Shooting from the hip it makes me think the electric oil pump is trying to build pressure to the oiling system.
Have it checked to see if its losing prime or failing for whatever reason.

Both of us voted today, went in after lunch and didn’t have to wait at all.

Nuttin wrong with good old cable steering!!
You can buy a complete setup for less than 400,easy enough to do,time and patience wins the day.

Awesome news Rick!!
My adrenal glands were basically destroyed thanks to insecticides years ago when I took a job as an apllicator for ag chemicals,long story there.
Anyway,with no adrenal gland function I was very run down and my immune system tanked.
Fast forward 3 years and a holistic medical Dr put me on bovine adrenal capsules which I have to take daily to function somewhat normally.

If you find yourself getting sick easier than before or find yourself lacking any energy,find some adrenal booster suppliments that have bovine adrenal or bovine colostrom in it.
I buy mine at a local chiropractors office.

So glad you are on the mend!!

I had to reply to this, as long as its Dometic/SeaStar you will be good.
Not at all familiar with the other brands or their quality, PLEASE just think about what you are hooking it to, a 150 Opti is a lot of motor to be worrying about if the cheap stuff is going to hold,,,,,or not.

RIP Fergie, such a good girl! I will miss seeing her when we stop by on our way north.

Rod, this pic is in approx. twenty feet of water using down scan, all of those little blips are crappie, they were at many different depths as you can see, I spent an hour having a blast and I guarantee you I didnt catch everyone of them.

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Karry, I agree with you in that you should familiarize yourself with all of the features, while you are busy pushing buttons I’m busy setting the hook lol.

Grouse, I agree with you on Jeff’s business name!
No, fly by wire is about 3500 more to upgrade to, sure, its the modern thing but so many boats out there are older and the owners are trying to save money as it is, I stuck with the cable route to show them what can be done with what they have.
Bearcat, where the glass is broke is ahead of the transom area by about a foot, I will put up another pic of it.
As fresh as that area looks I am betting the owner panicked limping a dying motor back to the dock and didnt notice it with his mind on other things, or it could be it was something on the road caught it, who knows, I am just happy that it will be an easy fix, expensive, but easy….

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3 times??

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Can I get lucky twice?

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One more time

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Unless eight attempts show up I will repost tomorrow with my farewell message for the last time, and try to post the other pics.

waiting after six attempts

Dang pics are not loading but I bet the double up!

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Grouse, I have to agree with you!!

Okay folks, I have a doozy coming in,,,,for the third time and the sad part is the gentleman lives four hours away.
I have never seen anything like it before and I cant wait to get my hands on it as it is from what I gather, a quality control issue where a human factor is involved and that human no longer works there.
I will call this man Ken, and Ken has been more than understanding about it.
I even got the company to compensate me for his fuel costs to and from my shop twice!! including my labor!!
I really want to go fishing with him and his wife, sounds like she is a fishing machine!!!

Stay tuned folks, this could be one for the books!!
Once this is resolved and it will be I promise you I will give a huge shout out to the company who I have stood with and they have stood behind me for many years.

So I called this young man at 630 AM here Friday morning, 730 where he lives, and we had quite the discussion and I believe we figured out the issue.
Problem is I havent heard back if it fixed it or not, I sent two pms and still nodda.
Oh well,, as long as he is on the water and keeping his mom happy I am happy.

Rod, one thing I found helpful is to make sure when in water less than 24 feet, hit the check mark key to change the transducer ping rate to its slowest rate, you will see this in the left lower corner of your screen, you will see more detail when using side or down imaging in shallow water,, think being zoomed way in with the higher rate and not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Once you think you have it so screwed up nothing makes sense, go to your settings page and hit restore factory defaults.

Now to your question on maps, the detail is something else for sure, with ever changing water levels lately I use them for reference only and being lazy I dont go to settings and change the offset to compensate, I calculate that in my head, I mean its pretty simple to deduct 2 from 4 in my mind and as I said for me its a guideline, I would much rather look at my side imaging and sonar to tell me whats there,,,,or not lol.
Enjoy and embrace what you have!! it beats the crap out of my old paper graph of yesteryear!!

Good deal Sharon!! When I read this I thought of my Gracie when she had five fatty lumps removed, I was told she didnt have long and the Dr said, I cut him off there, I didnt want to know as she was on borrowed time anyway.
I had to reread the poem I wrote for her tonight, this many years later and I still get a lump in my throat.
Give both boys a hug and scratch behind the ears for us!!
I meant both dogs……LOL

I had this happen eight years ago with their rattle traps, chrome coming off and balsa break out in the rear with some of their other lures.
I called them while I was on the water and they stated it was likely from banging lures on the boat or improper usage, WTF!!
I was told to send them in anyway and after examination they would replace them if it was determined it was their fault.
I made it easy for them, I told them with that mindset I would never buy another one of their lures again and hung up.
They havent been the same since they were bought out years ago.

Sooo much can be wrong here,and I need a lot more info,so,PM me your phone number and I will call you tomorrow from work.

I would bet that the steering cylinders piston rings are shot and its bypassing internally.
The helm pump is a gear set type and generally doesnt give issues.

Andy,by the time you see flex its dang late in the game and the transom skin will be stretched.
You can see that now with the rippling.
Motor hours have zero to do with what shape a transom is in.
Not knocking your thoughts,just trying to help you understand whats going on.
And yes,lund has had crap transom wood for years now.

