It's ALIVE! - '57 Fastwin brought back from the grave.

oldybutagoody

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
207
Back in February, I swapped an old snow blower for a beat up old '57 Fastwin that I found on Craigslist. This one didn't give up easily but neither did I.
Took it out tonight on a friends old 11 foot tinny and it ran like a top. Had to completely redo the lower unit as it had NO oil in it when I got it. It had rusted to the point that the part that moves the shift cradle was rusted to almost nothing. Replaced the rusted parts, fortunately the gears and clutch dog were good) and resealed it (Thanks HighTrim). It had 60 pounds compression on one cylinder and 0 on the other. Pulled the head and found the culprit, blown head gasket. Replaced that but compression was still only about 30 in that cylinder. Pulled the head again and found it was warped. Lapped it flat and installed another head gasket. Also replaced the rings and honed the cylinders to increase the compression. Coils were cracked so I redid the ignition and rebuilt the carb. Got it to run in a barrel but not well. It wouldn't idle. Rebuilt the carb 2 more times trying to get the low idle circuit to work but it refused to idle. Re checked the coils, and points several more times but nothing seemed to work. Finally bought a used carb from a marine salvage yard, rebuilt it, (4th rebuild, I can do them in my sleep now). Success! Don't know why that first carb wouldn't work, maybe it was a bad seat on the low idle needle.
I'm not a painter, but I did my best with Duplicolor and when I can come up with an extra $50, I'm gonna buy some new decals for it. Sorry I don't have any video, but here's a few pics. Thanks to everyone that helped me along the way, (Even if you didn't know you were because I learned so much from other's questions.)

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jbjennings

Captain
Joined
Jul 18, 2007
Messages
3,903
Re: It's ALIVE! - '57 Fastwin brought back from the grave.

Looks real nice! Just curious...what was your final compression numbers after the rering, hone, and head gasket?
You'll be able to enjoy it for a long time.JB
J
 

oldybutagoody

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
207
Re: It's ALIVE! - '57 Fastwin brought back from the grave.

Thanks. The compression wasn't as good as I'd hoped but it was better. Got it up to 80 and most importantly, 80 in both cylinders.I'm going to check it again after its "broken in". I'll post those numbers when I do. In any case, it runs and idles great.
Looks real nice! Just curious...what was your final compression numbers after the rering, hone, and head gasket?
You'll be able to enjoy it for a long time.JB
J
 
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