but clear skies. our spot looked ok debris wise, but she was a little windy to say the least. believe it or not, i think my hydros do better in the chop than the nitro supervee does. so, briefly, i think in order, the vegas does the best, then the bud, then the supervee. i have submarined, barrel rolled, flipped the supervee WAY more than the hydros. plus, the supervee puts a serious beatdown on the other hydros when we run together, but since i have been running hydros, it works much better for the company involved. back to topic...

so, as it stood, i had the new vegas rudder aluminum plate transom deal, and the grim prop. she ran good, but in the chop, she was a handful to say the least! i know the boat doesn't 'handle' as well as the second gen pro's, or the vegas,(by far..), but it is a heck of a whole lot of fun trying to keep that thing on the rails when its windy out. i had this thing literally pulling wheelies, she'd be blasting along the wakes, then hit an air pocket, and just come up on the prop only, for about 10 feet or so. feather off, she'd some back down, and do it all over again on the next lap into the wind. too fun.

now this had it's toll: i flipped it twice, and let me say this, i know i did a great job waterproofing that radio box, but there is only so much you can do to them, and apparently, sitting upside down in the water for minutes on end does take it's toll. so, got some water in there, emptied it out, all good. and then there's the tigerdrive. well, it seems the tigerdrive on these aqua motors don't like the water very well either. i could not get it to bite after that, so, out comes the pull starter,(glad i saved it and brought it along!!), 5 minutes later, going again. i did not try the prop changes i wanted to, i made a spacer for the 3/16's props i have for the supervee, and wanted to try a few of them on the bud, just to see how much prop it can take with the shaft arrangement and it's severe negative angle. so just fighting the wind was enough fun for me, so that's what it was.

we are now 3 submarines, and two upside downs in the water for a long time, and it's time for another run. i start her up,(pull start, aqua .18 motor...) all good, throw her out, she rips away from me, and keeps going, no steering. a quick blip on the trigger, and i stopped her in her tracks. fished her in, only to find out the steering servo is slowly winding it's way counter clockwise, like it can't find home. off comes the linkage, and i let it do it's thing while i try to fix it, no suck luck, done for the day.

so, not wanting to go home yet, out comes the vegas. well, rule number one, and i broke it:

ALWAYS CHECK YOUR RADIO FUNCTIONS BEFORE PUTTING YOUR BOAT INTO THE WATER.

she starts on the first pull, idling high like i always do, (so she won't die at an idle in the water), transmitter on, and i launch the boat. only to see her get on a low plane, and chug chug chug away from me, heading straight out into the middle of this very large spot. no raft, only a fishing line. she starts to just veer ever so slightly to the left, so, i watch her for a minute, until she hits the shore across the way. i can hike there, so no problem. i thought it would die, but my luck, no, she keeps running when it hits. so i high tail it over there, it takes five or six minutes, no cooling, at a high idle. well, a testament to the aqua motor, i finally got to her, shut her down, and started the hike back. got her on the bench, TURNED THE RADIO ON, and fired her up, smooth sailing the rest of the day............


so, fun day for the bud, rudder and plate works amazing, but have to fix my soaked servo issues before sunday, the weather is supposed to be good................


davey

d-lo

so, sunday is here, and i spent 4 hours trying to get the miss bud and the vegas ready. the weather is awesome today, 60's, sunny, no wind.

it seems that when i made my cool little servo holder, i used the jr servos as a template. well, only to find out, the futaba's i have are LARGER.[:@] so, out comes the wood chisels, trying to fit a ten pounds of servo in a five pound mount. well, i got the top portion worked out, and was working on the boat portion, when i broke it out of the radio box on accident.[] it was just rtv'd in, so i did the work on it, since it was out, and had to figure out remounting it correctly, i didn't want to make new linkages or anything. well as it turns out, ca glue adheres very well to cleaned wood and rtv! so, i got her glued back in, (had to make a new rudder linkage anyway, the servo arm sticks out way farther anyhow...) all working proper. by the way, the Rx in the balloon was dry as a bone. i also corrosion x'ed the pants off the new servos too. oh, i also put a brand new motor in the bud, another aqua .18, so my friend could run my .18 in his boat, his .15 took a dump. so, boat all back together, finally, ready to go.

the vegas didn't take much, had to put a new radio box in, lube her up, that was about it. i am still fighting these tiger drives,(i know i know, a belt may be on the horizon, but there's just no room on those proboats..) so i kept the pull start on her. even that was slipping, i replaced the start shaft, it worked for a while with the tigerdrive, but when it got wet, same thing, it just slipped. yeah, vegas talk, but the vegas motor is in the bud too. anywho, back the the main topic here, the miss bud.

so, out at the water today, there was glass like conditions, but lots of debris. we were hitting stuff left and right, and the leaves were taking us down every few minutes. paul was tuning his second gen miss bud with my motor in it, and wam! out of the water she comes, rolls over on her side, then upside down. (stock)turn fin badly bent, screws bent, sponson transom broken but not broken out. he's done. i managed to avoind such fun items for the most part, but i have the break away system on both the grim fin and the vegas rudder on the bud. needless to say, he is upgrading to a setup like mine!!)it got bent back a few times, but not enough to shear the plastic screw, so i got lucky there......

the water finally cleared up, i got some screaming runs in with the vegas, man, she was moving good, i finally settled on a good prop depth for the grim 36x55,(i'll have to measure, but typical, about 3/4 inch down from bottom to center of strut. i tried it shallower, like 1/2 inch, but it liked this, dug in better. now that the water was glass and clear, i finally remembered i made a spacer to try some of my 3/16's shaft props on this mutant bud of mine. i first tried a X637 that was cut down to 35mm or so, it ran good, but nothing spectacular, the grim still beat it.

