How I Put a REAL Jet Engine on a Kayak

hi everybody my name is marty zaffinger and what can i say i like to overpower small vessels this video is going to be no exception this is the pelican catch power 100 this is like a kayak boat hybrid it's meant to have a motor on it but maybe not a 9.8 this motor weighs about 87 pounds and when you add fuel to that it's just way too much for this little nine and a half foot boat but that doesn't mean that i can't turn it into a beast let's get started okay yeah since there's not going to be a tiller handle what i need to do is have a way to steer this vessel and i think i've got a plan for this and it involves stealing the rudder system meaning the tiller handle and the rudder pretty much the whole assembly and the cables and everything from this catch 130. so now i've got a rudder and a tiller handle the way i see it i'm going to take this and i'm going to attach it right here yeah i can do that i think i gotta cut a hole right here so i have access underneath a dremel with a spiral bit that's where it's at and a kayak with holes in it is right up my alley let me explain what i'm doing to hold them together throughout this video you're going to see me building stuff with this material it's called king starboard and it's a high density polyethylene so that means it's going to hold up in the harshest environments it's not going to rot it's not going to rust it's perfect for building stuff that is going to wind up on a boat or in this particular case a jet kayak hey right now it's helping me build this connection in between the tiller handle and the wheel that the steering cables go uh problem is though the cable goes around this wheel and then those cables go inside the sheaths which need to be held in place by something so i'm gonna have to figure that out fun fun fun in this video you'll see me jumping around an awful lot which is good because if you get stuck on something you can move on to something else like this piece of aluminum here i cut up in order to have a place to mount the rudder there's going to be lots of little things that i would have to mount and figure out and if i got stuck i just would change my direction and go somewhere else after i painted this i worked on a place to mount the motor in order to mount this you need a plan i might deviate from that plant a little bit but over here i've got an old seat this is from a spare catch power that i have this is some king starboard what is that about an inch and a quarter by an inch and a quarter solid stuff and i've got a couple aluminum transom mounts that todd won't be needing from old roundabouts let's see if we can make something happen king starboard can be worked up with the same tools you would use on wood it's no wonder that it's a favorite material of mine to work with this is starting to look like something but the legs here are too far apart i know that they have to be closer so i'm gonna have to take these pipes here and cut them back a little bit luckily i've got a tool just for that job there it is rainy days are perfect for getting some projects done and music is great for correcting the bad audio that you get when it's raining on your tin roof after the rain stopped i turned my attention again back to the rudder so this rudder has cables that can be used to bring it up and down i didn't know if i'd ever need them but they were there so i figured a way to install them on this kayak then there's also cables that make the rudder turn left and right i figured it would make those cables go through the factory transom that's on this boat and then it was time to attach them to the tiller handle tiny cable sheet down i'm gonna drill these rivets out you know here at the national anti-rivet foundation the message we'd like to really project to you guys is give screws a chance screws would have just backed out would have been a lot easier wouldn't have had metal shavings all over the place so from the national anti-rivet foundation and zafengers give screws a chance what i'm looking to recreate is here we have the wheel set screw holding the cable right in the center and then the cables disappear inside the boat and the sheaths are held down right there so i'm mindful of how far away from the wheel we are and how far apart the cables are so let's try to recreate that here the wheel is going to be here and the tie downs it's about the same and we'll use a piece of starboard as our cable clamp good uh now we're going to cut a line across these two right here and the curve of the blade will make that so that this clamps down on the sheaths when i screw them together i think this is an excellent way to make a clamp whether you're clamping something to rope or railing or in this case cable sheets i can now say that i've done all those things okay so that goes like that around the pulley as my spacer and then the handle will go on that and i need to put two screws over here into the top of that let's see if i can get this part attached first i think i found the holes already something must be wrong now in order to tighten up these cables and get that slack out of there i'm going to have to pull them from the back which means i need to cut a hole here so i can access and pull the cables i can tell you nothing makes cutting a hole in a kayak easier than editing software that was really easy all right make sure it's on the wheel the cable good good up in place looks right nice then the handle goes there insert part a into slot b and all right now pull pull on the individual cables back and forth and like pull one and then the other one than the other you know what i mean pull this one this one and then that one backwards forward let's see if you can move the handle yeah ah yeah this cable is going to go out of a hole here and there through this transom that comes on this kayak and will attach to the rudder here about 50 50 shot of rigging this backwards now we thread that through there to pull you go through there okay these are going to attach here eventually but i need something to hold this cable sheath down so let's uh whip that together real quick uh now making sure that the tiller handle is in the straight position all i have to do is take the slack out of the cables and make sure that the rudder is straight and then tighten down these little dealies here there you go and now this might work that's pretty cool now we have a rudder let's finish building the cradle for the motor and now we've