Back to the boat

(Good grief, I started writing this post 3 months ago)

With Winter over, and my financial situation sorted back out (corporate re-orgs are not fun), perhaps we can get back to the boat.

When we put it away last fall, we replaced the seals on the propeller shaft and refilled the lower with oil. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to address the carburetor issues.

I say we because you have been coming along with me on this adventure. You may not know it, but I think of you all as I work on stuff. After all, if I couldn’t share this with you, I’d have cut my losses and sold the boat at the first sign of problems.

Anyway, I purchased replacement bowl floats and a rebuild kit for each of the three carbs. My original plan was to just fix the floats and float valves to see if that helped, but I’ve got the parts so I might as well replace them.

The first step was to open up the cowlings and loosen the front support member. I need to get tools in there, and have room to get the carbs out.

It didn’t take much work to get it apart. The hard part is remembering how to put it back together again. I did place nuts back on bolts so they wouldn’t get lost. The few things I removed got put into a zip-top bag.

Here is a carburetor.

While working, I wiped out any excess oil and dirt. There sure was a lot of it. The bottom “C” carb was leaking a bit, so left a puddle of oil and who knows what in the catch basin below it. All of the carbs leak a bit, and Mercury added a catch basin which drained into the parts below. I assume it dumps into the exhaust in the lower, but who knows?

It took some contortions of my body, but I got them out. My wrists don’t bend the way they need to, apparently.

Next up is rebuilding these. I hope to have the post up soon.