Outboard Engines.
Like every other project I have undertaken I am very limited to how much I can spend. When I started the Speed boat and Morris Minor I was still in the 1st year of sixth form. I had a very small amount of money from working at Sainsbury's at the weekends.
When it came to buying an engine for the speedboat we were again shocked at the price of boating. But once again we were determined to prove that it can be done cheaply. We spent weeks and weeks searching Ebay for hidden goodies. One night we stumbled across a man selling a job lot of engines. In total there were three engines and none of them ran. We emailed the seller and asked if we could have the lot for £150. He agreed and then that night on a school night at 5pm we set out to collect them. Again this was another absolutely mental idea of ours, The engines were located in Exeter and we in Cheltenham. We told mum that we were 'Just popping out' and not to worry about tea. Mum quite rightfully got very suspicious but before she could ask us why, Me, Andy and Dan were in her little Vauxhall Corsa half way up the road :-)
It took us allot longer than expected to get down there and when we did arrive at about 8pm we realised that the Corsa wasn’t the best car for the job. The biggest engine was a 40hp Evinrude which took up most of the boot and back seat. Eventually with allot of fiddling all three engines and all three of us were squashed into the now creaking Corsa. We paid the man and set off home. After a few short miles, the car stank of petrol inside (from the engines) there was a hole in the exhaust from where it was rubbing the axle and we were all hungry. We pulled over, tried to sort out the exhaust, opened all the car windows and bought three bags of reduced Walkers Sensations. :-) At last! the journey home could begin! With the windows down all the way and the two lads taking it in turn to be crushed by the engines in the back we were back in no time. Well actually it was past 1am in the morning by the time we pulled up. We put the engines round the side of the house and everyone crashed at mine as we had sixth form the next day.
As you can see below, the engines were in a right state.
That weekend we started on the engines. We emptied the wheelie bin, filled it with bricks and water and sat the small engine in. Two stroke mix in the tank, a few pulls and hey presto! it started and ran like a dream.
We then put the 20hp Johnson in the bin, rigged up a fuel system and nothing.
We then tried the 40hp and again nothing.
Determined to get them running the next day I sat in the garage and stripped both carbs, cleaned them and re-built them. With no tuning knowledge at all I set them to what I thought might be about right. Put them in the bin again and kept trying to start it and if it didn’t then check everything again, clean the plugs and adjust the mixture. Slowly bit by bit the engines spluttered into life.
Obvously we had to take it for a quick spin just to see how it goes. It all went very well, it did jump out of gear once but I dont think I engaged it properly. Excuse the bad language from my friend, I think the power took him by supprise :-)
There is still LOADS of work to do and it still looks like somthing from a tip but at least now it is all working.