hoffmanuno
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2006
- Messages
- 82
My grandfather owned a bar and evidently took this 1961 Sea King 3 hp motor in as payment for a bar tab in the 60s . The motor was put away in a custom made box either that my grandpa made or the previous owner did and sat in the garage for nearly 60 years before I found it a few weeks ago . Grandpa died in 1981 and my grandma passed a couple years ago so we're cleaning out tools from the old house and I'm restoring them . After a couple of weeks working on it and getting parts I finally got grandpa's old 1961 sea king 3hp outboard running. I had to replace the coil, condenser, and spark plug. The old style copper wire to make a new spark plug wire from scratch won't arrive until tomorrow so I reused the old one to test it. I took apart the carb and cleaned it even though it looked perfect. I removed the cork float and cleaned and dried it and then coated it in two layers of fiberglass resin to protect it from getting soaked full of gasoline or ethanol. I went to polish up the fuel/air mixture brass needle, but halfway through it slipped out of my hands, hit the floor, and bent the point. I sanded down the tip back to a point with sandpaper by turning it slowly in my hand at the angle necessary. Worked perfect. Drained out all the lower unit grease and cleaned it out with brake cleaner before refilling it with Lubriplate 105. Got it started on the first pull and then dialed in the mixture needle. Now I just need to put a new spark plug wire on and then tighten up all the bolts and put the side panels back on.
