I was on the way to the lake this morning and my wife said something about some cracks she seen near the moter. Checked it out and it is cracked down both sides of the jack plate. Just read Ranger warr. and they have lifetime warr. to the 1st owner which I am not. I was very surprised I always heard Rangers were just strong and heavy built. I have no idea how long it takes to fix this guess I will give north texas fiberglass tommorrow.

I am working on a 84 Champion. Took the top of the transom off and drill all the wood out and used the seacast system. Going to put it on the water somtime next week and see if it floats or sinks. It is one way you can go.

I would be talking to my insurance, because you had to hit something to crack the transom their.

How old is the boat and how much setback does the jackplate give you? I don't think you have any wood in that transom so a failure like that without hitting something very solid seems a little strange. I might be tempted to call the Ranger factory and discuss it with them.

Good luck.

The boat is a 99 with a 4" jack plate. I think the damage is from rough country road I live on.

Are you using a motor toter?

I have transom saver to the trailer

You put many times the stress on the transom running across the waves at 60mph than you ever will driving down a rough road. Probably need take it to an expert. I think this is a pulltruded transom with no wood. Probably a straightforward replacement, just expensive. Good luck.

It's going to classic fiberglass in the morning

Bass & Walleye boats put sensors in some hulls and tested the stress under varios conditions. Even with well fitting trailers their test results showed that road stress was much higher than while on the water. I believe it. I would never pull one without a transom saver. I do not use transom tie downs because boat but probably should in case of the worse. I had a transom saver keep one of my boats out of my pickup bed.

I second the opionions on the insurance. Several years ago Ranger might have helped you but being in bankruptcy limits what they can do.

If you are referring to the March of 2001 article by Gordon East in BBW, you may want to re-read it again. I did. The stresses of running a large outboard on the lake are far greater than the stress of trailering it down any road.

that sux hope everything works out if you need to hit the lake while it's in the shop shoot me a pm

Nope, it was prior to that. I have not read the mag since I moved to Rockwall and that was in 1999. I would agree if you are trying to run on plane on 3-4 footers. I have busted mounts on Lowrance paper graphs and maybe a few body parts too. I do not recall that their testing was done under extreme conditions.

"The stresses of running a large outboard on the lake are far greater than the stress of trailering it down any road."

That should be obvious to anyone that has run a bassboat on plane in any water that isn't flat.

Put your boat in the water, ease it up near the bank, get in the water and give it a hard shove. See how far and fast it goes. Then imagine that all of the power that is pushing it down the lake is bolted to the top of the transom and trying to twist it off of the back of the boat. I think I've read that the force is over 4000# on the top of the transom.