got a nice way to cover this hole okay in an attempt to make this thing look a little bit more factory i'm going to use a part from an old catch power 100 prototype you can see i've got two of them here this one has the newer version of the sea deck material that's on it and this is the original uh stuff that they came out with since pelican wants me to make these boats go away i figured uh now's a good opportunity to put it to good use so let's cut some of that out oh good so okay okay before i get covered away what i'm going to do is i'm going to lock in these uprights to the aluminum armature by drilling a hole right there and putting in a set screw occurred to me that this one other thing i got to steal from this kayak here this is now the official jet catch power 1000 up next was to build a cradle for the engine and i planned on using these two pieces of aluminum to make that happen so little bit long like that if you ever want to make a bolt shorter make sure you put a nut on first then cut it this way when you back the nut off it'll knock the burrs down and won't give you any problems when you go to reinstall it did you find cannon sir hmm my friend told me back in the day you gotta talk dirty to it hey there it goes all right we need some set screws at this point i have a little bit of a mental fart i think because i find nice set screws i find a tap that's the right thread count and i decide to paint the parts before i drill them probably should have waited to do that till afterwards well i went ahead and i removed another little piece of the sea deck material here and i glued it to my piece i even put a washer in between the two and that gives it a really nice action but of course i got carried away and i painted this thing and made it all nice looking before i put the set screw in it so i guess i'm just gonna have to be careful scratching it so okay with this thing attached again i can now see through the hole that i had drilled and position this where i want it that looks pretty level so let's just mark this one i could probably drill this in place but i don't like the idea of little metal shavings near the turbine engine so i'm just going to mark it there and there and then we'll tilt it say like that i may never use this or i may want to see what the difference in the the jet exhaust does to the to the boat whether it tilts it so let's mark that position and in case i want this to go down like that and we'll see if that makes a difference okay with those marked i can take it apart again and uh we'll drill holes and tap them out so huh very cool before i go any more crazy building stuff and mounting things i think what i really need to do is get this puppy running and in order to do that i'm gonna need fuel and rather than have a big dukey gas can sitting on top of the kayak with me i decided to make a custom gas tank that would fit down below this engine that i bought runs on three different types of fuel either jet a which is hard to find kerosene which is expensive or diesel fuel with an addition of some oil and that's when i was choosing to go with and i did a little research and found out that pvc is just fine to use if you're going to store diesel there's a slight risk for a static build up but uh i didn't think i really had to be concerned with the very small amounts of fuel that i'd be carrying nonetheless i did a little bit of testing first all right it has been a few days let's pop the top off this thing i don't see any discoloration the fuel looks uh uncontaminated the walls of the polyvinyl chloride seem totally intact they're not soft or i don't know i don't see any problems with using this type of material for fuel tank nor is there any leakage down here so i'm going to empty the fuel out of this now and finish the assembly and installation of my custom fuel tank okay what i'm gonna do is use this gas tank on this boat and i'm going to put the gas tank inside the boat to get a nice clean look there's a hole in my boat one of the problems obviously with getting this tank inside this hole is the rod holders so let's take the rod holders out thank you that wasn't so hard was it the stash guards are very very happy with me another washer lock washer nut and i was able to find a whole bunch of them yes what i'm going to do is cut these down some of these will act as vents for the inside of the kayak you know in case there's ever like a fuel spill or something or leakage the fumes will have a way to get out and one of these is going to be for a way for the fuel to get in okay so i've got two of these cut down this one the shorter one is going to go up front all right before i put these in though and drill them down or bolt them down or whatever i have to finish the assembly of the gas tank fuel tank and part of that is going to be assembling these feet that will protect the fuel line hey hey where you going stay with me this is getting too boring i'm sorry but yeah let me do that first all right i want to take a time out and talk about the fire suppression part of this because i'm doing a lot of dangerous stuff here and i don't want people out there to get the impression that i'm doing things just haphazardly you know i've thought these things through and have had a little help so check this out yeah i could use this one here i just don't know uh what do you have that's uh kind of important make sure he's ready ready sure do it powerful yeah that's pretty awesome i like it like that i think it's clean i can probably put this cone on there and show you the difference too so it's going to make a noise probably for cool it's more of a throaty sound but just because this bike does vibrate it's nice to know that you don't need a cone though especially if it's that close i mean if you had a clone like this yeah if you had that one thing pointed straight at it i mean you could just put a little thing out of here and just we put our tank up top and go there okay all right we're starting to come up with a plan uh mike you want to do that other experiment yeah let's do that all right wait a minute from safe glass oh yeah nice and cold nice all right we've got plenty of come on thank you you want me to put the diffuser on it now we'll try that that's what you see when they're cooling mirrors i like that one a lot i mean thank you to noah and his dad madison who came here to make sure that i do things smart and safe like they used to say back in the day on mythbusters don't try this at