I did something stupid.

In reply to New York Nick :

Ran out of gas because I'm a moron.

golfduke said:

oh man... what a wild swing of emotions on that last post...  But also, fantastic job, it looks so great and period correct.  I'd be curious if you had an approximate 'total' that you spent, including materials and hours?  Curious if I need a project car or boat in my life right now, I'm at a crossroads. 

 

 

Yes, I will share after work today. Almost every penny spent was tracked, including gifts.

Floors came out Awesome!! 

Sorry about the tow.... I think you should be getting a bit better mpg, but how far did you go? 

I'd change the fuel filter when you're cleaning everything out. I'm assuming that you're using new gas? 20MPH is slow for that, but I'd verify via GPS on your phone/fish finder if you have one.

15 gallons of fuel in a day may or may not be high. The rule of thumb I always heard was to divide your HP by 10 - that is your GPH. That means that at or near WOT, you're looking at 8.5 GPH. So if you ran close to WOT for close to 2 hours, 15 gallons is reasonable. I don't know how realistic that rule of thumb really is, but it is what I've heard. The other thing I've heard is to get to the best cruising range, take it up to WOT for about 30-90 seconds, then pull it back to about 3/4 throttle. The old crusty mechanic my Grandpa used told us that this gets spark advance to full, then closes down the butterflies to an efficient level. No clue if that is based in fact or old crusty outboard mechanic lore. 

The last part here is the trim. Assuming you have power trim, you want to be at the point where you're on plane and as little of the hull as possible is touching the water. Water=drag=less efficient. On your boat, you're going to be limited in what this can achieve, but it'll be something. Smaller wake is better than a larger wake. US Boats has a video describing what to do on YouTube, but I'm on my work computer and can't access it. 

In reply to mtn :

I too have heard the HP/10 rule and seems accurate ish if your running WOT. Its is 115hp and a 30 or 35 gallon tank.

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

 The motor fired right up and ran well, but I don't think it was 100%. It revved up and topped out at a nice clip, 20mph if the speedo is to be believed. It just seemed like it had more to give, more revs perhaps. I never cleaned the carbs, so I will look at the plugs and give it a good cleaning and see what happens.

Based on what you said about the motor, you may be able to change the prop and get more speed.

Great pictures, that looks like a fun day after all the work you’ve done.  Relative to outboards, fuel economy and vintage 2 stroke V4 outboards... boats are pigs on fuel especially at higher speeds.   With perfect conditions, a light load and running at slightly more than half throttle you might see between 4 to 5 mpg with that rig, less with a heavier load and higher speeds.  The 3 cylinder 90 Evinrude Etec on my 17’ Whaler will do about 6 mpg running at around 25 mph based on gps distances / 6 gallon tank and that’s with the benefit of the direct fuel injection as well as pretty close to optimum set up and propeller thanks to the research done by the Whaler community.  Let’s not discuss the 5.7 / 4 barrel carbed V8 in the 22’ cuddy. 

You should also check the propeller condition, nicks and dings can have a big effect on propeller efficiency.   It’s also really important to run the right pitch.   Too much pitch will make it accelerate sluggishly and overload the engine as well as using more gas.  Not 100% sure on the V4 but the inline 3 needs to be able to run between 5,000 and 5,300 rpm wide open.  Double check online for the recommended rpm range on your engine and if you don’t already have a tach consider adding one.    Your boat is similar in size to my Whaler, I’d guess the propeller would be a 15” or 17” pitch.  There are propeller calculators on line that you can enter the specifics of your boat.   The pitch should be stamped on the propeller hub, the first number is the diameter, second is the pitch.    Expect roughly 100 / 150 rpm change per inch of pitch change should you want to try something different than what’s on there now. 

Yeah, regarding gas mileage- I know nothing about outboards, but my 22' Ski boat with a direct drive jasper 350 will burn about 20gal of fuel in 2.5 hours of skiing use, including time for starts/stops/skier switches.  You can actually watch the gauge creep if you're on a long pull.  

Boats are not fuel-friendly, haha. 

Thank you big-time for all the great input.

Prop: The prop was pretty dinged-up when I got it. I did my best to clean it up, but it really should be professionally redone or replaced. I'll determine if it is right for the boat, then proceed with fixing or replacing.

