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Souperfly

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Well I thought I'd start my own topic to say hi, so here it is! I posted a couple pics under "Show us your rig" topic, but I don't mind putting the pics up again! Biggrin.gif

This is my 4th boat, first ski boat and I love it!

96 Sunsetter, 248 hours, w/swoopII tower, batracks and the wedge.

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Now I need to get some ballast! I don't like the fly high seats, and would like to keep storage, but I guess somethings gotta give. Anyone put ballast in the rear ski locker behind the flip up seat? Any tips/suggestions?

I love wakeboarding, but I'm just starting out wakesurfing and love it. Just need either more friends to go out on the lake w/me or the ballast prob... Any tips/suggestions from the surfers on boat set up? I can get up w/no prob, but I haven't found the "pocket" yet... So I'm still teathered to the boat.. for now...

Anyway, anyone in the Del Rio/San Antonio area, let me know!

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Hey SF,

Welcome to the site & congrats on the boat, she's a beauty! For ballast in the rear, you can look at doing something similar to what we did in our Wakesetter direct drive (same basic boat). Here's a pic of the custom seat base that we built. It held about 300 lbs (because of the size limitations vs. the sack that we used, the sack couldn't completely fill), & really did a lot for the wake. It was completely automated at the dash. For surfing we used that, the wedge, the center MLS & a 500 lb fat sack on the rear corner & it was pretty good. It got better with more people. :)

EDIT: You probably don't want to put a sack in that rear compartment because the gas tank is under there. You could warp or crush it by doing that unless you do some mods to reinforce it.

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I'm in SLX's all the time and the weight setup we use consists of a 750 lbs. behind the engine box. Two 500 Lbs. in the front (one in the ski locker) the other on top, wedge and usually 3-4 people. That produces a nice wake. If you want more just add two 500 lbs. on either side of the engine box. For surfing it'll do okay just shift all the weight to one side and we've actually found that the wedge isn't any help when the boat is at an angle..

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I bet you could do what WG did, but take it a step further and make an actual tank under that seat. You could probably get an easy 600lbs if you did that...its on my list of things to look into. If you don't mind going seatless in the back you could just stack a bunch of weight there. Garbage cans, fat sacks, lead plates, etc...

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We looked at doing a tank, but you won't get more than 3-400 lbs no matter how you do it - the space just isn't there. We decided against a tank for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that we could build the box ourselves vs. paying someone else to build the tank (= more money, longer wait time, etc.).

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Hey SF,

Welcome to the site & congrats on the boat, she's a beauty! For ballast in the rear, you can look at doing something similar to what we did in our Wakesetter direct drive (same basic boat). Here's a pic of the custom seat base that we built. It held about 300 lbs (because of the size limitations vs. the sack that we used, the sack couldn't completely fill), & really did a lot for the wake. It was completely automated at the dash. For surfing we used that, the wedge, the center MLS & a 500 lb fat sack on the rear corner & it was pretty good. It got better with more people. :)

EDIT: You probably don't want to put a sack in that rear compartment because the gas tank is under there. You could warp or crush it by doing that unless you do some mods to reinforce it.

I'm going to look at doing something like that.. It looks real clean and I want to keep that stock look as best as I can.

the other thing I forgot to mention.. When I bought the boat from the guy, he said that it leaks very little water, which he was right, it takes on a little. He said that it was leaking from where the drive shaft (if that is the correct term) goes through the hull of the boat and the "torsion" could be adjusted.. Anyone know if/what he's talking about?

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I could be totaly wrong (because I suck at math) but, if you make a box 2' wide, 6 ' long and 1' tall then it would hold 12 cubic feet of water? 1 cubic foot of water can hold 7.48 gallons and 1 gallon of water =8.1lbs. So...12 x (7.48 x 8.1) = 727lbs...

Make the box shorter, only 5' and you can still fit 605lbs. in it

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Sounds as if the packing nut needs to be tightend. This is best done in the water so you can get it adjusted properly. Basically, you loosen the locking nut and then tighten the big nut and then retighten the locking nut. It probably won't take more than a 1/4 turn. You should see 1 drip ever 6-10 seconds @ 1500 rpms. By the way, DO NOT TRY TO ADJUST THE PACKING NUT WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING!!!! Less drip will wear the packing out faster. Too much drip will just let more water in the bilge, so error on the side of not tight enough.

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If it's not leaking too bad i.e. your bilge pump is not running a more than a couple times during a day of boating, you may not need to mess with it. I suspect the old owner told you about it "taking on water" so you wouldn't panic when you saw water in your bilge the first time. Unless you go with a dripless packing, it's normal in these boats to have some water driping in around the shaft. The place where the shaft penetrates the hull should is not too hard to find on the sunsetters, so take a look and get a feel for the drip rate.

