im guessing at this but i would say it lifts the motor as far up as possible to just barly keep it in the water?

If Hal wanted to guess at the answer. I'm confident that he is imaginative enough to conger up one of his own.

If you don't know the answer to a question. Guessing at one is not a good practice to follow here.

Guess what will happen if you continue.

A lift is a mechanism by which you push a lever down and raise your outboard vertically. They were commercially made as "jackass lifts" for larger boats (I've see a 90HP on them), big heavy outfits that extend the transom and have lots of big springs and cables and such waiting to decapitate you.

My canoe lift consists of a couple pivots, a pair of long 1" square tubing arms, and a simple scissor mechanism. Weighs next to nothing, simple, tough, and works fine for a 9.9 or 15HP motor.

The trick is in being able to continuously adjust the motor. You can run just ticking along bottom in incredibly shallow water, as long as a "tick" every now and then is deep enough to pick up a little water for cooling, and you can keep the prop intact.

Coincidentally, given appropriately sized rocks, this is where, after it happens 3 or 4 times, and assuming that you are still alive, you will unbolt your "Mac's River runner" so you can spend less time digging rocks out from betwixt it and your prop, and more time not frantically paddling, ducking sweepers, cussing, wrench-diving, and pouring water out of your waders.

If, for some strange reason, the sun once again decides to rise here today, and if it warms up a bit (see "northern trappers" post - that -40 cutoff applies to wandering around my yard too, and it ain't that warm yet!), I'll wander out and see if I can locate my canoe under the snow, chip enough frozen dog piss off to break her free and roll her over, and take a picture or two. No promises.

Color me enlightened.

Hal

sorry RIC didnt know guessing at something was such a BIG DEAL

(Edit: Please don't type in capital letters, it makes in appear as if you are SHOUTING AT PEOPLE. If per chance you are shouting a Ric, well, please don't. He is subject to become angry. He was in fact correct. I don't need folks to make guesses for me, I do have a vivid imagination. It is our policy here to only make guesses when it is necessary and appropriate. I guess you understand. Thanks. -- Hal)

It's still 40 below (Centigrade) here, but I made an exception and took some bad photos with my phone. Let me know if this is overly confusing and I'll try to fill in any blanks.

First, the whole setup. The arms pivot at the front, and are long enough to not noticeably change thrustline. The hook at the front of the lift is to latch the motor up with the extension arm, which fits into the lever on the starboard side at the foremost crossbar of the lift. The attach is a stub of pipe, and the extension is a rod which slides inside this pipe, now sandwiched in a nice spruce limb by way of hose clamps. Everything it tied in the "motor fully down" position in these images.



The front pivot point and aforementioned latch, see from the inside of the canoe just above the gunnels. I would recommend something more elegant for the pivot - perhaps a tie rod from a small car - as the simple pin and clevis rattles and shakes and bangs, but does work.



A closeup of the working parts. There are 4 pivot points in the system:

1) The bars at the front, shown in an earlier picture.

2) The forward crossbar, attached to the boat on pivot points. This has a pair of rearward-facing bars welded solid, which engage (3), and are not visible in the first photo.

3) The aft lower crossbar, somewhat visible in the second photo below. This is a free-floating, and connects (2) and (4).

4) The aft upper crossbar, which connects to the lift and to (3) via welded pipes.

Depressing the lever (clearly visible in the bottom left corner of the first photo below) rotates (2), raising (3) and therefore (4) by way of straightening the connection between (2)-->(3)-->(4).






The motor attach plate, seen below from the stern, extends below the original transom of the boat as to exert thrust where it was originally intended to be when the motor is fully lowered, which it is for most operations where very much thrust is used. Up is to the right of this photo. A wood backer gets everything to 2" or so thick under the motor clamps.



A tiller extension is used (hunk of wood maybe 3 feet long, which gets hose clamped to the tiller), and I sit on a small Action Packer somewhere in the vicinity of where the arms pivot. In shallow water, I almost always stand - it's just more comfortable that way.

my buddy has a 25 horse go devil that is unstoppable. we are pretty hard on stuff fishing and hunting in the creeks and rivers around home. the one he has is a long shaft so i have no dealing with the surface drive motors and all i know about them is that they are more expensive and from what i know about the long tails it wouldn't be worth the money to me JMO

best of luck with your trapping

Dated for search.