We splashed Buoy Scout, the Macomber 15 I've been building with my kids since mid-March, this morning at the local lake. Hull performed great - no leaks, no rattles, lots of compliments from onlookers.
The 1957 Johnson 35HP (RDE-19) I bought started up and ran, albeit a bit rough. After an hour or so of piddling around, we finally determined that we had some kind of issue (or issues) going on with the motor, and we reluctantly trailered the rig again and motored down the road to a local repair shop.
Long story short, the first thing the owner told us to do was to fix the free-spinning high-speed needle valve adjuster. He gave us a handful of new bushings, and we headed home to tinker. We removed the adjuster and the metal sleeve that holds it, dug out the old crud from the port, hosed it down with carb cleaner, and then reassembled it. We slid the adjuster shank through the metal sleeve, put three bushings on the adjuster, and then threaded the outer metal sleeve into the threaded port on the motor finger-tight.
Next, we threaded the high-speed adjuster clockwise until lightly seated. Then we tightened the metal sleeve (the outer part that the adjuster goes through - don't have my parts diagram so I don't know what it's called) wrench-tight, which appears to have solved one problem: the adjuster no longer spins freely (at one point this morning, the rattling motor caused the adjuster to fall completely off the motor and we had gas shooting out of the port).
Next, we backed the high-speed adjuster off 3 turns from lightly seated. We didn't adjust anything else from the way it had been this morning. Now, the motor will not fire. The electric starter spins it like mad, and hitting it with a dash of carb cleaner/starter fluid will cause it to fire, but it won't catch.
Now I've got wife, kids, and dad pacing around in their swimsuits wondering when we're going back to the lake for round 2. I know most of you are probably out on the water today, but on the off chance there are any lurkers, I could sure use some fast advice.
The 1957 Johnson 35HP (RDE-19) I bought started up and ran, albeit a bit rough. After an hour or so of piddling around, we finally determined that we had some kind of issue (or issues) going on with the motor, and we reluctantly trailered the rig again and motored down the road to a local repair shop.
Long story short, the first thing the owner told us to do was to fix the free-spinning high-speed needle valve adjuster. He gave us a handful of new bushings, and we headed home to tinker. We removed the adjuster and the metal sleeve that holds it, dug out the old crud from the port, hosed it down with carb cleaner, and then reassembled it. We slid the adjuster shank through the metal sleeve, put three bushings on the adjuster, and then threaded the outer metal sleeve into the threaded port on the motor finger-tight.
Next, we threaded the high-speed adjuster clockwise until lightly seated. Then we tightened the metal sleeve (the outer part that the adjuster goes through - don't have my parts diagram so I don't know what it's called) wrench-tight, which appears to have solved one problem: the adjuster no longer spins freely (at one point this morning, the rattling motor caused the adjuster to fall completely off the motor and we had gas shooting out of the port).
Next, we backed the high-speed adjuster off 3 turns from lightly seated. We didn't adjust anything else from the way it had been this morning. Now, the motor will not fire. The electric starter spins it like mad, and hitting it with a dash of carb cleaner/starter fluid will cause it to fire, but it won't catch.
Now I've got wife, kids, and dad pacing around in their swimsuits wondering when we're going back to the lake for round 2. I know most of you are probably out on the water today, but on the off chance there are any lurkers, I could sure use some fast advice.
