Miss Budweiser Boat Question

[Monkey Wrench]

Folks, so I finally sacked up and decided to take the Pro Boats Miss Budweiser 12th scale boat I bought from my good friend NC Nitro out today. Was really nervous because if you push the TX trigger forward, it kills the engine. My fear was I'd be out in the middle of the pond and instinctively 'brake' and strand it. So, I set my brake end point to zero so it wouldn't close the carb all the way and went at it.

FRIGGIN' AWESOME!

That thing screams and will turn right on a dime (not so sharp left, which is by design). The pond we have in our neighborhood is right next to the neighborhood pool and pretty soon, all the kids at the pool were watching me put the Miss Bud through her paces.

Here's my question, though. After a tank of fuel, I pulled the top cowling off and there was a pretty good bit of water in the engine compartment. I had noticed it was struggling to plane up as well. I don't see any holes in the hull, so my only assumption is that the water line that takes water to cool the head is leaking. My guess is it's leaking at the nipple connections to the head itself. What do you use to seal the connection of the water line to the nipple? I'm thinking a dab of silicone will do the trick, but I'm not sure if that is the correct material to use.

Thanks in advance!

 

[NCNitro]

Ok man, boats naturally will take on a little water when running. If you look at the front of the cowl you will see three holes, those will also allow water in. Go get some auto bailers, you drill a tiny hole in the back of the hull and install them. You may also want to pick up a water outlet fitting rather than just pushing the water output line out the side of the hull.

Here is a great article on some performance upgrades for the boat, this should answer a lot of questions.

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Articles/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1234

Now I have a question... Where's the DAMN video!

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Thanks Joe, good stuff! I'll work on getting a video over the weekend. Since this was the first time (and since I had no assistants) I couldn't get one.

Man that thing was fun to run! I do, though, need to rig myself a 'boat retrieval' system of some sort. It flamed out once about a 1/3 of the way out and I had to wait about 15 minutes for it to drift back into port! Think I'll rig up one of my fishing rods, just need to figure out what to put on the end.

 

[NCNitro]

A tennis ball, The ball will float and the line will sink and pass under the boat getting hung up on the rudder or prob, then just reel it on in.

 

[Monkey Wrench]

A tennis ball, The ball will float and the line will sink and pass under the boat getting hung up on the rudder or prob, then just reel it on in.

Ah, great idea!

 

[digger]

Bro, teach the family dog to fetch it.


Sounds like a blast. Always wanted to try one. Looking foward to some vids.

 

[gnarkill]

I'm not sure what motor you are running but I set the trim so if you hit the "brake" it will shut off because running boats naturally I run full throttle nonstop.

 

[frickenjoey]

I used to use my swamp boat as a retrival system at one of the local lakes. There were several people with boats and planes with the floats to land on water so if one died I had about 10 feet of heavy fishing line with a tennis ball as NC said above and I would tow them back in to shore. It was fun. The Miss Budwisers are pretty boats. I just wish I had something other than saltwater to run in.