An Eska journey. from that to this

[todd ashley peters]

In Nova Scotia, Canada there arn't too many Eskas left to find. when you do get lucky, you may not be as lucky as you think. First they rot from the outside in. (ns is almost completely surrounded by salt water)These outboards were not made for an acid bath in the atlantic ocean! So when i find one it looks a lot like this one. (not the worst i've seen by a long shot)
most of the bolts broke while trying to get it apart. with or without heat did'nt seem to make a difference. But finally it came apart and with a little bead blasting, it only looked 30 years old. after alot of elbow grease and some interesting ideas, this one turned out like this.
Over the next week i an going to list and show as many of the mods as i can

these are some of the topics 1. Engine a.9.9 to 15 carb
b. enlarging air fuel intake.
c. fuelpump vac
d. silencer

2. ignition a.timing change
b. cooling the stator
c. modern kill switch

3. remote controls

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

If you like your Eska and are not really handy, don't try this at home. this is a 380, 9.9 block.


After the engine block was split, i proceeded to enlarge the intake. the hole was marked on the outside at 1 inch.using an air die grinder i carfully removed material untill the hole met the line and the entrance was smooth and even, then the inside was carved out to meet smoothly with roundness of the outer coping. the inside is kinda sensitive because of the copper bearing/seal. any scratches on this suface will render your motor into an anchor. i cut out enough that the opening is now slightly bigger than a 15 hp block, but much smoother transition. it doesn't have any flat spot left for the mixture to snub up against and stem the flow.
i traded up to a 15 hp carb with the side mount fuel pump,simply blocking off the vac hole on the carb flange with a gasket withou the vac hole. i used the hole on the block marked red for the vac. drilled it out and tapped it with a 1\8 pipe tap and screwed a barb into the hole. ran the vac line from there to the fuel pump

 

[nwcove]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

nice work on the eska! just curious....whats the plexi-glass set up for? ( cant quite tell from the pic, but it look like linkages inside it? )

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

thats a set oof controls that i made. it has a 1\8 aluminum base plate and two 1/8 lexan plates for the othr 2. i did that so you can see the works inside. turned out better that i imagined.got to go to work now, i'll try to post this eve with the next installment

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

here's a little more for the hardcore Eska people. some fellas think that a silencer on an Eska is not needed. some say" there's 50 year old outboards out there still runnig like a top, and they never had a silencer/ air cleaner. yeh! but for every one of those good runners, there are 50 million dead ones. a run into some fluffy bullrushes is all that it would take. your engine ingests a dozen fluffys and burns the top of your piston out.that is not the only good thing about it. it will make a huge difference in noise levels. Eska's are well known to be rather loud, not so good if youre cruiseing a private lake at 6 in the morning. even redirrecting the sound towards the back of the machine is better for the opperator. heres several samples.View attachment 135799View attachment 135800View attachment 135801 A word of warning, use only proper open pore foam as an air cleaner otherwise it can be sucked in itself
every Eska twin that i rebuild gets an extra motor mount on the back of the powerhead. used a omc off the shelf rubber mount and fabed a simple bracket. bolts on with the bottom two bolts for the cylinder cooling cover. this makes idle as smooth as silk. i am a lot less tuckered out at the end of the day as well.
another thing that i do is upgrade to a teathered kill switch. 7.99 $ from your local boat shop. you have to drill the hole out to 5/8 or 11/16,cant remember which. bye for now.

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

remind me to stay out of the fluffy bullrushes Todd

We cant see the attachments...they never seem to work
paint looks nice...have you noticed that the older 9.9's used bushings in the lower instead of needle bearings like the 15hp? also on the newer design I don't think the motor mount would work, not sure but the engine mounts different and with out that exhaust tube spacer thing in your first pic

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

mrcrabs, pics are like eskas. sometimes they work sometimes not.try that

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

Nice work on the air silencer, wow a pimped out Eska, now you just need a amp and subwoofer and a spinner on the prop.

Todd what have you done for the hoods? I have a tall hood I'm wanting to repair/restore for a 9.9 of about the same vintage as yours but its cracking up from age and UV's....hood bases are the same but hight is determined by model so not all twin hoods are the same.

2
. ignition a.timing change
b. cooling the stator

Timing up or down? with that flywheel I would guess 2-4 degress retarded since it has loser springs and will achive a full 30 degrees on the tool??? and how did you go about cooling the stator...must be little fans eh? I'm very interested in what your doing with the mechanics.
but don't give it to much advance or you will cook them thar pistons, my 15 will detonate lower than 27 degrees per the timing tools

