Long shaft outboard on short transom?

[freebledsoe]

Hey folks, I'm wondering if anyone has a solution for me. I picked up a small outboard motor because it was a very nice deal, but it happens to be a long shaft. Is there any decent way to alter the transom of a small aluminum boat to allow me to use the long shaft motor on this boat that has a short transom?

[Tom7227]

I have the same setup and didn't do anything. You just have to be aware of the fact that there are places you won't be able to go. I would suspect that finding a lower unit would end up costing a lot and pretty much defeat your 'good deal'.

[delcecchi]

How small an outboard? You could always build up the transom a few inches with some marine plywood, if using it straight doesn't work out.

[leechlake]

I think Tom's right on. For years we did the short shaft motor to run a shallow creek to a separate lake that is up river from our cabin. Except for that reason I couldn't imagine you can't just run it "as is". If I recall the difference is only 5 inches, 15" to 20"

[highlife4me]

You could leave it as is, or you could even put a jack plate on your transom. Then you could adjust to what ever works best for you.

[freebledsoe]

It's just a 6 hp, so it's not going to be burning around the lake or anything I did some "googling" and saw people saying you shouldn't have the cavitation plate below the bottom of the hull so that's what worried me. But I think you guys may be right, I use this boat on smaller lakes and I like to do some trolling. I had a 10 horse that went kaput and that didn't even put this old (1962) heavy aluminum boat on plane. (It's 12')

Thank you for your responses, I'm going to try it out the way it is and see how it goes. I'll just be cautious in very shallow spots.

[delcecchi]

Heck, a 6 horse you could just bolt (or clamp) a 2 by 6 across the transom to bridge the cut out.

Think of it as a $5 redneck jackplate.

[RebelSS]

On that little guy, two 1x2's stacked on top of your transom to motor width will solve that.