Travis,if Lund wont do anything for you reach out to Scenic,my starcraft is at his place now getting a full makeover.
New paint,floor,foam,vinyl,carpet,and a pour in transom.
When I get it back Im hanging a new Suzuki 115 with all the trimmings on it.
I am not sure how far from Bemidji you are but Im 500 if that says anything about his work.

Tom, thank you for the kind words, interestingly enough in over forty five years of being a mechanic and being in the corn belt of America, I have found those who have a vested interest in farming in any way shape or form have a way of saying they never have any problems, number one reason?? it affects their wallet and they will go to the ends of the earth to protect it.
I work for farmers everyday at my shop, and here they have zero problem running non oxy in all of their small engines and equipment as they have had personal experiences running the Ecrap and down time is expensive when you need to get going.
I have even worked for folks who are so in denial that Ecrap is the problem that will make up every excuse in the book as to why stuff wont run even when I have a failed part in my hand showing it to them.
Enough of this, I can argue and argue with over a hundred thousand hours of experience and I will never get anywhere.

Grouse, you bet engines are sensitive to fuel, problem is most dont understand how an engine knows the difference, in todays modern engines the computer has an algorithm that uses the inputs from several sensors to determine this, the O2 sensor uses exhaust temperatures to tell the ECU whether the exhaust temps are rich or lean and it adjusts fuel ratios on the fly to correct whatever condition.
From there other sensors work with the O2 sensor to determine over the course of a tank of fuel used what fuel is in the tank, this is where short term and long term fuel trims come into play.
The algorithm isnt perfect as we still see several times per year where a car is running in a very rich condition, most often the owners have put in a tank of 85 percent ethanol and the computer gets stuck so to speak when E10 is put in the next tank and the computer hasnt had a chance to “relearn” the correct ratio and we have to reset it.

As far as octane, 91 ignites slower, it is done so to help prevent preignition, spark knock, detonation, too much timing, high compression etc.
Turbocharged engines are prone to this as are high output engines, remember the 6.0, 8.1, and many others that required it?
The issue with high octane as noted in John’s original question with the Optimax motors is that is a short stroke motor, how does that make a difference??

Simply put, with any short stroke motor, 91 octane is still burning at the bottom of the pistons stroke and especially on two strokes it will pollute the incoming air/fuel mix and it will soot the plugs in short order.
Using 87 octane, the the air/fuel charge is fairly well consumed and will not pollute the incoming air/fuel charge, there is bit of science to this as bore diameter, combustion chamber design, compression all have an effect.

The Optimax motor was designed to run on lower octane fuel as it took the length of the stroke into account, and IF YOU READ THE MANUAL WITH UNDERSTANDING it says,, a minimum of 87 octane is to be used, read that again, a minimum of 87 octane, 87 octane is not mandatory.
Now, back to Ecrap fuel with any outboard, whiny investors who thought they were not making enough money threw their weight around to force every modern motor to be able to use it, with the advent of better materials and tuning it is now possible, years ago the big three outboard manufactures ran engines to destruction to find out if they would live choking and gagging on corn gas.
They failed miserably, not because the parts were junk, if you read the reports the fuel performed almost identical between ecrap and non oxy, so why did they fail??

The exhaust temps were 300 degrees higher than non oxy fuel, this happened because oxygenated fuels have higher oxygen contents by their nature versus non oxy fuels.
Those high exhaust temps caused pistons to grow in size decreasing cylinder wall clearances which leads to scuffing, worse yet the higher temps cooked the oil to a point it no longer could lubricate anything, and when you get these things going on the piston gets above its melting point and you end up with a burnt piston and trashed motor, and remember, ecrap is a solvent and it will not blend with oil, instead it washes it off of moving parts.
The HPDI motors, do many of you realize that the engineers saw the issue with ecrap being a solvent?? yep, that is why oil is injected from the crankshaft side of the air chamber so that it does not have a chance to wash critical life giving oil off of the crankshaft, its bearings, the rod bearings, piston skirts, and cylinder walls.
On the intake stroke that oil is pulled through with the air and burnt when the fuel charge is burnt, no chance of losing lubrication before hand.
So better materials were engineered, better oils came to be through all of this which is a good thing as it does help a motor last longer in the hands of those who are too cheap to run good fuel and oil and throw in whatever abuse you can come up with.

My final thoughts on ecrap, yes, if you use it fresh everyday you can get away with it, but if you let it set you will have problems down the road, its too bad we have to buy another product to extend its life, think about that, more expense per gallon.
More acres that should not be farmed, more chemicals applied, fuel used to plant, spray, consume energy to create all of this stuff, more fuel used to harvest it, more fuel used to haul it to the ecrap plants, more fuel used to haul it away in trucks or via rail.
YEP, ecrap is wonderful stuff, its costs are so high in so many ways but its making folks rich…… and we pay for all of it.
And to top it off,,,, we pay to use something that is less efficient per gallon in the name of the environment, think about that we use more per tank,, wouldnt it be less pollutive to use less per tank??
Safer for the environment?? not if you add up everything I mentioned.

I would almost bet it didnt have a drop of gas in it to begin with.
The last 10 years the carbs on those things are junk,I have every tool Stihl made for their own diagnostics.
They are the reason I have owned Echo’s since 1977.

Corn producing states have millions of corn cobs.
I bet only the elders here remember those days!

The state where hold my beer and watch this sh!t originated.

Custom cutlery in Marengo Iowa makes those knives,if you send yours to them with return postage they will sharpen them free of charge.

Scratcher,not trying to sound like an ass but those are still a thing??
I dont have any or want any,to each their own.
My stepdaughter is covered with them,I kid her that in 10 more years shes going to look like a big box of crayons that was exposed to high heat for too long.