Another Aquasport headed back to the water

[fitz73222]

As long as this engine has been sitting after the carbs are rebuilt you should replace the fuel pump diaphragms that are probably toast, internal fuel lines will be brittle and should be replaced also. When you fire this thing up assuming it is oil injected make sure you start it on premix oil and gas at 50-1 or even 24-1 and don't rev it up to see how good it sounds! Let it run off idle for a good 20 minutes before "playing" with it. It's 50/50 if it will live or not. Roller bearing and journal pitting from rust likely has occurred considering the boat looked like it was parked and left for dead but miracles do happen and I've had 60 year old barn find outboards laying in the dirt that I've brought back to life to still purr like kittens after a complete systems upgrade so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[DFishnSea]

As long as this engine has been sitting after the carbs are rebuilt you should replace the fuel pump diaphragms that are probably toast, internal fuel lines will be brittle and should be replaced also. When you fire this thing up assuming it is oil injected make sure you start it on premix oil and gas at 50-1 or even 24-1 and don't rev it up to see how good it sounds! Let it run off idle for a good 20 minutes before "playing" with it. It's 50/50 if it will live or not. Roller bearing and journal pitting from rust likely has occurred considering the boat looked like it was parked and left for dead but miracles do happen and I've had 60 year old barn find outboards laying in the dirt that I've brought back to life to still purr like kittens after a complete systems upgrade so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Oh my fingers have been crossed this whole time.
I considered the trim/tilt unit working and not leaking a huge victory.
I plan on replacing every fuel line and hose in this boat, not willing to risk losing it over a small section of hose.

My friend said that a long time ago he disabled the oil injection and just premixed, so I'm going to premix very oil rich for the first startup (I'm still assuming the tank has holes in it, until I see otherwise). I am assuming that the bearings will be no good, but as long as they don't make noise louder than the exhaust it wont bother me. If the bearings are really bad I am prepared to split the power head apart, drop in new bearings, quickie hone and rering the pistons. I still am trying to figure out at what dollar point I just scrap this old Suzuki and just repower (I'm at around $300 right now).

I do also have a plan B, which is scrap the motor, repaint the whole boat and repower it at the end of the year. But I am a big fan of doing this for a little as possible as fast as possible to enjoy the summer boating season.

[Woodeneye]

.......and?

[DFishnSea]

Sorry for the long wait. I've been struggling to make progress recently, but I do have enough for another update.
On with the show.

My favorite delivery guy showed up last week with a box of goodies. New throttle and shift cables to replace the nice, rusted solid cables on the boat now, and some rebuild parts. First surprise is everything is genuine Suzuki parts, it even has symbols I cant read, so it must be good.


I open up the new water pump kit and I see this. I am neither an Authorized Suzuki Dealer or a qualified service mechanic so I guess I should stop. I've rebuilt more challenging things, I think I got this.


Looks like it was about time for a water pump rebuild, doubt it would've ran for too long. Cleaned all the gasket surfaces and drop the new gasket and plate on, pretty sure I have the plate on right. Also note the repair of my previous oops on the lower unit, I hope this pleases the Japanese motor gods and grants me many hours out of this old girl. Add some fresh oil to the lower unit and its ready to go back home.








After some anti-sieze on all the bolts and a little bit of grease on the driveshaft, the lower unit went home without any major issues. Until I tried to connect the shift linkage. Reinstalling the lower unit in reverse (linkage hole is in the lowest position) its impossible to just reconnect. I had to find a long screwdriver to pull the shift linkage up while also forcing the connector down in too small of a space. After about 45 minutes of messing around, I got it all connected.

Time to strip the carbs and fuel pump off and get them soaking in carb cleaner.






Pulled the fuel bowls off and everything is all gunked up. Time for some fun.

[DFishnSea]

Well I finally made enough progress to consider doing an update.
This one will be a little light on pictures because when things turned bad, taking pictures was the last thing on my mind.

I was able to rebuild the fuel pump without any drama. It came apart, I soaked in in my old bucket of carb parts cleaner, dropped in the new diaphragms, spring and viola, rebuilt fuel pump.
The carbs on the other hand...