home because i've consulted with experts my name is madison and i've been in a business for 25 years i'm a fire equipment dealer and ex-firefighter emt dive master so i have a lot of experience dealing with high pressure tanks fluids under pressure i just want to make sure that people like marty stay safe and do the smart thing and not um hurt themselves yeah hurt themselves pretty much yeah now dude i appreciate it thank you very much thank you for your help good luck with your youtube channel and uh let's get back to the build awesome to help execute the plan for the fire suppression system i stole this little piece from an old trolling motor i don't suppose anybody will notice it missing perhaps a coat of black paint would help camouflage it then a piece from this old bimini would make a perfect rail along with the feet from this extra seat off of another catch power i figured it would work as long as i could manage to cut the pipe down then the feet slipped right on it and enabled me to insert it in a track so that i could point the cone wherever i needed it the cone itself only needed a slight modification to fit inside the trolling motor part that i had scavenged to help hide the hose for the fire suppression system and some wires i got these two grommets that i felt also would give it a nice clean look not having hoses and wires loose on the deck probably also made sense from a safety standpoint i'm talking about time to drill some more holes oh what a mess these boats have a lot of styrofoam inside of them which increases their capacity uh fortunately i'm a little guy and i'm not putting a lot of weight on this boat so i can dig out a little bit of foam and still be within uh safe tolerances i think where's my vacuum cleaner now we can aim this that's good position heck yeah now we just need to plumb it from here to there inside the boat and then out of here to this the next step in the plan was to make a trigger that would deploy the co2 in case things ever got out of hand and a fireball materializes behind me when i'm out and about on this thing that's an ugly hole but it works originally i wanted a remote switch to trigger the co2 but madison convinced me that these things are under about 800 pounds per square inch and it would require some real major plumbing to have it under pressure all the time so this direct mechanical connection to the extinguisher was a lot safer and i'm glad i consulted with experts before i decided to build this um works gonna build a cap for this hmm hmm with that part out of the way it was time to turn my attention towards completing the fuel tank in order to connect the filler i decided i was going to use some pvc and rubber boot and fire i don't know how many times i've manipulated pvc with heat it's pretty amazing how you can just make this stuff do whatever you want finally it was time to glue everything together in place i had dry fit all these pieces i don't know how many times that's good felt good to see it going together for good finally the last step yet another sticker to remind me which hole was the dangerous one then i made some covers and decided the warning label didn't really apply anymore a little more sea deck material from my spare donor catch power topped it off nicely and now the fuel tank has a fancy cover and the fuel cap has a fancy vent now to burn all that fuel i'm going to have to wire up the fuel pump and this is going to help make that happen well this is going to be a grommet for the wires to help keep the water out from inside the boat it's always nice to be able to use things you got at hand instead of ordering stuff here you can see i drilled the hole and i'm putting the wire in there you go that's good now to fill that hole i'm going to use this x drain plug now a wire grommet the only thing left is to tighten up those wires and then i needed to build a place for the dry box that would contain the fuel pump i thing's starting to look like a spaceship which makes sense i guess since i have a jet engine on this thing it's a rocket chip yes drilling holes in the bottom of this brand new dry box i swear it was going to shatter at some point and just be ruined but once i silicone the bottom it'll be a really nice watertight place for the fuel pump and the battery that runs it look at that nice slo-mo shot there okay yeah next i put it on the back of the boat strap it down make sure all the gear fits inside of it figure out where the fuel lines are going to be enter another grommet got one of these sweet snug water type ish then i have to take the fuel lines that are on the motor there's two of them one for the starter one for the combustion chamber and zip tie them down nice and neat some of these wires are actually going to go up to the front of the chair where the little computer is going to be and in order to get the wires to go down through the center of the chair i have to change out the swivel notice the difference the old swivel has no hole this new one that i bought has a big hole in it so that i can turn 360 degrees and not bind up the wires here i am making a mount for yet another drive box into which i'll put that little computer i'll tell you this it was quite a learning curve figuring out how these jet engines work and all the little components that you need to make them run in order to mount it i used another piece from a different trolling motor just like i did on the co2 cone for the extinguisher there she is all lit up next thing i was going to work on was the throttle handle this was going to be quite a thing not too long ago i built a triple motor boat and i had to do something similar in order to reduce the gear ratio of the throttle so that when i push the throttle forward six inches the carburetor on the outboard only moved about 5 8 of an inch that reduction gear i was pretty proud of when that handle makes that kind of noise i'll be proud of that too quarters adjourn but unlike that video with the three motors on that boat in this video i'm actually going to show you the process of how i change mechanical linkage into a digital or electronic fuel signal first thing i had to do is build a wheel that fits on the solenoid solenoid is just a little tiny knob you turn it this way and that way and that represents low throttle or full throttle somehow i had to attach that to my diy throttle handle here what i'm doing is mimicking the factory wheel that comes with the steering cable that you saw earlier i made a