1973 50 hp Johnson - Possible water in cylinder

[Bosunsmate]

As you say even compression is the most important thing. And its normal to need the warm up lever. Just bump the choke as she starts to stall. It may of being she didnt need to have the warm up lever earlier as the water jacket wasnt working right meaning she wasnt getting cold water around her cylinders at start up.
Id add a tell tale for sure if it was mine.
Im not sure about the break in procedure you mention. I only do that for new cylinder walls/pistons/rings.
With just a new headgasket you should be good to go back to normal operating conditions after first retorquing.
You are right about how robust that motor is after surviving and even performing well with what it went through. I had a car that went up a mountain with hardly any water in it. When it survived that i knew it would be a keeper.

Check your plugs for rust in the morning is the best way i do to check for water ingression. If there is they normally rust up overnight.
My cars brakes will lock up from rust overnight here if they go to bed wet, shows how fast that process happens

 

[JoeFromAkron]

Thanks for the reply. Checked plugs again last night, no rust, no grey sludge. Just a bit of oil. Re torqued head bolts. Ran again for 2 hours in the barrel just idling and started just fine like it normally would before. If I don’t need to break in the gaskets, well I’m gonna take it to the lake today and let her rip.

 

[Bosunsmate]

Any water in there at all and that oil goes grey straight away.
Sounds like youve fixed it
Go get her going full noise

 

[JoeFromAkron]

Well I think I have it fixed. Took the boat up to Erie yesterday. Once I figured out that I had the manual choke half on it ran fine. Much better than before. The plugs did look cleaner than I would have expected but they were not wet. There was only carbon buildup around the electrodes but it really wasn't run very long. Maybe an hour.