And now a question about transom savers

Matt B

Matt B

RAMONES
Forum Supporter
I was going to get a transom saver, but now I’m not so sure.
When my motor is in the fully tilted up position, most of the weight is actually centered over the transom, pushing straight down on it.
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There’s no way to use a transom saver in this position or anywhere close to it. When the motor is tilted in the position that is most up, but still allows the clearance to meet the trailer cross-member, it’s a pretty oblique angle. I’m not sure how much benefit I will get from it. Some load will be transferred to the trailer, but that cross member is so far forward, the geometry may not make sense. Maybe it does. I don’t know. What do you think?

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It's still a fair bit of stress on the transom when you go over bumps. Another reason is if your tilt hydraulics ever failed, it'd save your motor from slamming down.

On my Honda 225, I use an M - Y Wedge to support it. My smaller boat with a merc 40 has a metal transom saver that attaches to the trailer... Sorta. But I can't figure out how to keep it from sliding side to side.
 
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Evan B said:
It's still a fair bit of stress on the transom when you go over bumps. Another reason is if your tilt hydraulics ever failed, it'd save your motor from slamming down.

I'm my Honda 225, I use an M - Y Wedge to support it. My smaller boat with a merc 40 has a metal transom saver that attaches to the trailer... Sorta. But I can't figure out how to keep it from sliding side to side.
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The tilt is manual/mechanical, but still, point taken. It could fail.
 
Evan B said:
I have a similar one and can't for the life of me figure out how to get it to stay in place on the trailer side.
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Does it come loose during trailering? That sounds bad. What happens then?
Is that uncushioned U-part just supposed to rest on the trailer and is held on by the weight of the motor? I could see that it could come loose on a bounce that way.
 
Billy said:
View attachment 67844
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Billy, thanks for the pic. I don't have a roller on that part, just a "skid plate" and the whole thing is pretty wide. Not sure that roller fitting will work. Maybe I'm supposed to use something like this:
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It comes with a bungie strap if you are worried but if you anchor it properly it shouldn't come undone. I drove my boat to Sprague yesterday and the road off the highway was annoyingly bumpy. Didn't move at all.
 
Matt B said:
Does it come loose during trailering? That sounds bad. What happens then?
Is that uncushioned U-part just supposed to rest on the trailer and is held on by the weight of the motor? I could see that it could come loose on a bounce that way.
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I think I just need to mod my trailer a bit to make it work. there's nowhere really for it to hold.
 
use them on all my bolts.
On two trailer frames, I mounted a bolt at low center facing out (not a danger to the bow when retrieving boat), removed the end on the Y yoke, just slid the open tubing onto the bolt when in use.
 
SurfnFish said:
use them on all my bolts.
On two trailer frames, I mounted a bolt at low center facing out (not a danger to the bow when retrieving boat), removed the end on the Y yoke, just slid the open tubing onto the bolt when in use.
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Pretty sure I know what you mean but a picture is worth a thousand words, if you can. A couple pictures? Might be worth oodles, who knows. :)
 
Matt B said:
Pretty sure I know what you mean but a picture is worth a thousand words, if you can. A couple pictures? Might be worth oodles, who knows. :)
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those boats/trailers passed on, will look for pics in the cloud.
Drilled a hole dead center of lower frame member, inserted a 5/16" bolt with 1 1/2" of bolt stick past the nut...in use, end of yoke tube slid over the bolt/nut and compressed against the frame by weight of the motor, the bolt acting as a keeper to keep the tube from shifting.
 
I had one for years that just had the bumper style and it worked as long as I bungeed it, but I lost it. I bought a new one that was beefier and also bumper style and it came off twice!! Luckily, no transom or motor damage. It did rob me of about an hour of fishing time. And, I had to lug the 25 Merc into and out of the boat.
So then I made sure I bought one that also had the keeper pin thingy. It hasn't come close to failing. I'll never have one that isn't connected to the trailer.

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skyriver said:
I had one for years that just had the bumper style and it worked as long as I bungeed it, but I lost it. I bought a new one that was beefier and also bumper style and it came off twice!! Luckily, no transom or motor damage. It did rob me of about an hour of fishing time. And, I had to lug the 25 Merc into and out of the boat.
So then I made sure I bought one that also had the keeper pin thingy. It hasn't come close to failing. I'll never have one that isn't connected to the trailer.

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Thank you. So do you just remove the semicircular bumper style bracket thingy, install the boxy keeper pin bracket thingy (onto your trailer cross member as described by @SurfnFish?), and away you go?
 
Yep, Just have to drill 1 hole and you should be good. I actually had a hole already there so no drilling needed. Just bolted on.
The routine at the launch is to take the bungee off the motor end, and then take the pin out at the boat end. Put pin back in saver and put saver and bungee in the truck.
At takeout, put the saver back on the boat, make sure pin is good, pull up the saver with my right foot as I lift the motor. Put bungee back on motor end and have no worries.

Good luck!
 
Do people use transom savers on small manual tilt motors?

Kinda seems not necessary.
 
Matt B said:
Thank you. So do you just remove the semicircular bumper style bracket thingy, install the boxy keeper pin bracket thingy (onto your trailer cross member as described by @SurfnFish?), and away you go?
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I removed the frame end so just the open tube slid on the bolt, not wanting to have to bend under a dripping wet boat every time I retrieved it. Size of bolt depends on angle..steeper angle, larger, shorter bolt.IMG_20230605_152954928.jpg
 
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skyriver said:
Yep, Just have to drill 1 hole and you should be good. I actually had a hole already there so no drilling needed. Just bolted on.
The routine at the launch is to take the bungee off the motor end, and then take the pin out at the boat end. Put pin back in saver and put saver and bungee in the truck.
At takeout, put the saver back on the boat, make sure pin is good, pull up the saver with my right foot as I lift the motor. Put bungee back on motor end and have no worries.

Good luck!
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To do this, I am going to have to install it a little bit off center, because the trailer frame is all boxed in, and there is a longitudinal piece that runs the entire length of the trailer that terminates in a T at the center of the cross member I need to drill into. So I don't have access there. It'll have to be a few inches to one side or the other. I don't love that, but it'll probably be fine.
Josh said:
Do people use transom savers on small manual tilt motors?

Kinda seems not necessary.
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I don't know. My motor is the max rated for my boat, is pretty heavy, and my boat's transom is solid enough but that is a LOT of force pulling back on the transom if you go over a serious bump. And my trailer has pretty stiff springs and a light boat. It bounces.
 
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