Trim - Power trim? Do I look like some kind of Miami jet-setter??? LOL, trim is the old-school method: you have a rod and a few slots and you can set the trim for the day. I will play with some settings and chart the differences. I'd say the hull was out of the water at the windshield, could be more IMHO. Power trims are available, but that's for another day.

Load: The bimini top certainly caused some drag, and we were WOT a lot. We were probably underway for 4 hours, a mix of idle and WOT. Assuming 8.5gph at WOT, we probably did OK. I think that if I can get the motor running a little better, my cruise speed at 75% throttle will be acceptable and I won't have to pin it. It may be running rich too, or be down a cylinder and dumping gas, I'll have to investigate. I am assuming small gains, it will still be a gas pig.

Cost: my goal was to spend between $4000 and $5000 on a boat. My assumption was that if I bought a boat in that range, I'd have to drop another $1K - $3K into it, or live with a boat that had some needs. In the end, I spent $5260.29 on the boat and all repairs and upgrades to the boat, motor, and trailer, as well as title, tags and fees. (I included a pro-rated cost for some of the tools and supplies that I purchased because they weren't 100% for the boat.) There is another $365 in gifts that I received not included in that total, including the Bimini top and boat cover. To duplicate this boat would cost $5500. 

Could I have found a boat with no floor or transom issues, with a newer 4 stroke motor, and excellent vinyl throughout for that cost? Perhaps, but I would have had to have $5K cash in hand, ready to jump on something. I trolled CL for quite a while and never saw a good match for my needs.  (it has to fit in my garage and tow behind my minivan, so 16' open bow boats are few and far between, especially if you want an outboard).  The hull is rated for 110hp, so now that i know the hull and interior are in good shape, I may keep my eye out for a more modern 4 stroke outboard.

3 years ago, you probably could have done better than this for $5k. Since April of 2020, this is about as good a deal as you're going to see. And an added benefit, this boat has new life. In the past it never would have really been worth the work except for sentimentality. Now, the juice is worth the squeeze, because the price of juice has gone through the roof.

Your doing great at that price point.

No tach correct? Tach is super helpful for finding the right prop. I bet you dont have the correct pitch, you should be getting a bit more MPH I think.

https://www.mercuryracing.com/propellers-overview/prop-slip-calculator.html

No tach, I'll see about adding one because I bet I'm low. 
 

The biggest thing about used boat prices was finding one that met my criteria. Most in this size range have a person rating that limits you to four people. This one only has a weight rating, Which allows me to take two adults and several small children as long as I'm under my total weight. I also did not want a glossy hall because it's hard to keep looking good. This has a matte finish That looks the same no matter what. Kinda.
 

Many had an inboard four-cylinder, which means I can't pull it and replace it easily like I could an outboard. A lot of boats this size and cost are jet boats, they always seem to need a new motor. 
 

I also got a check off a bucket list item, restore a boat. Now I have some experience with wood, fiberglass, vinyl, electrical work, and some other things I hadn't tried before. It will be the family boat for a few years until I move on or upgrade, so for 5000 I'd call that a good deal

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

The hull is rated for 110hp, so now that i know the hull and interior are in good shape, I may keep my eye out for a more modern 4 stroke outboard.

 

 

The hull was rated for a 110 HP *two stroke* engine back when the boat was built. Old 2 strokes usually weigh less than modern 4 stroke engines of similar horsepower. I looked up a 1972 Johnson 85 HP outboard, and it weighed about 250 pounds. A modern Yamaha 90 HP 4 stroke is getting bragged about for being light, and it weighs 100 pounds more.

That's quite a bit of weight on the aft of the boat.

Love this boat and just in time for summer. 

Brett_Murphy said:

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

The hull is rated for 110hp, so now that i know the hull and interior are in good shape, I may keep my eye out for a more modern 4 stroke outboard.

 

 

The hull was rated for a 110 HP *two stroke* engine back when the boat was built. Old 2 strokes usually weigh less than modern 4 stroke engines of similar horsepower. I looked up a 1972 Johnson 85 HP outboard, and it weighed about 250 pounds. A modern Yamaha 90 HP 4 stroke is getting bragged about for being light, and it weighs 100 pounds more.

That's quite a bit of weight on the aft of the boat.

 

Ah, good point. I'd have to check weights for sure. I wonder if a very modern 50hp would outperform an older 85hp?

