Surface drive bug has re surfaced

Five years ago I was all fired up to make a surface drive unit. I went as far as going back and forth on this forum and emailing Tom Kane, bothering him on a few occasions. I took my ideas to a fab shop that I use for work. They were all excited to get going. I went by daily and no progress. I told them I'd pay daily, weekly, whatever to get it built and not owe them a bunch at the end. One day I stayed all day to try and force the issue, which had some success.

But the same thing happend as with work stuff. It never got done. Last week I needed some machine work done and decided to try them again. My drive system is still sitting on the top shelf, not touched. I looked it up. 5 years last month. It's sad, I went back today to get my machined parts and surprise! They weren't done yet. Some things never change.

On the bright side, I have the SD bug again and fired up for it. Plus, I learned how to weld my own aluminum out of frustration with them. I will start another thread for my new build idea.

Chris

 

You have paid how much, to receive what, so far ? Does not sound like a business I would be dealing with for 5 weeks, let alone 5 years.

 

I hadn't paid anything so far. They never knew who or when it had been worked on. On Monday my parts for work weren't done yet. Yesterday he said he'd have a guy on them at lunch. Still no parts today. I won't be doing any business with them after this. I will start from scratch on new drive.

 

Well, I'm sure this will produce naysayers and since it will cover marinizing and surface drives and hybrids, I will just leave this thread going.

I have been building my boat for awhile now. Trying to get our new house built has slowed boat time to zero. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of electric vehicles and shows. Next door neighbors
bought a new electric Ford etc.. I saw a car show that had an electric motor in a Mustang. Everyone was making fun of it. Until it nearly burned the tires off the rims and went 200 mph. That got me thinking about a nice quiet boat for fishing that could still get up and go when needed.

Twin 100ish hp electrics would be nice, but finding a quiet generator isn't easy. Then I read about hybrids using a Toyota Prius drive setup.. I don't really have room for twin Prius and 1 is only 121 hp by itself.. But this got me thinking hybrid instead of a monster bank of batteries. After several days of reading and youtube I went to the wrecking yard. So far, it seems like pay dirt. A hybrid system from a Toyota Highlander. Doesn't take up much more space than a Prius drive, but heavier duty SUV and rated at 286-305 horsepower depending on year.

Then couple that to a pivotal surface drive and presto. Toyota Synergy drive seems very well suited for this. Plenty of horsepower, small fuel cell and small battery box. Rebuilt battery banks are pretty inexpensive now too.

Okay, Tom Kane and the rest, let's get into this project.

Thanks, Chris

 

I have a friend like you. He has all these people who he considers friends that he hires to do this and that. Every one of them is unreliable. The building is likely to be closed and locked up when you go by, despite he was told that it would be ready then.

From that, I have learned that the most important thing in anyone you hire to do anything is reliability. If the work is not going to be done on time, it does not matter if they do the best job in town, when they bother to do the job. Strangely, there are a lot of those kinds of people around.

 

Like all good ideas there are always room for improvement,it pays to keep up to date.

 

youtube.com/watch?=4WLMHYNscbs




ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QUrrWQdnDY

 

Parts of an early steerable experiment retractable shaft drive.