Re: 1974 40 hp Johnson?
I had certainly considered that someone has just hard wired this but I have another 40 hp here that's the same year and it's quite a bit different. It has the red plug harness and uses a terminal block as does the 50 hp, the 40 hp in question has no terminal strip or block.
Being that it's 34 years old, there's no telling what was done to it in the past. The boat it came on came from south FL, and it also had Bahamas paperwork and registration with it, so its come a distance since it was new.
The switch panel is very similar to yours, even has the same push button choke set up. My controls are newer, it uses the more square type box. The controls say Evinrude on them but the motor is a Johnson, they may even be the same era. By the paper work found in the boat, I'd guess it was at one time registered in the Bahamas, or both FL and the Bahamas.
It wasn't set up for fishing in anyway but had it's seats removed and they were using folding chairs and a home made wooden drivers seat. The motor shows no signs of salt damage and is well maintained in that every bolt is replaced with stainless and all were installed with antisieze compound.
There is no tag on the bracket or any sign of it having one, I got the model number from the welch plug on the power head.
It's cover looks the same as my 1978 55 hp, and the lower unit looks very similar to an older big twin. The compression was down a bit when I first checked it but I let it sit with some penetration oil for a few days, then hand cranked the motor about 20 times before starting it. After it ran for a few minutes, the compression came up from 90/101 psi to 128/131 psi. The carb was fine, I installed a new impeller and lubed all the linkage.
The swivel pin will need to come apart, for some reason it binds if turned more than a few inches. It took grease and isn't seized but won't turn like it should.
This is the first 40 that I've come across, I was surprised to see how much lighter they are than a 50 hp motor. I can carry this around myself, it's not much heavier than my 1985 30 HP, maybe even lighter.
I found some older parts still in the boat, they look to be from an even older motor, so I am guessing that this motor may not have been used very long when the boat was put in storage. I am guessing it had replaced the older motor. The prop that's installed looked new, as the impeller I removed had no wear at all and the plugs looked never fired. It's my guess that they were getting it ready to install. They did at least oil down the motor and cylinders when it was put away. There was a hand written tag on the motor saying not to turn it since the cylinders were filled with oil.
