Boat Pics

[petermarcus]

I wish I had a pic of the boat when I first dragged it from under the tree. One of the tires on the trailer had sunk into the sand up to its rim, and when I pulled it out, the rubber had disintegrated and I had to get a new tire.

Here's the engine after being dunked mostly underwater a couple years before.




After taking the engine out of the boat, there was a lot of external rust




Inside the flywheel container was the skeleton of a frog or toad. Guess it was a little moist in there.


Here was what was left of the water pump


While disassembling the engine though, I was surprised to see the external rust was just that -- external. The inside of the engine was pristine, even after being dunked and sitting unused for years. Shows how good these engines really are.


I tore the engine down to the block. At the very top is the block with the crank in front of it and the cam to the left (the silver wheel) and the carb next to it. The pistons are in front of the red engine stand with the bearings to the right. Then oil pan toward the front of the pistons with the outdrive (propeller and such) in front of that, alternator (which ended up being fine) to the right surrounded by the belt, and the starter motor (which was one solid piece of useless rust) in front of that, and the exhaust manifold in the very foreground.


All of that ended up being tested and maybe 30% of it was replaced (which was a lot less than I had guessed). The block was blasted and honed, the head was shaved to match, and the end result was a shiny engine!

(I couldn't find a mounting arm for the alternator just to the right of the belt, so it's still the same rusty piece of steel, but it gives a good contrast to what was fixed on the outside)

I didn't try to tackle the deck until the engine was ready, and it's in sad shape right now.




The plan is to cut out the seat boxes flush to the deck, take the rest of the deck out, then replace it with plywood that has 3 or so coats of epoxy on it (thus, waterproof). Then, instead of carpet, there's a marine vinyl that's non-skid and doesn't soak up water (or fish fluids) and I'll probably cover the plywood with that.

Comments

[petermarcus.livejournal.com]

I've worked on worse! I had a bigger boat I redecked out in St Pete Beach, but just when I had it almost done (and at least usable), it got swamped by Hurricane Jeanne and was a loss. The bilge pump wires snapped when the boat hit a couple bad waves (I assume), so water buried the engine...with the battery still above water and still attached to the starter and grounded to the block. The water damage was small, but the battery drained into the salt water and the galvanic difference between the copper windings in the starter motor and the cast iron block just corroded the starter to the engine, and ate right through the block.

[minouette.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would do it! I've seen some marine geophysical electronics which has been exposed to seawater... it's very sad, and smells awful. Shorted batteries in more-or-less sealed pressure vessels are pretty dangerous too. I spend a lot of my time trying to prevent electrolytic currents through salt water... and the rest of the time trying to create them - ha!