hole through which you can put the cable and now i'm making a threaded hole for a set screw in order to see how that works let me start the set screw put the cable through and then tighten the set screw down and that'll hold it in place so far so good the next thing i had to do was attach this thing to the solenoid so another hole and another job for a tap to make some threads then this little tiny set screw got screwed all the way through until it just poked out and that holds it down nice and snug now this little digital box has got a big mechanical wheel attached to it step one done that now we need this in order to make the rest i had to have everything in a unique position so i had to build a box around the solenoid and then i could have another pivot point where i could attach a bar to a cable ah i like that step two done now this white piece of starboard i cut the shape of the speed sensor out and it fits in there nice and snug now i can screw that in place and then stretch out that bar that i made earlier and boom this is starting to look like something now this thing runs on a battery i figured a good place to mount that battery would be right here next to where the solenoid is that looks nice now that i had the cables working i needed to attach them to the throttle handle with something a little more rigid that's where this little bar comes into play you can see it here moving the cables that works real nice so now i was going to close this box up which would help me later mount it inside the kayak after i had that figured out i turned my attention back to the throttle handle i wanted that to look a little sexier than just a square piece of plastic here i am carving it up that's a good thing about starboard you can carve it again just like wood and try to make it look like the throttle control on an aircraft like that now i put it in this giant hole that i carved earlier how's that for a hole in the kayak of course let me put one over here too so yeah once that was carved then i stuck that whole mechanism inside that hole and i drilled out the rivets in the carry handle that comes from the factory now through that i would put some screws and those screws would hold on to that box that i just built yes siree look at that with that pretty solid i strap the battery in plugged it in and then i can move on down the line towards getting this throttle working the handle needed a home and i put it where i thought i was originally going to put the trigger for the fire extinguisher i envisioned this big mushroom switch that you smash in case there was a fire but without needing that i now had a place a nice place for a throttle handle now in order to attach that handle i got a couple pieces of that rectangular shaped starboard and then bolted them together to make a pivot point and that made a good place to screw the handle down tight now finally i had a way to transform mechanical motions into an electrical signal that would then go to my jet engine and make it go zoom that is so satisfying getting closer now i just went over to the sacrificial hull of the old power and cut out yet another piece of sea deck material to make that look a little bit nicer i'm stealing this from the front door there to use it as a return spring that return spring happened to be a little bit too long and to hold it down the screws would have been way forward of that track so i got rid of that and i put a longer track in this way the front screws that hold this track down would actually hold the return spring down well they'd actually hold down the piece of starboard that the return spring was screwed to now i just stuff that thing in the hole and put the last of the screws in the front of this track once i had it tensioned just right and yeah this would prevent the boat from keeping on going if i had fallen out while i was on the way no need for a tether here this is the finished handle nice and ergonomic spring-loaded so it'll pop back and you can see even if you can't read because you've had too many bud lights you can tell what's fast and what's slow also i've added a place for a pin here the reason for that pin is it moves the throttle forward slightly i can use the little computer here to record this as low throttle and then of course i can record that position as high throttle and then when i pull this pin it goes below low throttle which shuts down the turbine and being able to turn that thing off is pretty important i'm kind of pleased with the way that turned out and one of the very last things to do is to mix the jet oil with the diesel fuel mix it up and fill the tank work it work and yes that is why i usually do my own camera work seriously that is the transformation of the pelican power 100 which is normally meant to house a battery and a trolling motor and instead i turned it into my own jet powered monstrosity this is truly an amazing little piece of machinery it produces 45 pounds of thrust and it weighs less than 5 pounds whether or not it works that remains to be seen there will be a video coming up very shortly where i start this thing up for the very first time and beyond that we'll get it out on the water and see what this thing can do i'm curious to see what you think that this boat will be able to do leave a comment let me know oh and i wanted to say thank you to some people that helped make this happen pelican for providing the boats manny and danny from aeropanda who came and helped me get this thing running eventually you'll see that in the next video and noah and his dad madison for coming here and helping me with their much needed expertise when it came to the fire suppression system lastly i want to say thank you to you guys because without you guys enduring all the ads uh sorry about that and without all of your likes and shares and stuff like that and views i wouldn't be able to afford to do stuff like this and entertain you guys i mean this motor cost me quite a lot of money but it's worth it in the long run because of how great you guys have been watching these videos so thank you i appreciate you wholeheartedly all right so stay tuned keep an eye out for the next video in this series of the jet power 1000 you

Channel: zoffinger

Views: 618,254

Rating: 4.8202572 out of 5

Keywords: kayak, kayak fishing, fishing, saltwater, Florida, fish, how-to, zoffinger, Tampa, ocean, snook, shark

Id: Ojqy2AIlNNI

Length: 54min 23sec (3263 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2020