The first two carbs came apart with ease. tore them completely apart and soaked every part for at least 24 hours in some carb cleaner. This stuff seems to eat everything that isn't metal, including the gloves I was wearing. Not sure how old this can is, but it has seen many old Holleys.



The frustration came when I went to pull the last carb apart. and this little guy was the source of all my frustration and 3 week delay.



That is the nozzle and jet for the carb, and that one specifically wasn't the trouble child.
Taking apart the last carb, I managed to round off the head on the nozzle. No problem, I should be able to hit it with some penetrating oil and a set of vise grips should get it to come right out... NOT. I just tore a bunch of material off. So to try to save parts, I tried backing out the jet...stripped that also. Then frustrated and without a lot of options I opted to drill out the jet and use an easy out so I can just buy the replacement parts. That was a pretty good plan until it came to the replacing the parts, the correct size jet has been discontinued for quite some time.

So now able to order a new nozzle, but no jet, I started looked all over. $100 for a carb off ebay, couple parts motors all around the state for more than I wanted to pay, I even came up with the idea of tapping the new nozzle to fit a Holley jet (I've got tons of em, sure I could find one the right size) and it should work. I ended up finding the later DT85s used all different size jets (it makes no sense to me why all 3 carbs would have completely different jetting) but one was oh so slightly smaller, so I went with that size jet. That one just happened to be on back order and took a couple weeks to get here.

So now to today. Reassembled the last carb, and slammed them all back together on the motor. Ran new fuel lines, primed the fuel system, and cranked the motor.
Unbelievably, it started right up and set into a high idle of around 1500rpm. I fiddled with the idle mixture screws, pulled the carb linkage off, and it now idles happy at around 800. Looks like I've got some some adjusting to do with the linkage, but this old oil burner is alive and sounds great.
Its too hot outside right now and I feel like I deserve a beer.

[fitz73222]

Good job Matt,
Its very common for the main jet sizes to be different between carbs, typically slightly smaller as you go down for inline engines. There is something very satisfying about bringing something back to life thats been left for dead. I recently purchased 16 outboards from an older gentleman ranging from 1932 to 1980, each full of mud dobber nests, rotten wiring,most all were original that haven't been run in 50-60+ years, engine designs I've never worked on before and each will tell me their own story. Nothing better than going through all their issues, finding parts and hearing them pop for the first time when you pull the starter over in the test tank.

[Woodeneye]

Well done. I just had a feeling you'd get the old girl going.

[DFishnSea]

Good job Matt,
Its very common for the main jet sizes to be different between carbs, typically slightly smaller as you go down for inline engines. There is something very satisfying about bringing something back to life thats been left for dead. I recently purchased 16 outboards from an older gentleman ranging from 1932 to 1980, each full of mud dobber nests, rotten wiring,most all were original that haven't been run in 50-60+ years, engine designs I've never worked on before and each will tell me their own story. Nothing better than going through all their issues, finding parts and hearing them pop for the first time when you pull the starter over in the test tank.

That kind of makes sense with the jetting now. They most likely adding more fuel to help with cooling, since that top cylinder gets water that has passed by the bottom two.

It was really rewarding to hear it go bang right off the bat too. It didn't even hesitate to start. I primed the fuel system enough to fill the carb bowls and within a second or two of cranking it fired right up and set into an idle.

I think either tomorrow after work or Thursday I'll pull the center console off and take a good look at the fuel tank to make sure it doesn't have any more holes in it than it needs. If all goes well there I could be looking at pulling all new fuel and water hoses under the deck real soon and going for the first splash in the water in 17 years.

[DFishnSea]

Well today I got to dig in to the stuff I haven't been looking forward to.

It started with clearing the batteries out, disconnecting wires and propping the console up so I can remove the gas tank. Tank looks nasty, not sure how this is going to go since I have been smelling bad gas for the past week around the boat.



Also, while removing everything from the center console I saw another prop, this makes 4 that I've found in the boat... but this one is different. Its plastic...? I know they make plastic props for trolling motors and small motors...but for a 85hp motor?


