Well heres one for you: I was winterizing my Speedster 150 (supercharged) a couple of months ago, and as I looked under the boat noticed one of the bolts on the intake grate seemed to be sticking out a bit. I looked closer and found what you see in the picture here. The rear quarter of the grate had completely snapped off the boat. The brass threading of the far bolt had pulled out of the hull a bit as you can see (the brass threading on the opposite bolt doesnt stick out at all), but other than that, all bolts are fine. I do see a small circular piece of metal still attached under the center bolt, which is all thats left of the rear plate. One of the grates had bent and cracked a few years ago when I sucked up a tow rope, but seemed pretty stable with the other one still sturdy, but something this year caused the whole rear portion of the grate to break off and disappear. What caused it, and how it did that without ripping out the rear bolts Ill never know. So, now I have a few options: - keep using it as it is, as it is still pretty stable, and still does protect the intake to some extent from sucking in large objects, but it could break again and suck the grate bars into the intake. - remove the grate completely (or cut off the bars close to the front), and run without, which I know some people do, but I know this isnt the recommended way of going. - replace the grate with a new one. My local shop estimates the job and parts at $500-$600, mainly due to the labor of working with that front bolt thats under the supercharger, and takes a few hours of work. - utilizing the pieces that are there now, and attach a small steel plate under the rear bolts, then find someone to weld it to the two existing grate bars to stabilize them. I thought Id put it out to this group to find out what people think? Thanks in advance for your help.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 22:58:47 +0000