It's alive!!!

Well, as mentioned, after getting the trim running it was time to start putting things back together. So I put in the new impeller and reattached the lower unit. At first I though Murphy was out to get me again, but he just made a quick visit and then left, I'm happy to say. The first issue was I was missing the impeller key...it wasn't in my parts bowl. After rechecking a few times I decided to take a quick look around where the old Bayliner was parked when I removed the LU. I wasn't expecting to find anything, but after 30 seconds or so, there it was. Then the only other issue was that the impeller didn't want to fit on the shaft at first. Hit the shaft with little 320 grit and then it slid right on.

After that, it went smoothly...too smootly. The only thing that was even somewhat difficult was getting the shift linkage reconnected. And even that wasn't that bad. I was fully expecting some sort of failure or problem... Put the muffs back on and cranked it up. No water from the exhaust relief ports. Motor not getting hot though, so water must be getting through...finally ran it at a fast idle for a bit and apparently the thermostat finally opened and it started spitting out the ports. No pee hole in 1977, so that's the only indication I've got. Still have to do a final check in the water...but thus far it looks good.

And you might have noticed I mentioned that I cranked it up. That is without the aid of a squirt of fuel down the carbs. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that it wouldn't crank up without help... Well before starting on the lower unit and trim, I pulled some Sea-Foam into the carbs and it sat for like 3 weeks. I also fixed a badly dry-rotted fuel line that went to from the fuel pump to the crank case. I think this is the fix that actually made a difference. Before, when I choked the motor, I didn't really notice any change in the cranking process. Now, while choking, I can tell a definite slowdown in cranking as the vacuum pulled make it harder to turn the motor over. Anyway, I gave it a squirt of gas to get it running the first time after sitting with the Sea-Foam and then ran the gas out of the carbs. Took a little cranking, but it finally fired up on it's own. So I'm going to try it running for awhile and see how it goes...

However, there has to be some type of setback doesn't there. I had to unhook some wires from the trim solinoid to run them to the control box and whilst doing that the side of the solinoid busted and one of the posts broke clean off. I'm going to try and solder the post back on and silicon it all up first. Hopefully that will work...it not like it's a critical system or anything. If not I guess I just need to buy a new solinoid. The OMC part is $40. I figure I can find a different replacement if I look...

The final thing I've done in this update is break out the epoxy. Time to work on the bottom gouges. I finally took some pictures of them in various states of repair. One of them was fairly deep, but even it seemed to fill fairly well. I just sanded a bit with some 120 grit, cleaned with denature alcholhol and slapped on some fairly thick epoxy. I just put a glaze over the scrapped up keel. I still need to sand the final result once it cures fully. We'll have to see how it goes, but I think it will be okay...

So we should be ready for a water test pretty soon. Then time to move on to the interior...

From Project Fisher