Most of the screws didn't seem to have much bite for the console, and half of it was caulked down. I planned on epoxying the holes and re drilling so everything seals nice and is held down firmly. Also, the tank cover was sealed with what seemed to be latex caulk... I cut that out with ease and got to see the gas tank and hoped for the best.



With the cover off, I got to see why the floor was soft. Looks like about 2 ft of wood under that cover is completely rotten, conveniently where the driver stands. I guess I get to play with fiberglass after all. I'll just glass in some new marine plywood and try to seal the bottom of the wood better than this.



Might be able to clean the sending unit. What do you all think?


And now out comes the gas tank.



There are no holes in the tank.
I think cleaning the tank will do wonders. Anyone have any good recommendations for cleaning the inside of the tank? There is some good sludge in there.
I would prefer to do it myself to keep with the getting back on the water with as little money into the boat as possible.

Time for more cleaning and then time to start running new hoses. Getting closer every day.

[Woodeneye]

Whatsup?

[DFishnSea]

Whatsup?

Progress has been at a stand still. Been super busy with work and house projects.
I didn't have the best of luck cleaning the tank and there is still solid material in it so I'm going to cut it open to clean it really good then weld it back together.

All new fuel lines are pulled through. The fill line was fun, a good bit of foam decided to marry it to the hull, all the lines were original too (1987 printed on em).
I'm in the process of running some new wires too. I think when I tipped the center console over, all the corrosion molecules holding hands couldn't take it anymore.

[Woodeneye]

You will get there. Can of worms old boats aren't they?

[DFishnSea]

Saying I have been a little busy the past 2 months would be an understatement. Brother had a kid around my last post, best friend had his first kid a month ago, work got a lot crazy, a hurricane named after me (yay!) came to visit, and again I have been dealing with the fun of owning a home built in the 70s.

During that time I did manage to get out on the water. A couple friends and I took my dads boat out, sorry not an Aquasport, a couple miles offshore. As much as I would love to say we just slayed the fish and filled my huge Igloo, I will just say the company was good, the beer was cold, and the tunes were on point. As the saying goes, Life is Good.







Time to get this Beer Science project rolling again. I'll save the gas tank for later, that may upset some and humor others.

So I need new battery cables. After going to the local boat part store and asking how much cables were, I walked out empty handed and laughing. I then went to another store that wasn't so overly priced, and again same situation. I looked around online and sure enough, I found better priced cables. Total I was looking at paying around $80-90 for the set of cables to run back to the motor. I still found that ridiculous and decided to take matters into my own hands.

Note, I have never made battery cables, but I have watched a YouTube video on how to do it.
So, what you are looking at here is a whopping $25 in material.


2 gauge wire is pretty cheap at any home improvement store, in fact its about 1/3 of the price of regular boat wire. My thinking is that if the whole wire is sealed up good, soldered connections and heat shrink wrapped good, I shouldn't have a problem with water or air getting in, therefore I shouldn't have to worry about corrosion. I could be completely wrong and cursing myself out on the water, but I let someone else have the fun of saying "I told you so"

Well, my wire strippers aren't made for 2 gauge wire, so I had to use the tried and true box cutter and spin the wire.




Well, as you saw before, I don't own a vice, but I do own vice grips (I'm seriously doubting the usefulness of a vise). The lucky piece of equipment was the table on my belt sander.


Drop the plug of solder in, add heat, when melted stab wire in, then profit.






So now I have 2 black battery cables to run back to the motor. Planning on color coding the heat shrink so I can tell which is positive and which is negative.

[wingtime]

I hate to say this but 2GA marine battery is made up of much more finer strands of wire. This makes it much more flexible and resistant to fatigue cracking. Further more the higher number of fine wires increases the surface area in the cable and thereby the amount of amperage the cable can cary.

[fitz73222]

I hate to say this but 2GA marine battery is made up of much more finer strands of wire. This makes it much more flexible and resistant to fatigue cracking. Further more the higher number of fine wires increases the surface area in the cable and thereby the amount of amperage the cable can cary.

Totally agree with Bruce, that cable will break over time at the engine pivot point.