Shallow Water Drive

My family has a 7.5 Evinrude that I used for years and it had a feature on it for running in shallow water, essentially a higher trim setting than you can accomplish with the pin holes on the outboard. Here's a pic of it, it's a weird angle, but you can get the idea at least.

7.5 by Photo 144, on Flickr

I loved this feature, and on my current boat (details in signature) I have an evinrude 40 hp without power trim and I miss this setting when cruising slowly in shallow water where there may be hazards. Basically I am stuck using my trolling motor and tilting up the outboard all the way. I have been trying to figure out how to make something that would accomplish this for a while.

Today I was cruising craigslist and I saw this outboard for sale that had a white bar on it just for this purpose. This is a painfully simple solution to my problem and I can't believe I didn't think of this on my own.

Shallow water drive by Photo 144, on Flickr

I would build this tonight, but I don't have a torch, or a source off hand for round stock that size. Ideally it would be stainless, but I don't know if it would be "springy enough to allow me to get it installed in the trim holes, and I don't know how hard it would be to bend stainless that size.

Does anyone know of a source for these if they are made somewhere? I've extensively googled it by using all the potential names I could think of and came up with nothing.

If not, would anyone here that has the proper equipment be interested in custom building one for me? I'd pay good money for a job well done. I'm sure there are a lot of folks on here that would find something like this useful and you may be able to get more orders. I'd be glad to show it in use.

You should be able to bend something like that pretty easily with a bench vise and a hammer. It's not too complicated and you should be able to use basic round steel stock. Another solution would be to use galvanized pipe or something similar. Then you could use fittings and buy pipe nipples at the right length. 3/8 pipe might work, if not 1/4 should do it. As long as you aren't planning on running the motor at any significant throttle setting, strength shouldn't be an issue.

I wouldn't worry about stainless, many of the trim adjustment rods are basic carbon steel. I've had to cut a number of them out because they were rusted in place. As long as you move it occasionally, you shouldn't have any issues.

Good luck!

I run across them from time to time. They were popular in the 50's and 60's.

Pappy said:

I run across them from time to time. They were popular in the 50's and 60's.

Click to expand...

So was my boat, so this will also be period correct lol.

I'll give it a shot. This just seems like something that should be out there in the marketplace, so simple and useful. Assuming that it works as well as the OEM contraption on the 7.5. It might be even better if you can use reverse while it's deployed, that doesn't work too well on the small motor.

There is another discussion from an older, recently revived thread about this subject here:

https://forum.tinboats.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=35560

Fordman said:

There is another discussion from an older, recently revived thread about this subject here:

https://forum.tinboats.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=35560

Click to expand...

Fordman for the win!!!

Thank you! I scored one on Ebay for $8, free shipping.

Anyone looking for one, search for 'Half Tilt Lock'.

There were a ton of them, but I would have never guessed to search for that name.

I'm glad I procrastinated trying to fumble around and make my own.