Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

[Mr.Stuart]

I just looked at an old Evinrude outboard, it looks to be in pretty good shape and complete, it's not all banged up, and could use a good cleaning, it takes the 2 line pressure tank which does not come with it, and the guy wants 100 bucks for the outboard.

my guess is that it's a 25 horse, but not sure, the serial number is 25012-73080 I have about an hour to decide if I want this or not, so hopefully someone can tell me what the outboard is before my time is up

not sure if I should buy it and use it for my little boat, or maybe buy it to sell it and make a few bucks and get somethig else for my boat

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Hey Mr Stuart

That motor shows to be a 53 or 54 model 25HP. If you can get it for $100 go for it, if the price jumps to $200 it still might be worth it, if your talking about Ebay.com. If the power head turned out to be bad due to compression it still may bring more then a $100 for parts.

I would buy them all day long for that price, I need one for my 13ft. I somewhat regret getting rid of my 57 model Johnson 35HP for $200.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

it's a 1953-54, did a quick check for parts, look hard to find. laings doesn't even list the motor in there parts.

 

[JB]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Model 25012 is a 1953-54 Evinrude 25HP, Mr. Stuart.

Without an on-the-water demo and hard to find fuel tank I think $100 is about right.

They were great engines back then and with care will last a lifetime.

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I found it on a local craigslist ad, the motor is just up the road from my house, maybe a mile away, it looks good, and I found the info on it by doing a google search using the model number, and that search brought me right back here to iboats, I'd still have to find a tank, so I think I'm going to pass on it, if it was a 20 horse, I'd go for it, that stuff seems to turn up all the time, but this one did look pretty clean, and intact, all the knobs were there, I pulled the rope and it felt like it had good compression, the lower unit looked good, it shifted between gears good (F/N/R) it was kind of greasy looking, maybe just a good clean up? the story was that it came from an estate, it was one of two motors that the guy used to swap out on his boat, when he sold the boat, he kept this motor, and when he passed away, the guy that has it now ended up with it, and this guy knows nothing about boatiung at all, or so he says ....

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

thanks for the fast responses, it's nice to know when something like this comes up, I can get a fast answer the th question, you guys responded really quick

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I think I'm going to pass on it, if it was a 20 horse, I'd go for it, that stuff seems to turn up all the time, but this one did look pretty clean, and intact, all the knobs were there, I pulled the rope and it felt like it had good compression, the lower unit looked good,....

If only that stuff turned up around Gadsden, AL all the time I would have it made . I went to look for a 25HP and all the old timers (no offense old timers) done bought them up. I asked a local boat repair place if he had any 25HP motors and he laughed at me and said if you find one local you let me know. The one I did find was a mercury Blah Yuck and then some, it was out of my price range, way out of my price range.

Off subject I guess I'm going to half to shut my darn computer down one of the fans is making a noise . Just started it dad gum it. Oh No Problem Mr. Stuart anytime.

 

[ezeke]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I would not take it as a gift. :redface:

 

[rndn]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Very very hard to find a two line gas tank in good shape. I was told the tank is worth more than the outboards.

 

[samo_ott]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I'd buy as many as I could for $100 each! That's a great deal in my opinion. I've been looking for one for a while now. The tanks can be found easily for $50 to $75 or so or it could be converted over to a 1 line tank by adding a fuel pump. Too bad your so far away or I'd go get it!

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I don't know how one would go about doing it, but it would be nice to have people in "stratigic points across the US that could ship stuff when we find something, I know in a lot of cases like on ebay, I think there's a lot of that stuff that they charge way to much to ship it, or their just not willing, for me, I sell on ebay, and don't have any problems with shipping stuff and it wouldn't bother me to ship stuff like that if someone wanted something.

couldn't you take a motor like that and pull the lower unit and ship it in a couple of boxes? I know they way I ship, I have a limit of 75 pounds, but that's the weight of a newer 10 horse, take one of those 20 or 25's and take the lower unit off and I'm sure you could ship them.

if you find something in my area, and the seller wasn't willing to ship, I wouldn't have a problem picking it up and shipping it to you.

it would be nice to have some contacts in other cities that would be willing to do the same thing, that would open us up a little better to get some of those hard to get items for our boating adventures.