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

good afternoon. hoods! hhhhh! well to tell you the truth,i've had exceptional luck with the hoods being in great shape. not the one that blew off the trailer at 70 mph however. should have taken a pic of that. a little brittle i'd say. but speaking of pimping out, had to do something in the interm so i made a pattern for the bottom and made that out of 3/8 x 1/16 alum channel and a slight frame work of .060 sheet. then simply clad it with eastern white cedar and the front with .040 alum. not an easy way to go but it got me by till i found another one. sold the motor some time ago but still have the ugly cedar hood. any way if your hood still has its shape and its not too broke up i would use mas epoy or an equivalent with 4 oz fibrglass cloth. i would lay it up on the inside and do a bit of body work to the outside after. brush on the first application of the resin, resin only. let it set up until its dry but stiil tacky, then another coat of resin,then the cloth. let dry till tacky then another coat of resin. that should be enough for good stength but not too heavy..let dry completely then sand it out. spray paint to cover up. epoxy is not cheap but should'nt be to bad for a small project. i build boats as well so i have used a lot of it and find new uses for it all the time. none will go to waste.. then do the outside body work and paint as desired..this is one of the 9.9 with a bushed gearcase

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

well my method of modifying the timing is not conventional but resulted in really smooth idle, super easy starts, and a few more rpms at wot. i ground down both counterweights exactly the same as each other, removing about .050-.060" off the side that butts up to the outter stops on the flywheel. i also removed slightly less from the inner stops on the trigger puck. this gives the same variable timing with slightly lower and upper limits, giving retarded condition for idle and easy starts, as well as advancing it slightly for wot conditions . this is more obvious with the "1" charge coil stator than the double coil stator. and more obvious on the 9.9 than the 15. i did not mod the springs, however i did mod the flywheel to cool the stator. got 6, 1\4" holes drilled in a milling machine at a 45 degree angle to the horizontal plane, tangent to the crankshaft. i made up a ballancer with a high speed drill and a dial indicater. basically drilled out little spots just like they did in the factory untill there was very little deflection on the dial. so when the flywheel spins it blows air down across the stator.

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

Thanks Todd, I had done some reading on using epoxy on the old plastic but wasn't clear on if it would stick ok or not, The cedar hood reminds me of a truck bumper I saw the other day made from a cedar log....LOL...

I got lucky on ebay and found a almost mint 9.9 hood

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

Thats got to be the prettest flywheel I ever saw, I found the newer style 15hp flywheel springs to be alot stronger than older style...CDI elctronics helped me get my timing setup to start easy and pur, the new CDI ssi had considerable more bite than the old SSI and I used autolite number 86 plugs....all I can say is follow the specs use the timing tools and dial indicator or it idles and runs like crap,

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

you must have the taller flywheel. had a couple of those with some motors i bought and thought they belonged to something else. well got 60 cents a pound for them.

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

No Eska changed to a smaller diamiter flywheel around 1975ish I think....I weighed them respectively and there the same but full advance on the smaller flywheel is only 28 degrees while the older bigger one like yours is 30d, also these timing specs changed to accommodate gasoline changes around that time frame, the height thing comes into play with the base your engine sets on, on my 1979 15hp I don't have the spacer like you show in your first post,View attachment 135947 and carb and choke linkage changed as well...this spacer/exhaust tube requires about another inch or more of hood heigth...at first I thought it was the flywheel but its just a design and engineering thing

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

yeh i never saw one up close that was newer than 76. yours is way diff.mine all sit on a flat plate not an open one like that man they must had had some pile of different configs for these things. i think they wre different from province to province for goodness sake. nothing wrong with variety. they just kept trying to get it wright i guess. and thats why i have seen different shaped hoods. i thought that was because they were just different brand names that had other styles of hoods. and i thought that i was going to make it a day without learning something new. ehhh i'm not dead yet.

 

[mrcrabs]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

I have only seen the 2 configurations of the twins, Looks to me that Eska had to find ways to keep Sears happy with there price points so they hired real engineers to design and cut production cost of the last genaration of Eska outboards, to bad they lost that war. All I can say is my 15 really screams for a old Tecumseh

 

[MahtyMaht]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

That's the coolest set of outboard mods I've seen to date. What a pleasure to see.

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

thanks for that, i think eskas are a pleasure to to rebuild. they look great and are easy to work on and mod. i've rebuilt 7 twin eskas. couple of seaco 9.9s, sears can. couple of sears and robuck, got one more waiting for a 15 powerhead for it. they all had that same flat base under the water separater plate. the 9.9s had fuel pump built in and the 15s had it screwed in to the carb. hers some of them. the green one is one of my fisrt attepts and still have it. my hav. that 15 has supprising power, thats why i kept it. its lighter than my 09 yam 15 and it seems to have more of a bite. turns way better too. the white one has a 381 block with 9.9 pistons, so it does quite have the same punch.the purple one was the first hard core mods, nothing impressive but looked cool.

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

anyway if ya boating like i do, often alone, you should always install a teathered kill swicth. they dont cost much and can save you a long swim and or hike. look smart too.

 

[todd ashley peters]

Re: An Eska journey. from that to this

ok i guess i'll get to the controls. first the box. after a few not so successful attempts, got the physics worked out. used a peice of aluminum, 1/8, for the bottom. and two 1/8 lexan for the middle and front pannel. some 7/16 spacers in between pannels. rivnuts on the aluminum plate hold the entire assembly togeather from the front of the controlls. a little tricky to get together but not to,to bad. works some slick i hope they hold up cause i have a boat in the moddeling stage that i built the motor for. styro sm ply, and aluminum. 10 ft. surfboard that you kinda lay down on but forward to drive, face down . takes both new and old omc cables with a small retro.