TOPIC: It's alive again

I pulled the existing good running powerhead today and replaced it with the newly freshened one. It runs great, good oil pressure and it's no longer a mixture of blue and white engines.

This is what it looked like on the first go around

Removal of the existing powerhead

It's out!

Replacement is on the left and is now all one color.

Up in the air ready to drop in place.

Here it is idling at 600 rpm and holding 35psi of oil pressure.

I gotta tell ya 4stroke, very nice. I gotta hoist exactly like yours. Are you going to re-build the other motor? 35 psi sounds nice at 600 rpm. What is it when you rev it up? And what temp do you have? 185* or hotter? Actually, after I paint the leg unit, I'm headed to a motorcycle shop to hunt for a universal muffler tube and weld a replacement for the motor. I've talked to some mechanic friends of mine and they feel running any motor with no muffler is a little risky. For two reasons. One, there would be no back pressure which is not a critical issue, and two, the valves will stay hot alot longer than the manifold and cold air will travel up and warp the valves, not to mention they will crack. Anyway, it's a ways off. I almost forgot to ask. What kind of paint did you use for the motor? Standard engine paint?

Yep Craig if your going to work on these beasts you have to have a hoist! Me and the kid had real fun mounting the first one on the boat without one.

Oil pressure at higher rpm was 55psi. Temperature I can only guess I had my usual warm water out the pee hose. I do have a thermostat in it also.

The only parts painted were the block and manifold. I changed out everything else with white parts I had. I can now change out all my white parts on the blue "F" engine to blue. Just used an off white enamel, Plasticoat.

The engine I removed will be a backup. It seemed to run very well, no plans to rebuild it.

Well, the results are in. I had my horizontal test on Monday. My verticle test was today. I took the test plate that I used for horizontal, re-cut it, and re-welded the test pad for the verticle. So, Mr. Tait explains that the verticle is alot harder than the horizontal. Great. My horizontal din't come out that great, but, it passed. So. I tack it to the welding arm, and I suddenly remember what you said. "Don't keyhole and turn the amps down". So, I did. I took my time follwed the weld puddle. Mr. Tait walks in and says, "Awesome". I freaked. He said that ther is a student testing at the other end of the welding stations for his L.A. Certification, and this is better than his. This was certainly overdue. I saw the instructors filling out the Certs. It's only one half of what I need to be a certified welder. If I take Wedling 130 and 200, I can get my Certification. I probably won't. I just wanted to learn how to weld. Now I know. "Coming to a thread near you, Trailer Talk". From the very beginning to end.

This weekend, I'm going to Smith Paint to pick up some fiberglass primer for the cowling and some paint for the Bearcat. I'm gonna see what they have to spray the outboard with. As long as I have the epoxy primer on, to prevent corrosion, I'm gonna paint the outboard with a good enamel. If I accidentally bump the outboard or it gets scratched, I don't want to spend $130 everytime to re- paint it.

Great! Glad to hear my advice helped.

Maybe at some point I will actually paint one of these up real nice. I was thinking of just some equipment enamel because it's cheap.

I'm having problems with this site.

Here it is ready for 2012, sea trials in a couple weeks. It's smoking a bit, hopefully it's just needs time to seat the rings.

One word, 4 stroke. Nice.

I do love the sound of those motors
taking the boat today with the homelite on it.
Mike aka the pirate

Now the rest of the story. I had bought a blown engine for parts, this engine must have had some gremlins as it was constantly shearing distributor keys and eventually sucked a valve. I think some of these gremlins came with parts (distributor, manifold, flywheel, carbs) I used from that engine. The first startup of my engine didn't go as planned, during the valve adjustment I somehow got the cam timed 180 degrees off (how the hell did I manage that!). Homelite offset the distributor key so I couldn't simply turn the rotate it 180 and drop it back in. I moved the plug wires 180, #1 is now where #4 was (next scheduled valve adjustment I'll correct this). The temp sensor in the manifold had a broken wire that would not solder back on but after a fight I finally got it to stick, then tested the sensor which worked as it should. The carbs kept flooding so I replaced them with the originals, and the flywheel came loose during run time once, I've never had that happen yet and is quite a scary experience! Hopefully the gremlins are gone now.