I saw a 5 HP engine in Minnesota a while back that I wanted but the guy wasn't willing to ship it, it would have been nice to know someone that could have picked it up and shipped it.

just my 2 cents

 

[samo_ott]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Interesting idea... Even under 75 lbs the shipping would still be way more then the engine I would think in this case. So is it really worth it? Dunno...

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Interesting idea... Even under 75 lbs the shipping would still be way more then the engine I would think in this case. So is it really worth it? Dunno...

I don't know, I know it can be done pretty cheaply around the US, but I don't know how that works when shipping to Canada, we have some flat rate boxes and if you can get it to fit in the box, it's like 9 dollars shipping for anything up to 75 pounds, and I know I can at least get the power unit in that box, you can ship a manual car transmission that way if you brake it down.

I'll eyeball my 10 horse and see how or if there would be a way to do it, but my 10 horse isn't forsale ....well, maybe, if I could get, oh, say maybe $15,500 out of it, hey, I'd sell it but maybe that's expecting to much for such a little motor?

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

ok, now you got me really starting to think about something like that, I think it would be kind of cool, these forums are a community, a community of people of like interests, and from the internet searching I've seen, when you take the country as a whole, there's a lot of good deals to be had, if you can get them shipped to your door at a reasonable cost, when I do the Craig list looking for boat stuff, there's times I look in other cities that if by some slim chance the person selling would be willing to ship, but I think there would have to be some rules to it, like a maximum weight, distance your willing to travel from home to look at said item, not charging for boxing and travel time, ect, ect.

I think what goes around comes around, and if you have a small group that's willing to do something like that, it might ad an interesting twist to the hobby or sport, or what ever you want to call this.

This has been done through a model airplane forum for model aircraft stuff, but that stuff is generally small and light weight compared to things like boat motors and such, but I've been able to ship complete model airplanes pretty reasonable, but they have been light weight although the packaging has been large, and you can ship stuff as large as a big airplane through greyhound, but you have to go pick it up at your local terminal, I don't know if greyhound would handle a boat motor or not, they put them in the side compartments on the buses for transit, I do know they will take a 40 or 50 pound plane and ship it pretty cheap.

To do something like this, I think you'd have to have a few people that are trustable, reliable, easy to get a hold of and can do the pickup and shipping in a reasonable amount of time.

my brother does something like that with a car forum, they have a loaner tool program, and the tools get shipped all over the country, all you have to do is pay the shipping, then when your done with the tool, you pass it on to the next guy.

one of the forums I belong to, we did that with an airplane, that plane has been around the world and has been flown something like 80 or 90 times by as many people.

 

[jimyoung]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

I have two of the old tanks with the dual lines. paid $20 for one and got the other with a 5.5 johnson I paid $25 for.

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

On the shipping deal I believe we talked about that on another thread, but yes come to think of it, on an older motor separating the lower unit from the power head would pretty much be helping the new owner of the motor out because all he would half to do is put a new impeller in and change the gear oil then slap the motor back together. You could even ship it with reminders or instructions on what needs to be checked and or replaced before putting the motor back together after receiving it.

 

[jbjennings]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

Well, Mr. Stuart,
About the 2-line pressure tanks. I've got 3. 2 are restored and in my house with new hose on 'em. They all work great. I've got a nice 6 gallon milemaster that works great that I use daily and am going to paint it, too. The only problem I've had is when the temp. drops about freezing or below, you'd better have good hoses and clamps on everything or the rubber fuel hose will stiffen up and leak air and you'll have to pump the primer to keep it running. They sell rebuild kits for them. Like others said, you can put a fuel pump on 'em, too. I put a darned briggs and stratton pulse vacuum pump on my '55 7.5hp and my '53 johnson 10hp for about 35 bucks and they work great, too. If I can do it with no problem---anybody can.
Now for the 25hp. I've never had one but want one VERY VERY BADLY. Like ALabama said, there are no older motors around my area either, much less a 25. A guy on one of the AOMCI sites in Canada had a '55 johnson 25 hp he said was like new but wanted $1000. That might seem like a lot but to me it's only about 25% of the cost of a new one these days. If I had the money and he'd ship it I'd consider buying it. But then again, I'm not known for being the sharpest knife in the drawer. If Tashasdaddy said it's hard to get parts for, I'd have to think long and hard about it myself, but for around 100 bucks, I'd already have it at home griping about how I was going to get a new ____ for it. I'm really, REALLY jealous of you guys up North that have access to all those good, cheap outboards which drives the price down. I'd be embarrassed to say what I'd paid for mine on average but probably about 3 times what you pay when you consider shipping. I will say that one of my favorite motors I got on ebay for 150.00 ('57 18hp). Speaking of shipping, I've only gotten about 1 out of 4 shipped that weren't broken and most were packed as good as I would have done it. --I like your idea, though!
Good luck,
JBJ

