Hobie Pro Angler 14 | 2.5hp Outboard Mod | Motor Kayak

hey everybody welcome back to the channel so today I'm gonna be going over uh this new build I'm doing on this kayak I sold my previous screen kayak uh the Old Town I've always wanted a Hobie um and finally found a good deal so I sold my old town and uh yeah got the pro angler 14 so it's two feet longer than the previous one I'll be doing a very similar build today um adding the uh the bracket in the back for uh outboard the 2.5 horsepower Mercury um but yeah I uh I wanted something with pedals or the options the option to have pedals so uh hobie's definitely the way to go for that um I also plan to add trolling motor to this one in addition to the outboard just to have you know every option possible I haven't decided if I'm gonna do a bow mount with the spot lock or just uh uh water snake in the cassette here um so that'll be for a different video today we're just doing the the outboard in the back um and I'll be you know going through it I know I had a lot of questions on my previous video where I put it on the Old Town um but honestly you can do this exact same build on um any kayak really as long as it has a flat top um you know to screw into um I still have the old bracket from the last kayak a lot of you guys were asking if it was holding up and you know it really did until the end there I I just pulled it off because I figured it'd be easier to sell the kayak without all the rigging um so I'm gonna take this apart re-adapt it for the um Pro Angler um because it's a bit wider in the back here so yeah stay tuned and I'll go through that oh yeah and one thing I already did to the kayak here was a swap out the seat so originally this one comes with the uh kind of the older style green chair not the Vantage seat so I actually when I got the kayak the chair was already pretty messed up so I went ahead and just took out all of the all of the hardware and the seat itself to just leave a blink slate and I was looking for a replacement and you know Vantage seats are like I don't know upwards of 650 bucks um so I wasn't gonna do that um and I ended up finding this Ascent kayaks you know from Bass Pro Shop um seat and it was only 70 bucks so it looked like a good fit it's really comfortable um granted I haven't been out on the water but I feel like it'll hold up just fine and rather than bolt into the plastic and you know create some fasteners for this chair um I got these uh Harbor Freight straps that I actually ran through the Scupper holes on both sides and just kind of strapped it down to the kayak and that's actually going to serve two purposes one to hold down the seat and the other and this is something that I had been seeing online in like just good practice for for safety is to have a strap go all the way around your kayak even on the underside just so you have something really you know really good to grip onto if you were to flip so that was actually something I was already going to do which is just try to find a way to have a strap go all the way around the kayak it's actually like that um I wish I wish they had black straps but um I only found these orange ones um but yeah uh I don't really mind them going through the Scupper I think it's fine I'm already gonna plug up the uh the Scupper holes with golf balls practice golf balls which are on the way um so I feel like that'll work out fine I'm probably gonna end up cutting these the extra line here just tucked it in there for now another thing I did to the seat was um cut a little piece of 2x4 and add it to the underside so all I did was take one screw and screw into this from the other side but that's pretty much it I feel like you know it's a solid seat no need to get crazy with it um originally I was trying to put like a swivel for like a boat seat and get a boat seat on there but I think this looks fine I'll probably end up painting the uh the two by fours but yeah other than that you know those are the plans for this kayak um and yeah let's get let's get to it all right so this is pretty much all the materials we're gonna need granted I'm reusing some of these These Old angle um brackets which this is a new one of those um so aluminum so it doesn't rust and you know this is a good size it's pretty thick I feel like it's plenty strong I've used a smaller one but um yeah you're gonna need maybe like three of these if you you know if you're getting started um you might get away with two a piece of uh 2x4 for the uh trans for the actual um yeah for the actual trans amount and then uh some stainless steel Hardware and that's pretty much it um since this one has access to the hole and I'm only going to make the bracket probably go to here or maybe even here but you know it's not going to go all the way back back there like I had it on my old one I think on my previous one I had it like way back there um I probably won't do that it's it probably wasn't necessary to go that far um I'll probably go around half so yeah that's pretty much all you're going to need um and yeah since I could reach it since I could reach inside the kayak I won't be using uh these butterfly um what are the anchors that I used last time I got them just in case but I realize I can reach into the kayak so you know if you can reach into the kayak or if you make a hatch it's always better to use um bolts and washers as opposed to those butterfly um butterfly anchors because butterfly anchors you got to make some pretty big holes and then not only that but you also have to um or you also have to use those zinc uh butterfly anchors and those end up resting up quite a bit I realized that last time one thing you could do though if you are going to be using those butterfly anchors is hit it with some Marine goop or this stuff uh they didn't have Marine Group this time that I went to Home Depot so I picked up this stuff which looked to be the exact same stuff or at least very similar um but I think you know from my previous build if I were to hit hit the uh the big hole that I made with some Marine Group maybe the uh the hardware on the inside of the kayak wouldn't have rested