1991 hydrostream venus

[tpwolff]

ok Here is the story,and bear with me people, I'm new. I own a 1991 Venus powered by a 91 merc 200XRi I love this rig! It is stock off the showroom floor Merc is bolted to the transom, dual cable steering, factory fuel, speedo, temp, tack, and kill switch, merc controls. Being a car guy I love and expect things to be stock. I've come to the conclusion that this is not really the case with boats, so the time has come to play with this I baught a land and sea jack plate(hydrolic) hydrolic steering, docking lights(I do a lot of night boating)I have been over this hull with a fine tooth comb and it is flawless. No cracks anywhere. After reading the flaws in these hulls I took special care to check the transom as I understand one week point was where the transom connected to the boat do to the built in setback therefor no direct conection and apperantly the first place to fail. At any rate hull is sound and solid. This boat has spent most of it's life outside and was neglected for a few years. sat idle with snow and rain in it. Interior is rough! After all this the boat has developed a few problems.......#1 the tilt and trim. the tilt and trim work perfectly no leak down in fact it is up right now and has been for two days has not dropped 1/4 inch but folds under power in the water and will not trim up fully but will lift me(180lbs). Not sure where to go with this. Can I fix it? should I replace it? I was going to just but a used one but they seem to all be sold as is with no return. They claim no leakdown bu mine doesn't leakdown so that does't mean they are any good, just means......it doesn't leakdown! Any help here would be appreciated. Next question is.......do I recore this boat now before I have problems or just run it as is till I see a problem? Popular concensis is that these streams HAVE to be waterloged and need to be recored but I have no evedence this is the case, but I want a sound solid boat. Any ideas or recomendations? I'm going to redoo the dash and put in livosi guages this winter along with the steering and the jack plate. Have the interior redone(any recomendations here would help as it is a multi color interior and I want to keep it that way as opposed to the one color jobs you can get to replace them) Also there are two places where the gellcoat has spidered. What is this from and how do I fix it or at least stop it from happening anymoreAnyone care to tackle a newbe and answere some dumb questions? I did order a bobs nose cone with low water pickups but after reading some threads on this this seems like a maintance nightmare and I wonder if I shouldn't go with a differant lower unit....such as a sportmaster? these seem to be hard to come by used and expensive new, espicially since I just had mine redone. feel free to chime in here if you have anything to say. I'm about to get my feet wet here!

[77viper]

First off you have the 3 ram trim the center ram is for tilt and is meant not to carry a load, that's what the short rams are for. The motor will settle down onto the 2 short rams under power by design. Is this what it's doing?

AS for recoring it's a judgment call but you might not see any signs of a bad core until it delaminates or at lest cracks the gel. Either one is more work in the long run. If you are redoing the interior I would cut a couple holes in the floor and take some core samples, if it's good it will just be piece of mind knowing it.

Where are you located? someone near might know of a good shop to make your interior.

The spider cracks are from a impact or can come from a screw. Think of gel as a egg shell, it cracks rather than flexes but the fiberglass under can flex a little. To repair just grind out the crack with a small rotary grinder and refill with the correct color of gel. They might come back if the fiberglass is also cracked.

I have a bob's cone that I did myself and have had no problems with it in a year. I did take it off for the MN winter and brought it in the house. If in dought have a pro put it on there are a couple around the states that can do it and you won't have any problems.

[tpwolff]

Hello Viper I understand how the system works. Your right the center ram is a traillering ram but this always worked as a trim ram and I did use it that way. I know.....not the best thing to do but with no jack plate I used ALOT of trim. Anyways....no thats not what it's doing It folds the motor right to the back of the boat. It will trim the motor on the two trim rams but stab the throtle and even those let the motor fold down. As for location I live in River Falls WI. Spend alot of time on the St. Croix River. As far as the spiders they certainly look like impacked but they have no marks and the boat has never laft me these just developed over the winter about two years ago and I was wondering if it could get water behind it and then freeze? but again these are in the top of the boat up front about 1/2 way up the cuddy hard spot for water to get to. They're not in the hull itself and there are none in the hull at all. If freezing water was the cause I would think the hull itself would be more apt for that. Problem is this one is right in the stripe which is outlined in pink(don't ask me why) then has a dark blue light blue , lighter blue and then a gray stripe Fixing this will not be fun going to require matching color gells and doing one color at a time gonna be a little time consuming I suspect so I just wish I knew where they came from so maybe I can fix that and they wont come back. Fiberglass from the inside again has no marks and looks and feels solid as anything It's not that noticable but everytime I wash it I see it and it bugs me to no end!!!! Going to start on some fiberglass work this winter due to some other problems that have developed Once while pulling a skier the ski poll wich goes through a holl in the deck behind the back seat and ataches the floor Hydrostream used steel bolts with no washers they rusted off and the poll tipped and cracked that also.......not my happiest day. As far as the nose cone I have one comming and I know a great welder so they say if you weld the cone on it's not so bad so I guess we'll try it....got nothing to lose at this point I guess...Maybe I can find a better lower this winter. I'll have to see how that goes

[Surface Scratcher]

Welcome.

Well, on the good side, I think you'll like the nose cone you have just fine. I doubt a SM will gain any performance. Don't forget solid motor mounts to go with your other new performance gear.
When I bought my boat, the trim had issues too. I set the manual pin so the motor was perpendicular, lowered the plate for take off and raised once on plane. It worked surprisingly well.

On the bad side, the fact that the boat spent time open in the weather and that bolts in the floor have rusted off, raises the odds that a core is in the future.

Best of luck and welcome to the forum.

[tpwolff]

Oppps Almost forgot about the solid mounts...thanks for the reminder! guess I'll be making another call to Bobs but I don't understand the comment about the SM I thought the sportmaster was simply a lower unit with the nose cone cone and low water pickup built in. Am I wrong on this. I'm new to this and was thinking more along the lines of less maintenance and problems. thanks for the responses and the welcomes

[Surface Scratcher]

You're correct about the SM. I was just saying that you probably wont go any faster with it than with the Bob's. Lots of folks use them without issue. That being said, it all breaks... right Chet?

[77viper]

Oh ya everything and everything will break if pushed to the limit.

[tpwolff]

Hey 77viper any ideas on this tilt and trim problem? I noticed your profile says your a marine mechanic I hear these are kind of problematic but hard to rebuild thing has been holding on it's own for a week now no leakdown I put a relief valve in it but I'm gonna try another......maybe I got a bad one? would that cause this problem.....not a hydrolic enginer but seems to me to much presure would release the relief valve If the valve goes bad might it release at the wrong pressure.......I E too early? just speculating

[77viper]

The 2.4 that came on my vegas would leak down real slow so I went in to see what I could do and found the tip of the manual relief valve had broke off. I had to pull the assy, and split the pump apart to get the tip out. It was a pain but worth a try. I don't see it as a problem too often at work and when I do by the time you add parts and labor we just replace the assembly.

[hydrohellion]

Hey tpwolf, I can't help you with the power trim issue but I also recently acquired a 84 Venus that needed an interior and floor, I'm also trying to decide whether I need to re-core and transom now or later.

I'm taking out the floor now and re-upholstering everything in light gray with white stripes. check out my post http://www.hydrostreamforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=592&start=10 and I can send you more pics just message me

Would be great to see some pics of your boats interior as I am not sure mine was original and would really like to see what yours looks like.