# Homemade surface drive. Belt or chain?



## bighunter23

I'm looking at building a homemade surface drive with a 16hp motor. Anybody built one? Should I make it chain or belt driven? Pics would be appreciated.


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## MudDucker

Belt gives you a shock absorbing action and might save you a couple of sheared shafts.


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## bighunter23

Mud ducker, what size belt? Teeth? What size pulley?


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## Gaducker

What belt size is going to depend on what pulley size you use.  38 top 48 bottom will give you 1.26 to 1 final drive ratio


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## Flaustin1

Use a cog belt like a Gates PowerGrip or similiar.


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## king killer delete

Never done a surface drive but I have been around allot of chain driven devices. I support what these guys have said go belt.


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## The Flying Duckman

What Killer said.  

I have always had outboards myself.  I think though, if I was gonna build what you are talking about, I would go with the belt drive and carry a spare in the boat.

I had an older outboard with the shear pin in prop, and I carried a half dozen spare pins in my "possibles box".  They saved a couple of trips and kept us from paddling.


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## MudDucker

Size of sprockets and belts depends on hp, shaft length and prop.  You do well to try to use the same specs as an existing surface drive to take advantage of their testing data.


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## king killer delete

*Alright*



The Flying Duckman said:


> What Killer said.
> 
> I have always had outboards myself.  I think though, if I was gonna build what you are talking about, I would go with the belt drive and carry a spare in the boat.
> 
> I had an older outboard with the shear pin in prop, and I carried a half dozen spare pins in my "possibles box".  They saved a couple of trips and kept us from paddling.



Your giving your age away. These young boys dont know what a shear pin is and they will never have the pleasure of being i waste deep 10 degree water changing one. Now thats duck hunting.


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## MudDucker

killer elite said:


> Your giving your age away. These young boys dont know what a shear pin is and they will never have the pleasure of being i waste deep 10 degree water changing one. Now thats duck hunting.




Been there, done that and got a couple of old muddy t-shirts to show for it.  How about a trips where you knew you were hunting out of the boat and didn't take any waders.  Now that is fun!


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## Flaustin1

Changed a many a shear pin on my ol 6 horse rude!


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## The Flying Duckman

Last one I changed like to have been my last day hunt'n.  On the TN river and we had been in the shallows for (2) days; guess the prop had hit the bottom several times in that period.  We were re-locating on the 2nd afternoon and hit the main river channel when I felt it start slipping.  Headed toward the bank, and into the shallows.  As we closed in on the bank, you could see the bottom rising quickly, then we bottomed out.

Here is where the fun began.  I held on to the side of the boat about the mid way point and stepped out to test the bottom, which felt fine here.  Got my partner out (6'-3" & 275lbs) and told him we needed to pull the boat up a little further and turn it sideways so I could work on the pin.  As we move the boat, I took another step forward and picked up on the transom,  the bottom caved away and down I went into 28' of river water.  I was able to grab the transom on the way down and hold on, went completely under, hat and all.  

I was lucky that day.  I did have my inflatable belt on, and it was snug enough that my waders only got about a quart of water in them.  The look on my partners face... he was more shocked that I was. After changing the pin, and the mud had washed on down with the river current, you could see that about a 3' wide by 4' long section of the river bank had collapsed.

Sorry for the Hi-Jack, just wanted to share with everyone, to remind them of the dangers of working on a boat around water.

Be safe and have a great season.


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## Chase4556

killer elite said:


> Your giving your age away. These young boys dont know what a shear pin is and they will never have the pleasure of being i waste deep 10 degree water changing one. Now thats duck hunting.




This young guy knows what a shear pin is. I've never changed one on a duck boat, but I've changed plenty on tractor PTOs.


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## Felton

Waist deep 10 degree water? Just like walking up hill both ways in the snow? 

Ive changed a couple shear pins out on an old OB. Problem was the 3rd or 4th time I didn't replace them and we had to throw an anchor to pull our way back to the ramp. Tide was going the wrong way. Lucky we had two anchors.

Belt drive all the way!!!


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## joey1919

Belt drive, gates marine grade, no need to carry a spare, check It before every season


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## steelshotslayer

joey1919 said:


> Belt drive, gates marine grade, no need to carry a spare, check It before every season



Something I've learned over the years.... ALWAYS carry a spare... the Titanic was unsinkable... it sunk....


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