here comes the shocker for me. i stated earlier in my testing, that i could hear and see that there was more in the boat as far as speed, but due to the fixed severe negative prop angle, it limits what you have to work with. you could always hear it ever so slightly cavitating, it would only really bite here and there, but there was no way to adjust anything. as the boat stood now, it was almost keeping up with the vegas, which had a grim 36x55 prop too. of course the vegas is much more stable, but the bud is crazy fun to drive, although a little 'hoppy'. i think that might be the extreme negative angle of the dangle back there on that prop. so, back to a wonderful surprise for me, (remember, most of this stuff is new to me, i'm sure alot of this is old hat to some of you, but i thinks it's fun to share what these 'awful stay away from them first gen boats' can do..) on goes the X437/3.

wow.

this thing turned it into a rocket! she bites down into the water now, you can hear it take the rpm's down, and she just goes like nothing i have seen. it was on the pipe, just shredding. picked up a few mph easy. by this point another guy had come down with an elam, running real good with the .15 dynamite and a grim 36x55 prop, with my grimmy on there, we were neck and neck, me just a tad faster.(man it's fun when two boats are close in speed and make, makes for a good time out on the water...) but when i put the X437/3 on there, we were both like "whoa! look at this thing!!!! i was now easily taking him on the outside, and with the grim turn fin, full throttle right hand turns resulted in a 3 foot high wake and a 4 foot or so turning radius, this thing turns on a dime. this prop makes the boat a little more squirrelly, but it's probably more due to the speed picked up. still takes corners great, rpm's come up a little, but holds decent speed, and just kills in the straights.

well, i found a winner, let's try another one.....

on goes the grim 40x53, it barely fit, it actually hit the bottom of the boat a bit while in the water, i didn;t notice it until i came in. anyway, this prop was just as fast, this boat/motor has no problem swinging a 40mm prop, they just don't fit very well. anyway, it ran good, you could hear that the 2 blades just don't bit like the 3 blades at this prop depth/angle, interesting to me, learning what works and what doesn't, all 'desk top tuning' aside, with real world results. i didn;t bring the 40x52/3,wish i would have, now seeing what this thing does with the 3 blades on it. so, on went the X437, and i burned up a half gallon on it, having an absolute blast with the elam, making wakes for each other to jump, and just racing each other, good times.

so, in closing, i would say i have a pretty dang fast boat about now, if the starter on the vegas hadn't took a dump, i would have tested bigger props on her too, so next time i will. but as it stands, i have this first gen shaft drive monster equal or beating my well tuned vegas. (she'll get her chance, with new props, and a chance to take the belt back....)

it's truly a blast of a project, i'm happy with my results, thanks for looking folks......

davey

goldendesign04

Excellent write up. Sounds like rc boating at its best!

GnrlPatton

Awesome, d-lo. I followed this thread when you first put it out there and loved it. Sorry I didn't comment on it before, but keep the updates coming. I have a new to me first gen Miss Bud, so I'm looking for ways to make it better.

d-lo

hey folks, i found my old thread on this boat, and decided to just update this one, instead of starting a new one. as of a few days ago, this boat was running an aquacraft .18, an M440 prop, and had hit a top speed of 30.9 mph. all head shims in, on 30%. the prop hits the bottom a tad, so i was running the X437 mostly, that one coming in at 29.5 mph. it seemed faster, but that's what the ol' gps had her at.......

here is where i am at now. after running with my friend paul and his second gen miss bud with a fresh OS TZ .18 in it, there was absolutely no comparo, his boat was hitting 27 to 28 mph tops with the aqua,(not sure what prop, got him up to 28 or 29 with one of mine....) he put the tz in his, threw on my Y535, and it hit 40mph right out of the gate. i put on my M440, and he hit 43 mph. done! i had to have one now, so here is my first gen bud with her new ticker, a fresh OS .18 TZ retaining it's air cooled head. i am not going to worry about making it water cooled, pauls didn't even break a sweat out there, this thing sits right in the wind on the proboats. oh, i also shortened up my mac 2.5 pipe to about 8 1/2 inches total with the new 180 header, pauls was running close to 10 inches, because his pipe was the stock length when he converted to the 180 header setup. he shortened his too, but he has not gone back out yet........... so, an update on how they run will come soon. so, here's my transformation.....





peek a boo! gotta love that thing stickin' up in there.....





pic of the pipe side, in order to get the canopy on, i had to machine the air cooled head quite a bit to get this all to fit under the stock setup...



a shot of how close it's 'tucked in' to clear the sidelines.......



a shot of the pipes 'view' in it's new tucked in position....... i just cut them with a bandsaw, then polished them on a scotch brite abrasive wheel on my grinder....



another angle.........



i went ahead and polished all the other fin edges too, to match my hack job on the left........



well, there she is, i can't wait to see what she does now. it might not be a 55mph'er, but i bet it will be fun!!

more later folks........


davey

russ722

My Feedback: (15)

nice mods bro, i picked up the new motor mounts also , how did you go about mounting the wood and how well does it hold up ? any tips?

TCHedOff

Hey, those pics (of the wingless Miss Bud) look FAMILIAR!! I believe those are of mine (still have it, and happy).

todd hollander
Minnesota

d-lo

i used some small ply from the hobby store, (3/16's maybe?) but first i dummied it up with cardboard, made my holes for the mounts, (a template), then applied it to the wood. i rtv'd them in, so if need be i can yank them. they work awesome, i wouldn't have it any other way. i can swap motors in minutes with any of the other proboats in the fleet......... this boat with the new adjustable strut is going to be a monster, i still need some trial runs with some weight added up front, but it looks promising.....


davey