1973 starcraft ss restore in progress

[crankbait cowboy]

hearing ya doz. also i put it all together and have to start over next spring when i try it out and it does not cool. also been sitting for 15 years or better so if i dont tear apart, only guessing and hoping no other issues.. so gamble and hope i get away with it, or go the distance tear off the powerhead,fix or replace tubes , check out thermostat and remove head to check water jackets and deflectors. lots of work and gonna be a bear from what i hear with broken bolts and corrosion to deal with, but probably a good learning experience. am afraid i best tear it apart. spend some bucks for gaskets , tubes, and whatever i break. i know thats the right waty to go, but a small part of me says gamble, test in spring , and do it right then if i dont get lucky. need some of fellas to tell me what you would do

 

[Watermann]

Yeah the fit between the water tube and the grommet is not a solid connection like you would want in a dry area such as under your kitchen sink. The only thing that would worry me is if the tube was smaller in diameter due to the damage that would lessen volume. If the tubes bent back to the same diameter I would say there shouldn't be an over heating problem. Just so you have peace of mind though so your not worried about it, does the powerhead have a tell tale and do you have a temp gauge or IR gun to make sure?

 

[crankbait cowboy]

a pretty knowledgable fellow ( F R ) over on the johnson forum pretty much told me the same h20. not air tight down there . he suggested putting her back together and gambling that would work fine. i do have access to a IR and plan to put a tell tale in ( found a good procedure in the johnson forum ) before a test. most likely would have to test on the muffs or in a barrel next spring. on the fence here but listening to FR and h20 kinda hearing what i want to. straighten up tubes and give er a try with a tell tale and IR gun next spring. it is my understanding that whenin water that whole area around pump is submerged so sucking air should not be a problem and a tight tight seal between tube and grommet should not be necessary? anybody know how far into grommet tube goes, or anybody else got an opinion for me. ?

 

[Watermann]

Yeah I put in a tell tale on my Johnny following instructions from the forum thread. Let me tell you what, it takes some stones to start drilling into that power head!

You have your water pump rebuild kit yet? Test fit the grommet before going any further and see what you think. I'm thinking they only drop in there less than 1" and more than 1/2". I also put a water pump kit in my buddy's 70 Rude for him so I've seen first hand what your working on but without having it front of me, I'm kind of fuzzy on details. Is there some sort of discolored mark left on the tube from where the grommet rested?

Yeah the whole leg fills up when back pressure from the lake is there but not so much on muffs.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

real good water, got the rebuild on pump done along with bearing housing on prop shaft and shift shaft seal. went real well. i did test fit the grommets on tubes and looks like a pretty good fit. ( hard to tell,) i should be able to measure from tubes to bottom of outside housing cover. then measure from lower unit cover to top ov grommet, and do some math to figure out how deep they go into grommet. with that leg filling up and a copper tube pushed into rubber grommet i dont see where it would be a water tight fit or need to be.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

yo h20 when you drilled your hole for tell tail did you have the head off so you could see how deep you were going???

 

[Watermann]

Nope, just drilled right into the water jacket. Steady and slow until the bit pops through into the water jacket. Then ran the shop vac to suck the shavings out and cut the new threads. The hole for the pee fitting in the motor cowl, I used a stepped drill bit to get to that huge hole for it to snap into.

 

[dozerII]

Coat your drill bit with bearing grease and most of the cuttings will stay on the bit, the same with the tap.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

good on ya both, good advice . been tossing around the idea of a smaller hole in the cowling and a rubber type grommet to hold it in place. also wondering if i should be tearing down the cover and heads to see what i kinda corrosion i got going on inside the water jackets. or put in the tell tail and test it this spring with the tell tail and ir gun , may save me a bunch of uneccessary work. that elbow and snap piece are they spendy?

 

[Watermann]

I had to pull the cover on my 1978 Johnny to replace the thermostat and found nothing in the way of corrosion since it was 100% sweet water no salt. You don't have to on your motor but I would pull the T stat and replace it and that should give you some insight of what the power head cooling system looks like. Also replace the poppet grommet and spring too.

I used a nylon 90 nipple on mine that I got at the hardware store and the cowl fitting below which was 6 bucks at marine engines.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

No Title

well gang things went a bit south on the johnny rud today. i had some time so decided to pull the heads to check water jackets for corrosion. good news - bolts came out real easy and very little corrosion in water jackets. bad news - pistons are 030 so been worked on and lower starboard head has a mess with the piston also dinged up. looks as tho some needles actually got by the rings ( thru the ports i assume ) and mashed against the head, scarring the piston and cylinder while doing so. if you remember i had lower compression on this cylinder back when i did the compression test. what befuddles me is , when i turn the flywheel all seems to rotate normal and nicely ( no catches or weird noise ) and everything seems tight. also when i got it running last fall it rans smooth and no weird noises. soooo, did previous owner redo and not clean out old good enough, and some old parts washed thru the ports after rebuild ( you can see some needles inbedded in lower starboard head if you look close) or did this come apart in such away as to not drastically affect performance. where to go from here,,, understanding time is not an issue, but cost is, tear down and rebuild ( could this be an issue if already been bored to 030 ) try find another powerhead for a 1977 115 johnny ( i went thru lower unit and all good ) or try sell lower unit and other parts ( plenty on her ) recoup my money and start the search for something else? all thoughts and suggestions appreciated.