Craig, thanks for the compliment. I see you passed your weld test, good deal! So now it's on to trailer building for you.

Mike, have a great day on the lake! Yes I too love the sound of these.

It appears I have an oil leak. A little investigation and it appears to be at the distributor. I remembered something about two different types. Sure as hell when looking for a white valve cover I put an early one on with a late style distributor. Looks like I'm full of crap about the offset distributor key too! Looking at again and turning the rotor 180 degrees it slides right in. Now it makes sense! Wires are back in their correct places and it fired right off like it should. Oil leak appears to have gone away now.


White cover is early, blue is a late type.

Trailer building it is! The biggest compliment I got, was from my teacher, Mr Pacheco. He's been welding for over 40 years. He said I weld better than some people who have jobs and been welding for 3 or 4 years. He was inspecting the pipe welds for the pipe certs. for about 12 students. Two sections of pipe, welded together, are then cut in half, then half again. Those quarter sections are put into a machine which bends it all the back into a horseshoe and the welds are then inspected. Only two students failed. The test is tough to pass. The ones who did, was there second and third times.

After my daughter's birthday celebration, June 9th, I'm going to get that Eastwood mig 135. I'm then going down to Benner Steel to pick up the channel, probably 3/16th, and start my layout. I'll probably have to start a new thread on "Trailer Talk".

I forgot to ask you, it looks like you don't have an oil filter, either. Isn't it necessary?

CraigLam wrote:

I forgot to ask you, it looks like you don't have an oil filter, either. Isn't it necessary?

Depends on what you read and believe about these. Homelite had them, when Dick Fisher bought them he deleted them saying there is "no dust on the water". I personally would run one and there is one on it now.

I'm replying from my cell. My desktop fried. So far my parts are painted but can't pist photos. Might be a while before I get a new one. My be a month. I'll try to see if I CAN borrow one.

I'm replying from my cell. My desktop fried. So far my parts are painted but can't pist photos. Might be a while before I get a new one. My be a month. I'll try to see if I CAN borrow one.

One of the last modifications to do was to move the Hi/Lo alternator switch to a more accessible location. Kind of a pain to get to in what I'm assuming is the original location. Since I do a lot of trolling with this with the fishfinder/GPS and radio on I want to make sure the battery stays charged. Have had to rope start it couple times and to my amazement they start very easy with a rope! Just remember to wrap the rope to turn in the CCW direction. With this in the "Hi" position you can really hear it working.

The arrow is pointing to the original location.


This is the new bracket and location, much easier to access now.

We took it out on Monday and Tuesday, seemed to run out okay. Tuesday before going out I rechecked the timing but was having a hell of time seeing the marks so I checked it tonight, it was off and his been set on 8 degrees. Biggest problem I had was a rattle vibration at the higher rpms. Tuesday we isolated it to the splash well area and tonight hopefully found and corrected it. Seemed to be the control cables vibrating on the bottom of the splash well where they were laying.

Trolling at 1.5 to 2mph, WOT 5400 rpm and 28 mph. Starts very easily. Some noticeable smoke, no blow-by. Hopefully the smoke will diminish over time as the rings seat in. Last year near the end of the season It was smoking pretty good and when I would get home and tilt the engine back down oil would ooze out the drain holes. This seems to be solved now. We'll be taking it back out Sunday.

Nice. Did you catch anything? I'm spraying my motor with what looks like the same paint you used. It's high temp. I'm not to the electrical part, yet. I have to completely rewire the motor. Talk about timing marks. This motor had so much paint sloshed on it, the timing marks were covered. After I wire wheeled it, the "TC" marks were then clear. I'm gonna pull the wheel off, clean it, paint it, and reinstall it. I'm also gonna clean the stator. I'm gonna post photos tomorrow or tues. My daughter's 21st birthday celebration is today and we're headed to Temecula.

After all the hunting, I've found a welder that I think I might like. It's a Craftsman 304 FI. It welds mild steel, stainless, aluminum, and it's about $400. It also runs on 120 volts.I have a buzz box, but, no 50 amp source. The Eastwood 175 is great for the money, but, no 240V source. The 307 welds up to 3/16" on a single pass, which will be enough for my trailer. The duty cycle is 40% @60 amps which is great. I do have to but the regulator, aluminum spool gun and bottle seperately.