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If it's not leaking too bad i.e. your bilge pump is not running a more than a couple times during a day of boating, you may not need to mess with it. I suspect the old owner told you about it "taking on water" so you wouldn't panic when you saw water in your bilge the first time. Unless you go with a dripless packing, it's normal in these boats to have some water driping in around the shaft. The place where the shaft penetrates the hull should is not too hard to find on the sunsetters, so take a look and get a feel for the drip rate.

Welcome.gif

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I could be totaly wrong (because I suck at math) but, if you make a box 2' wide, 6 ' long and 1' tall then it would hold 12 cubic feet of water? 1 cubic foot of water can hold 7.48 gallons and 1 gallon of water =8.1lbs. So...12 x (7.48 x 8.1) = 727lbs...

Make the box shorter, only 5' and you can still fit 605lbs. in it

As I recall it couldn't be that tall or it would be really odd as far as how it lays out (I want to think that the box that we made was only like 8 inches at the front & maybe 6-7 at the back to retain the slope of the stock seat - even at that it was taller than the stock seat). Also, I'm pretty sure that our box wasn't anywhere close to that deep, maybe 14-15" at the most (you need to be able to get the engine cover up & you can't do that with the seat sitting very far forward). And with his boat he's got the flip up rear seat back, so that really limits what you can do & how big you can make it. Your math is good, but by the time you account for everything back there plus the thickness of the tank walls needing to support people sitting on it, it gets skinny in a big hurry.

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You're going to have a lot of fun with the boat. Enjoy.

Your question about the water coming in around the drive shaft has already been answered. When I first got my boat it was dripping too fast and I almost let my boat take in too much water when I inadvertently left a blower on which drained the battery which then didn't allow the bilge pump to work. (I keep the boat moored) The packing is tighter now and I don't leave the blower running. I'm learning.

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Sounds as if the packing nut needs to be tightend. This is best done in the water so you can get it adjusted properly. Basically, you loosen the locking nut and then tighten the big nut and then retighten the locking nut. It probably won't take more than a 1/4 turn. You should see 1 drip ever 6-10 seconds @ 1500 rpms. By the way, DO NOT TRY TO ADJUST THE PACKING NUT WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING!!!! Less drip will wear the packing out faster. Too much drip will just let more water in the bilge, so error on the side of not tight enough.

Well after about 3 hours there's enough water in the ski well to see it flowing back and forth as I get on and off the throttle.. Takes the bilge about 45sec to a min to get rid of.. Guess that's not too bad, but coming from I/O's it caught me by surprise even after he told me.

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My '02 Sunsetter has a screw in plug between the bilge and ski locker. Bilge water in your ski locker will slime up whatever you keep in there. See if you can find and secure the plug, and if it's missing, see if you can get one from your local Malibu dealer. It'll keep your skis a great deal cleaner...

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I just posted on your wakesurfing thread over on WW then I realized that you are a member over here :Doh: Anyways, I posted a picture and some info on what we run.

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Sounds as if the packing nut needs to be tightend. This is best done in the water so you can get it adjusted properly. Basically, you loosen the locking nut and then tighten the big nut and then retighten the locking nut. It probably won't take more than a 1/4 turn. You should see 1 drip ever 6-10 seconds @ 1500 rpms. By the way, DO NOT TRY TO ADJUST THE PACKING NUT WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING!!!! Less drip will wear the packing out faster. Too much drip will just let more water in the bilge, so error on the side of not tight enough.

Well after about 3 hours there's enough water in the ski well to see it flowing back and forth as I get on and off the throttle.. Takes the bilge about 45sec to a min to get rid of.. Guess that's not too bad, but coming from I/O's it caught me by surprise even after he told me.

Sounds like a bit too much. Mine was that way when I first got it then after I tightened to nut it almost never needs to pump out even once during a 2 hour watrer event.

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Well after about 3 hours there's enough water in the ski well to see it flowing back and forth as I get on and off the throttle.. Takes the bilge about 45sec to a min to get rid of.. Guess that's not too bad, but coming from I/O's it caught me by surprise even after he told me.

Thats nuthin to worry about.

You'll drag in more water than that with one li'l chili dip once you get a bunch of ballast onboard.

Not to mention the wet bodies bringin in water.

Another great thing about real skimpy bikinis - they don't hold much water to bring into the boat ;)

But just ignore it and consider it ballast - the bilge pump will take care of any excess.

Enjoy your boat!

And come to the WOW in June and I'll show ya what alotta water in a boat really is!

Edited by Brad B
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Welcome to the site, your next boat will be the VLX... Just kidding! Enjoy malibucrew.com, I know it has helped a lot of us damage our marriage by spending more time on here than quality time with our spouses...

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Welcome to the site, your next boat will be the VLX... Just kidding! Enjoy malibucrew.com, I know it has helped a lot of us damage our marriage by spending more time on here than quality time with our spouses...

I am in trouble all the time for that and I havn't been here for long.

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welcome to the site i am pretty new here to my wife tells me the same thing your on that site all the time and we dont even have our new boat yet i tell here this is my fix since we cant go outside and look at our new boat this will have to do fo now any way welcome it is great site,,,,,,,,

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