As this was my first time trying to do this mod, no video was taken of the process but the end results were amazing to me so I wanted to share these results in the hopes it may inspire others to follow suite who are also looking for solutions to minimize damage to a known high wear area on most kayaks.
Shout out to “Sea Monster Fishing” whose instructional video of his skid plate made this possible! Go check out his video and make one for yourself. See link below:
► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqNeQYX6k-0
In this video I show the additional addon modifications that went along with my 2012 Hobie Pro Angler 14 / Adventure Island ama mod.
Time line:
The Motor Mount – 0:36
Motor Mount Installation – 2:45
New Grab Bars – 3:58
The Motor – 5:50
Break-in Procedure – 7:19
Motor tip – 8:26
In this video I show how I mounted the modified Adventure Island Xbar to my 2012 Hobie Pro Angler 14.
Time line:
Attaching Xbar Front Mounts – 0:35
Attaching Xbar Rear Mounts – 3:17
In this video I show how I lengthened the Adventure Island Xbar so that it would fit my 2012 Hobie PA14.
Time Line:
Components – 0:35
Modified Xbar – 1:27
3d Printed Parts & Assembly – 3:09
The last few months of 2018 had me on a very busy handyman schedule with family and relatives especially when the holidays rolled in but I made sure to find the time to work on this project that I affectionately named POSEIDON in hopes of finishing it up for the start of the 2019 year. Aside from from having to do some updates to my kayak trailer, it is just about done so I can get the Hobie out on the water for testing and do a final break-in session on the outboard motor. I did manage to document most of the conversion process which I will be showing in a three part video series for those wanting to do a similar build as there is not a lot of information out there to be found.
My logo decals for the kayaks came in a few weeks ago and finally got around to mounting them this past week – Oh Yeah! I think they turned out pretty good… 😎👍
DISCLAIMER: I’m not promoting that you go out and do this conversion on your propel drive unit (you may void your warranty…), I am strictly sharing how I went about completing this task for those who may be contemplating or have thought of doing the same. The choice is strictly yours and yours alone…
Since purchasing my used Native Slayer Propel 10 a few months ago, I finally got around to performing my first inspection of the propel gear drive assemblies. I noticed that most of the lithium grease had flung off the contact areas of the gears where it is most needed – not good… I studied the parts breakdown of the propel drive unit online and also watched a maintenance video and disassembly video produced by Native Watercraft. When compared to a lower unit on an outboard motor or even a differential on a car, I saw no reason that the propel gear drives could not be in a constant gear oil bath as well. With this thinking in mind I chose to convert my drive to use a synthetic gear oil in the gear drive chambers and show how I went about accomplishing this task.
After this conversion I will be performing routine inspections on the propel drive gear assemblies and will report back if any failures occur but I highly doubt that this will be the case.
The way this all came about was that I purchased a set of “tall universal width” landing gear legs from Boonedox for my Hobie PA14. Now I had a set of extra landing gear legs. Hmmm, what to do? Sell it? I could but wait, I have another kayak that can use a setup like that… Yeah well purchasing a expensive knuckle set from Boonedox was out of the question so the thought of possibly making a diy knuckle entered the picture. The rest is as they say history…
The following video is not a “how to” but more of a “visual montage” showing the approach that I used to create my version of the Boonedox Knuckle which is the main support structure of the Boonedox Landing Gear that mounts on to the kayak.
Had my ups and down at Fellsmere Reservoir this past Thursday, literally. My DIY Boonedox landing gear for the Native Slayer 10 ended up failing where I suspected it would but luckily I had a fix in mind for it which I have already applied and will be testing it out again soon. Other small items like the fish finder transducer mount leg not staying in position and the location of the fish finder mount itself getting it the way when paddling – but at least these are simple issues with simple fixes. Now the biggest fail of them all came from my camera that I use behind me that points forward. That is my “catch all” camera and it failed! I never noticed that it quit working. Apparently it must have overheated and just shut down (it was a hot day). I chose not to wear the additional hat or chest camera that day, bad judgement call on my part, so sadly no forward facing video action to show. With that said I will now be upgrading to some better camera equipment (GoPro).
The lost recordings would have allowed for many top water blow-ups on a vintage lure ( heddon tiny torpedo ) that I wanted to use in hopes of at least catching one fish with it. I have owned this lure since I was sixteen years old and have never caught any fish with it. As you can imagine I was super excited to get so many reaction strikes and not only from bass but from pickerels as well. I even got to hook a gator with it! Luckily it got off and I was able to get my lure back. Hopefully the next Fellsmere trip will be a more video productive one…
Testing out of my new/used Native Slayer 10 Propel Kayak was in itself fun and a learning experience. The kayak is very stable (I can stand up and fish with no issues and the propel drive does what it supposed to do – and how about that reverse – awesome! I’m so accustomed to my hobie mirage drive, as the peddle mechanisms are quite different as to how they interact with your legs when applying force, that eventually I should get used to cranking on the propel drive system. I am very pleased with the seat riser mod that I created and the weed guard mod also worked great. The weeds will always wrap around the prop but at least it won’t wrap around the prop shaft itself. This makes the weed removal process much simpler as well as faster.
Here is the video of the few fish that I did manage to land, nothing great, but at least I did not get skunked!
