New Transom Saver!!!!

I was at the boat show last night in the Minneapolis Convention Center at Frankie’s Marine booth and I discovered for the time a new transom saver motor support invented by Mark Raveling. This very handy little light weight 8-3/4″ long rubber (EPDM) support eliminates the hassle of dealing with the big clunky, greasy, mechanical transom savers that are out on the market today. It fits over the tilt/trim piston on your outboard and withstands all the load your motor ever sees when on the trailer taking all of the everyday’s roads elements and abuse.
Mark has alot of time invested in this product with testing and R&D development and has proven to be flawless in any conditions a motor can deliver when trailered.
Currently this product fits most all larger 3 ram tilt/trim system outboard engines right now. According to his brochure it fits the following;

Yamaha- 135hp-250hp
Mercury- 135hp-250hp
Honda- 75hp-225hp
Evinrude/Johnson- 88special-250hp/ Johnson 4 stroke-60-140hp
SuZuki 4 strokes- DF60hp-DF140hp

Soon in 2003, mywedge will be availible for smaller outboards with single arm power tilt systems.

for more info, see http://www.m-ywedge.com

Attached is a pic from the show last night with this product in use!

I know a couple Pro Staffers at Frankies that were using these last year. They seem pretty neat, but I guess I don’t understand how they can keep the motor from bouncing or relieving stress to the transon.

Mike,

From my understanding, you still pre-load the motor like you would with a standard transom unit. The preload on the trim cylinder to the wedge prevents the motor from any movement forward. The mechanics of the trim cyliner keeps the motor from moving backwards and therefore prevents any momentum (lever) that the motor can deliver which naturally is transmitted into and through the transom of the boat. Basically, its the movement of the big motor thats the biggest problem to the transoms on the boats. I guess, come to think of it, If you could keep the big mtor stable in any fashion, it would take the load off the transom.

I was a little optimistic as well, but it sure looks fool proof and effective. One of my concerns with the product was, what happens to the rubber composite when loaded for a period of time? Does this wear the compression factor of the material down to be less effective overtime? He mentioned that he has tried this and every time he pulls the support out of the motor, the piece returns to original shape with no damage.
These are just a couple of my intitial thoughts on this product.

I just ordered one Dee for my 115 Yammy/ 1750 Crestliner set up. I hope it works as easy as it looks!
Thanks for the “heads up”!

I got a voice mail from Mark Raveling (creator of m-ywedge) and evidently he had some trouble replying to the questions and concerns here. He proceeded to type me an email to see if I could post his thoughts on every one’s questions.

He writes,
“Hi Steve
i looked at the comments on the m-ywedge product.
here are a few thought
trailer shock is common when you use a transom bar for
support, this is when the boat leaves the trailer on
bumps, the main people that make the transom bar
actually talk about this when they introduced a new
product last year for the mercury v6 motors they said
that trailer shock was not good and there new product
would get rid of that problem. Ranger boats did give
me the go ahead on bring m-ywedge with there name, and
it would be offered as a option and in there catalog.
there engineers have sign off on m-ywedge, other boat
companies that are looking at it are triton,lund
crestliner and honda marine is looking at it to be
shipped with there motors. As for stress on the
transom the old omc motors all use the flip catch on
there motors and they don’t have problems with
trailering, all the boat company’s said that there is
way more stress on the transom when your going down
the lake at 50 mph than you would ever have trailering
hope you can post this on the web site i couldn’t
reply for some reason
thanks”
mark raveling

Hope this helps everyone!

Thanks for the info Mark…. Sounds like you have this situation covered nicely with a great product… I hope to get your m-ywedge into the EFN Outlet Store someday soon, and will be contacting you about that.
DeeZee thanks much for the product information and the heads-up.
Dave Hoggard
EFN Pro-Staff Director