Weedless prop?

O'Dubhain82 · Post by **O'Dubhain82** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:21 pm

Anyone have any experience with a weedless prop
on a 40+ ? The river I have my boat on is incredibly
weed choked. It's also got some fairly fast flowing
sections so its very difficult to row upstream.
I tried using my engine with standard prop and it
seems to search out weed to wrap around itself.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Post by **RickUK** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:44 pm

I've used a 'weedless' prop on Seagulls including the three blade type on 102's, and frankly they don't make much (any) difference!
Weed is mostly attracted by the prop spring and split pin to twirl round, and/or drapes itself around the gearbox and blocks the water intake - depending on the variety of weed.

No better news I'm afraid - Rick

O'Dubhain82 · Post by **O'Dubhain82** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:16 am

Thanks Rick. I might investigate putting on a "modern" prop.

albert · Post by **albert** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 7:06 pm

O'Dubhain82 wrote:Thanks Rick. I might investigate putting on a "modern" prop.

I think a modern one will not help you much. It is the spring and the shape of the tail which causes most of the troubles.
Where I use my gulls there is a lot of weed sometimes, too. What helps a bit is: (polish the prop and) make the edges sharp with a file or the like, but do not change the shape. I run my 40s and Centuries and 102s untill the tell tale stops, then lower the revs and tilt the engine clear of the water a short moment. Be carefull not to race it, then after a second, back into the water, open throttle and there you go again. With a Villiers carb it works pretty good. With the Amal 2 jet you have to take care of the place of the float chamber. It has to be on the side farrest from the fuel tank. Otherwise, when you tilt it, your engine runs too rich and stops running due to overflooding the jets. When the chamber is on the right side, the engine will not get enough fuel and starts sputtering after a short while, so you have to be quick, but it is better than overflooding(yes, it took me some time to try out all this)

Best anyway is to run them in clean water....

Albert

CatiGull · Post by **CatiGull** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:39 am

Ive finally learned how to avoid the weeds on Cuttyhunk Harbor in MASS in the US. I have also cleared the prop by tilting up under low revs - one warning, if you reach around the motor too far you hit the spark plug and get quite a good shock..

Tipping up by grabbing the fuel cap on my Forty Fthwt seems to work well