Re: 2003 15hp big foot -- air cooling?
LOL, this little engine was on CL for $150 -- I gave the guy $100 since he was willing to throw in his engine stand -- which is what I really wanted. But here's this fine little 15hp fresh water fo' stroke looking so fine, except of course, for the gaping holes in its crankcase.
People rescue kittins, right? Why not 1F15352AD Merc's? Plus I was really curious about why it broke.
$500 later ($373 for crankcase assy, $127 for the rod assy and gaskets)
it runs right nicely.
Now if I just had a boat to put it on . . .
As to the cause of failure: the rod bolt on the right was lying in the bottom of the crankcase, and is almost untouched. One or two small nicks. As to the one on the left, it was still screwed into the rod, and it twisted off when I attempted to remove it. I'm of the opinion that the bot on the right was either never torqued down, or perhaps not installed at all. I can't imagine how it could have backed out slowly because of the lack of clearance.
The rods in this engine don't use any bearings on either end, so the crankshaft was never whacked by anything other than aluminum (the material of whcih the rod is made) and it miked out fine. Whatever happened, i.e., whether the bolt on the right was either never installed or just backed out, it's doubful that the little engine made it more than four or five revolutions after the failure.
Seems to run well enough now and has about 18# of oil pressure at warm idle. Can't figure out why I brought it back to life. But I did.
