90 HP Foirce, follow-up question

[biederboat]

This may be my final question on this thing, depending on whether or not I can fix it. 1996 90 HP Force, blew a head gasket, which froze a cyl. I got it unfroze, middle pistion (where the gasket leaked) has bad compression (50 psi), other two good (about 140). Took the head off, bore looks good, must be shot rings. I took off carbs & manifolds & reeds, it looks like you could remove the connecting rod cap screws (by moving the middle piston to bottom dead center) to remove the piston assembly out via the cylinder head end. Has anyone ever done this? I'm thinking that's about the only way I could do a cheap repair on this thing. I'm just not thinking it's worth it to disassemble the cyl head. Any comments, hopefully based on experience? If I can't do this, it'll become a scrapper and await a new 4 stroke, which is really what I want anyway but just want to know if it's worth a shot.

Thanks,
Biederboat

 

[roscoe]

Re: 90 HP Foirce, follow-up question

I've heard it can be done that way.

Are you sure the rings are bad?
Maybe it was just the head gasket.
It was an all to common problem on those motors.

 

[biederboat]

Re: 90 HP Foirce, follow-up question

Well, I know the gasket was bad, you could see it. Previously, the motor was frozen and I had to rap on it good to get it moving. Then, when the head was removed, I cut up the head gasket to make a smaller version to seal off a cylinder at at time (the bolt pattern for one piston is the same for all three). When I put the gasket over a previously good piston, I got good compression. When I put it over the bas piston, it had much less compression. I also removed the head and cranked it around by hand, keeping the other hand sealed over the bore. You could "feel" better pressure developing over the good cylinder on the compression stroke so , at this point, I'm reasonably certain the rings are bad.

Thanks,
Biederboat