February started off fairly well with acquiring a 5 Hp 2 stroke outboard motor second hand. Although the outboard is known to run (Matt saw it running when he picked it up from Manchester for me), there were a couple of potential problems with it which might be significant once I have a tender that it needs using with. At the moment it’s main purpose is likely to be moving the main boat until I have checked out the inboard engine but the problems will need fixing. I rather want to be able to get the boat from the slipway to an assigned berth without needing to rely on the un-proven inboard engine starting first time. Although I dont anticipate any issues, having never run it after the re-build and also having no water in the cooling system a backup plan seems essential.
The first identified problem is that the “stop” switch on the engine is a non-original push button rather than anything that works with the dead man lanyard which came with the motor. I managed to obtain a suitable substitute switch but that required changes in the method of mounting it (The threaded portion was about half the length of the previous one as well as significantly narrower). The short thread length was solved by sawing and filing off the ‘collar” molded into the tiller body. The diameter of the mounting was much smaller than the original part but a set of hole saws allowed me to cut out a spacer and a bright yellow mounting washer from an old trailer numberplate. The wires were then soldered onto the correct set of contacts (the switch has two pairs of contacts – One close to stop and the other open to stop) and protected with heat shrink tube.
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The second problem is that I think the motor has been used with remote controls and on re-fitting the tiller the outer part of the throttle cable was not attached to the rest of the motor in any way. Therefore something like half of any control input just moves the cable outer rather than altering the throttle.
I identified a feature of the engine block that included a blind hole that roughly lined up with the position of the throttle mounting tab and also a steel pin (from the junk collection in my garage) which is a reasonably close fit into that hole. At the time of writing this (Early July) I am still working on a method of ensuring the pin stays in the hole so the throttle works properly. At the moment it has a long piece of steel welded onto it which should engage with the remote cable mountings to stop the pin popping out of the locating hole.
The other significant event in February was a trip to Dorset to look at a site where we are potentially putting our caravan for the rest of the year so we can investigate various potential places to move house to. This is at least partially because Helen met a couple on her cruise last month who live in the area and are members of a sailing club in Poole Harbor.