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

Probably not. Most of the advances in outboards have been efficiency related.
 

Before you do anything else, dig out a manual for the motor and do three things-

1) clean the carbs (they're super simple)

2) set the synchronization and linkage on the carbs (that's what keeps all four cylinders running at the same output)

3) check compression on all cylinders

Having fixed outboards for a living, the above three items are easily the most common cause of poor running.

Recon1342 said:

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

Probably not. Most of the advances in outboards have been efficiency related.
 

Before you do anything else, dig out a manual for the motor and do three things-

1) clean the carbs (they're super simple)

2) set the synchronization and linkage on the carbs (that's what keeps all four cylinders running at the same output)

3) check compression on all cylinders

Having fixed outboards for a living, the above three items are easily the most common cause of poor running.

That's my Saturday plan, thanks!

Ok, so I got into the carbs tonight and found something VERY interesting. This motor has a manual choke. It's a lever that closes the main butterfly valves on the carbs. It's under the cowl, and it was in the closed position. Like, almost no air was getting in the motor.  Open, there is an auto choke or you can adjust a lever at the throttle. Why would satan put this thing on my motor? I have no clue. But I expect a better day this weekend. 

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

It’s there in case you have to pull start it.  Yeah, right. 

My Mercury “tower of power” had the manual start / wrap around the flywheel rope stuffed into a pocket behind the front of the cowling.  For E36 M3s and giggles, we decided to try it out.  Cold start, forget it.  After starting / warm engine it would fire but wow, what a pull.  11GTCS was much younger, working with the tools at this point in time and as such had considerably more upper body strength.  That’s why we have cell phones now! 

11GTCS said:

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

It’s there in case you have to pull start it.  Yeah, right. 

My Mercury “tower of power” had the manual start / wrap around the flywheel rope stuffed into a pocket behind the front of the cowling.  For E36 M3s and giggles, we decided to try it out.  Cold start, forget it.  After starting / warm engine it would fire but wow, what a pull.  11GTCS was much younger, working with the tools at this point in time and as such had considerably more upper body strength.  That’s why we have cell phones now! 

We did the cold start on an '82 Merc 70 horse, once. How? Well, you get a 200 lb man, have him hold the rope over his shoulder as hard as he can, and fall into the water and don't let go. 

Took her out on Sunday and was hoping for a big change with the discovery of the choke, but didn't really see one. With all the air coming in, it would stutter and stall. Hmmm, so perhaps now that it has air it is not getting fuel at the high-speed jets? Does it have high-speed jets? Time to break out the manual and pull the carbs and do it right. When all else fails, read the instructions. 

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

Is it falling on its face? Off-idle throttle response went away? Just plain bogging down?

I haven't had a chance to update it in a while so here goes. 

The last time on the water I paid attention to what the engine was doing. It would sit for a while at idle and then run at wide open throttle just fine for about 30 seconds before crapping out. With my wife driving, I manually squeezed the squeeze bulb and it would run at wide open throttle just fine for as long as I wanted. So I traced the issue to fuel flow, there's nothing wrong with the carburetors. So how to fix that?

Step one was replacing the fuel lines from the fuel pump to the carburetor. The originals were pre-bent and are no longer available and I was afraid that I had pinched lines running to the carbs. A combination of fittings and new lines provided a good, unobstructed flow to the carburetors. I tested this and while it helped a little, it didn't solve the problem.

The next test is to try some things that I read on the Internet. Some people have said that the fuel lines can be too long, so I have a shorter one to test. Other people said that some squeeze bulbs are too restrictive, so I have a different brand. I also rigged up an electric fuel pump as a test. I also swapped in a new fuel pump for the motor just in case perhaps I got a bad one.

I tried to test this set up this week but the throttle control unit broke. The plastic gear that engages forward or reverse snapped. Luckily you can still get parts for 1977 motors online so I'll be able to get back out this week. I'm going to test shorter fuel lines and a different squeeze bulb and see what happens. If that doesn't solve it, I'll test the electric fuel pump on a manual switch and see what happens. All I need is a tiny bit more fuel flow!

Good luck! 

Older fuel lines can internally delaminate with ethanol as well. Hopefully it's an easy fix. 

Is the vent open on the gas tank, all the way?