 

[Watermann]

Oh man what a bummer that is. Normally for the needles to come out of the wrist pins there has to be some kind of catastrophic failure inside there. It does seem odd it ran without some serious knocking and skirt slapping under power if there were no needles left in a wrist pin.

 

[64osby]

Wow that sucks.:mad-new:

I wouldn't put money into a rebuild, too old of a motor and its been rebuilt once. It seems not a great job either by the PO.

I would look for a similar motor but newer. You would have a parts motor if it was close in model year.

I looked on C/L up by you. Kijiji might be a better choice. Looks like your a stones throw from :canada:

The only thing I saw that seemed reasonable was

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/boa/4772016671.html

And that's not too close at all.

 

[dozerII]

That sucks is right, not the kind of fine a guy wants or needs. I agree I don't think that power head would be worth putting any more money into.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

No Title

what seems so crazy to me is it ran real good for 3 minutes and compression was a little low on that cylinder. but nothing major. in pics attached you can see what got mashed against head and it deffinetly came thru the port as i can see it on cylinder wall and top of piston from mashing into head. thinking gonna clean up the head slap together and run it , take apart again and see if any new damage. part of me thinks he left these little pieces in crank when he redid. any idea where these come from ( pic 2 ) and what they are? what do i got to lose, and everything seems tight and correct when i turn the flywheel and look in inspection covers on side i agree on the no rebuild. but for shts and giggles think i will put together, run and recheck by taking head off. if it runs fine and makes no weird noises i gotta believe he forgot this in there , as h20 said if something failed it should be a deffinete wreck

 

[dozerII]

Does it feel like there is any play in the rod? can you turn the piston in the cyl? I agree if you don't have to spend any money on it, run it and see what happens. I once bought a 16SS (Ol Blue) it had a 70hp Merc 3cyl on it. The old guy that owned said he forgot to put the motor down before he started it after putting it in the water, didn't catch it in time and took the impeller out, but went boating anyway. When I brought it home I fired it up with out water just to see if it would run and it purred like a kitten. I replaced the water pump hooked it up to the muffs and fired it up, it was like a sprinkler water was coming out around the spark plugs and numerous other spots around the heads.lol

 

[Watermann]

Those sure look like needle bearings from the wrist pins to me rather than crank which would be larger. If they were missing there should be all kinds of nasty sounds with all that play being in there. It wouldn't take long to fail lets put it that way. I say run it like you stole it, you don't have anything to loose.

They should look something like this.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

No Title

really starting to think something got away from po during rebuild or old debris he did not get cleaned out before rebuild. why you ask? well, i cleaned up head best i could , put it back together and did a compression test. 128 125 125 100 . the 100 is on goofed up cylinder which is understandable as the cylinder wall has been noticable damaged when that piece or pieces were forced through intake port and even chipped piston above rings. then i ran fuel hose into jug and started it and let run for 30 seconds and revved it once ( i know i shouldnt but thought if going bad better now than later ) sounded normal , tore down head and inspected and no change. pistons no slop and cannot twist in cylinder. thinking save my green backs as far as carb kits , painting for now, put in telltale , put lower unit back on , buy a box of beer, and run it in driveway this spring checking shifting , revving some , water flow ect... before saying yea or neigh. i have a video of it running but do not know how to upload?

 

[64osby]

No expert here, but I've read that the scars in the piston will become "hot :flame:spots" and eventually the piston will melt down or explode.:attention:

Don't know if that would happen sooner or later. :noidea:

Run it and see what happens. :juggle:

Just have a running kicker with you.:thumb:

 

[LastDollar]

I would be concerned about parts floating around in the crankcase and charging ports. You got two choices, complete tear down and big bucks or clean out all the bits and pieces in the head and run it. If you do decide to run it, make sure you have a kicker to get you home. I had a Merc that one of the con-rod nuts backed off and dumped all of the needle bearings, scored the cylinder busted the rod, block was OK. Got a new rod, brazed the scores shut, honed it and smoothed out the gouges in the piston. Ran it for 5 years never sounded the same to me but it ran just as strong as before. The question was always in my mind, will it blow at a bad place and get me in big trouble. Did re power the boat for peace of mind and step up to more HP. What you have got right now is garbage so what is there to lose if you run it and buy some time for a later motor upgrade.