up as much um but yeah so I'm gonna go ahead and get started all right scratch that I thought this was access to the hole let's actually just access to the rotor or the rudder tension um so that's okay I still have access through here which I should be able to reach um so yeah I'm gonna foreign thank you [Applause] [Music] foreign came out pretty good so I wish I had shorter Hardware but oh well um this screw here too was a little too long but overall still solid um like I said before it's same simple build just L Aluminum brackets um this time I didn't use butterfly anchors which was better as you can see I like went through there one thing I would recommend if you're going to be doing this build is maybe um leaving these longer like maybe up to here it's kind of hard reaching into here from that small hatch it'd be a lot easier if you were drilling to here so maybe next time I would have left it like at least 10 inches longer so it's easier to Anchor and this plastic right here is very hard anyway so that's probably better but oh well um in any case it's still a solid build I have the motor in the backyard right now I don't want to pull it out because I'm not going to take it out on the water plus now you know with the motor you have to register it so um I'm gonna do that try and be like I don't know less than 50 bucks and then 25 every two years so it's definitely worth it um but yeah not bad all right so just wrapped up the build I threw on the 2.5 horsepower Mercury just like my old build so I still had the uh you know the the clutch uh tied to this this uh paracord all the way up to the front so basically when I pulled the orange one it kicks it into drive into forward and then pull the black one and it puts it into neutral and then for the kill switch I have it tethered to a clip goes all the way to my front seat and onto my uh knife jacket same similar thing with the uh the gas or sorry the gas is the starter uh just gave it an extension if I need to reach it I just use the uh the the Gap I just reach over with The Gap pull this and it'll bring it over I could also just turn around and walk all the way to the back of the motor if I need it turn it on or you know if it turns off or for whatever reason lastly on this build something different that I'm not going to do that I did on the uh my old build was that I used to have this just loose and I would steer with this extension but this time since the hobie's brother is like not all the way at the back like it is on the old town it's actually in front I can have the motor locked straight and use the rudder to steer I'm not sure if it's going to work as as great as like actually stirring the outboard but I'm gonna go out and test it um if I have to I might end up steering with this as well but I think it would be nice to just rely on the extension only for gas and then steer with the the rudder control here um what else I think that's pretty much it for the motor build um I did do a few more things since the last since originally putting on the transom motor I uh um I can go ahead and go through them I had already gone over the seat um I added the uh transducer here so the transducer is mounted using the Scotty Mount transducer mount just to keep it simple keep it I don't have to run wires through the hole um this these older uh hobies don't really have a good transducer Mount area so the uh the Scotty Mount is probably the best option um what else I added the stabilizers the Outriggers um I wasn't sure if I was gonna add them but I figured with the motor it would really suck to flip so originally I was gonna add them in the back of the seat uh like I did on my last build but because there's about an inch above this uh I needed to add some sort of spacer and then I would also have to drill the kayak as you guys saw before I went over it um and then not only that I only have like this much space to work with um because I don't really want to put it here because I'd have to screw into the bottom level which is like three inches so instead I opted to do it in the back here so I had this pre-existing um uh a little bracket the uh the pad eye and I used uh a a hose clamp to kind of hold it there and then I just use zip ties here down into the little Loop that it had there if I did four zip two zip ties on each side and it's pretty sturdy um between the hose clamp and then the other two it stays there pretty well um and it uh I took it out this past weekend without the motor but just as like a kayak with the pedals and it did a really good job actually I thought it was going to be slipping turning a lot but it held up well if I have to I'd probably get just a really big like industrial zip tie here and maybe screw into the bracket here if it turns a lot but it didn't seem to do it this weekend so it's probably fine um what else and I think that's pretty much it as far as like rigging and modding um I'm really liking this build definitely an improvement to my old one just because of the pedals the pedals are nice to have as an option you know the motor would really just get me out places faster and then the pedals are more for the fishing um and even as an option if the motor dies or something and I'm far it's it's kind of nice to be able to Pedal rather than paddle with it you know with your feet rather than your arms um and the last mod I still might do is uh putting a trolling motor up in here so I can you know use the gas motor to get me out you know out in the ocean and then like a small little trolling motor uh to fish to keep me you know at a mile to two miles per hour um I've tried uh using just the just the gas motor but even on the slow speed I think it's it's a little too fast it's hard to keep baits down without big heavy weights um and yeah that's pretty much it uh let me know if you guys have any questions on the entire build um and yeah thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next time

Channel: YakItUp

Views: 6,137

Keywords: YakItUp, KayakFishing, KayakMods, OldtownKayaks, Topwater120PDL, DIYkayak

Id: Wq4tQq60ogs

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2023