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

The motor that you looked at is the forerunner of the later Evinrude 35hp Bigtwins. The same basic engine was produced and sold in a variety of models through a version of the OMC 40hp engine that was sold up until about the mid 1970s.

Many of the parts were the same as later models but some changed. One in particular that I am aware of is the clutch dog. According to my local OMC dealer there is a difference between the dogs in models older than 1957 and you can't get them anymore. What you can sometimes do, however, is to swap parts. For example, unless the splines on the driveshaft are different, you might be able to put the lower unit from a late 60s 33hp motor on that engine because the mid-housing is probably the same.

I don't know that I would have bought the motor to use on a frequent basis but I might well have bought it for $100 just because it would be a great motor to restore and put on an antique boat. No big deal if you change your mind later though - these motors still pop up on Craigslist, EBay and estate sales pretty frequently.

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

The motor that you looked at is the forerunner of the later Evinrude 35hp Bigtwins. The same basic engine was produced and sold in a variety of models through a version of the OMC 40hp engine that was sold up until about the mid 1970s.

Many of the parts were the same as later models but some changed. One in particular that I am aware of is the clutch dog. According to my local OMC dealer there is a difference between the dogs in models older than 1957 and you can't get them anymore. What you can sometimes do, however, is to swap parts. For example, unless the splines on the driveshaft are different, you might be able to put the lower unit from a late 60s 33hp motor on that engine because the mid-housing is probably the same.

I don't know that I would have bought the motor to use on a frequent basis but I might well have bought it for $100 just because it would be a great motor to restore and put on an antique boat. No big deal if you change your mind later though - these motors still pop up on Craigslist, EBay and estate sales pretty frequently.

That’s why I didn't jump on the motor, they pop up pretty regularly around here, it's my understanding that 1957 or 58 would be the best years to get, so I'll keep looking, the other issue I had with this one is it's to big to use as a troller on the big boat, and the little boat is rated for up to a 20 HP, so if I'm going to be looking for an old outboard, I probably need to be looking for something 20 horse or less, this 25 I looked at wouldn't have been the best choice for either of my boats, although it wouldn't have taken much to clean this one up, I am still kind of half way thinking about it (even though I shouldn't), I can still get it as long as he hasn't sold it yet, but it's probably going to go pretty quick,

 

[Mr.Stuart]

Re: Early 50's Evinrude? should I buy it?

On the shipping deal I believe we talked about that on another thread, but yes come to think of it, on an older motor separating the lower unit from the power head would pretty much be helping the new owner of the motor out because all he would half to do is put a new impeller in and change the gear oil then slap the motor back together. You could even ship it with reminders or instructions on what needs to be checked and or replaced before putting the motor back together after receiving it.

I kind of like the tool idea that the members of the board are doing that my brother belongs to, how many times have you wanted some sort of tool for working on one of these outboards and just didn't want to pay the price to buy one when your only going to use it once or twice? Keep in mind there's also people on here that could probably afford the queen Mary, while there's others here that would be lucky to afford a cheap raft (more like me) some of us have huge boats, some don't, so being able to borrow a tool that gets passed around through the mail would be cool I think, especially for the ones that may not be able to afford to buy one.

I'll face one fact, I got the little boat because I can afford to run it, any bigger and I might have to talk to the bank for a loan just to put gas in it, that's why I see my little boat getting used a lot more then the big one.

ok, getting back on topic, (I tend to wonder all over the place) I'll keep looking for an outboard but look for something 20 horse or less.

you guys were really quick with your responces today and it helped out a lot in me making a decision on this outboard, I really appreciate how quick you guys posted.