So I posted in the past about my old boats and motors. I have an old Mercury motor on the back I bought off a guy in New Jersey, the motor was on e-bay but I purchased it after the auction ended direct. The guy had it listed as a 1958 Mercury mark 58. the 58 was an early model 45 hp motor. What the serial number and face plate said was the motor is a 1960 Mercury mark 400 45hp. The 400 is actually a better motor so I was not pissed. The guy went thru a lot of trouble to make it like a 1958 motor adding stainless steel trim and non stock paint scheme. I drove the motor to an old Mercury guru in Wisconsin last week the guy is going to rebuild the carbs and pretty much everything outside of the block. The guy checked the serial number on the block and it did not match the serial number on the tower. Seems the former owner had a 50hp block installed. The carbs were not jetted correctly among other things the guru had told me the difference when done will be night and day performance wise. The guru laments about the fraud but I am not going to show or race the boat I am kinda excited about having a bliged out sleeper motor. Top speed before the rebuild was 31 mph, can't wait to see what it is now.
Sounds like you bought a Frankenstein motor. I'm sure your guru will have that this humming in no time.
Yes he will he has the fuel pump done and the carbs are rebuilt, just has to redo the mag tower and points, new plug wires and plugs and it will be good to go. Nobody will know it is a frakenstein with the cowel and wrap on.
Who cares if they do... Some of my best lawn mowers were frankenmowers! If it runs good and you got a good deal, that's all that matters.
Good deal? Buying a classic motor is never a good deal. I bought the motor for $500, spent $300 on a new starter, $750 having the lower unit rebuilt, now $600 for the upper end refresh. What the heck I will have it back on the water just in time for Labor Day and time to put it away. One bonus now after meeting with the guy doing the work and him showing me stuff I will now be able to work on my own motors, I have 3 old motors in the garage waiting to be reworked.
Yikes.... Okay so yeah you got duped. I just bought a 15' v-bottom aluminum jon boat with trailer, 6hp evenrude, gas tank, troling motor with 1 year old deep cycle battery, 2 life jackets, anchor, and ores for $525.00 The motor needed about $30 in parts. Everything else is in great shape. Boat was even freshly painted by a auto guy. I know that doesn't compare to what most of you guys have but I wanted a little fishing boat and the deal was too good.
I did not get duped on the original purchase price and the $ I have spent have been in line with what it takes to make a 57 year old boat motor as good as new.
I have to redo my phone laptop email connection so I can post pics. The guy doing the work is like a watchmaker what he is doing to my motor is amazing. He has the carbs rebuilt and mounted and sent me a picture. The motor is stunning it is going to be like new mechanically.
B.O.A.T. Break Out Another Thousand. . Glad you enjoy restoring things. I love to do it to just when i do it i like to do it right witch cost lots of money. Therefore I haven't tried fixn anything in a long time.. enjoy tho Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
I get to pick up the motor Friday night, can not wait to get it back on the boat, the motor is stunning.
Very cool. Have a shop I deal with that the guy has a bunch of old outboard motors on display. He used to race boats back in the day. They are really cool to see the old designs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
They are cool but the way they designed them were not for ease of maintenance. You have to remove the starter to get to the carbs lots of hard to reach screws and nuts. I have a 1958 Mark 55 that I am going to tear down, clean and rebuild. Not going to blast and coat just going to make it run well, the old finish on this motor is original and faded but it will clean up.
Got the motor connections all squared away last night was going to wait till this morning to test drive but I could not wait. Holy crap the motor starts with no choke and purrs, I need to adjust the low speed jet to get the idle just up a little. Best part is even with the low stumble idle it goes to wide open throttle without hesitation time and time again. All I can say is finally it is right, perfectly right. Probably will get 3 to 5 more times on the water before it gets stored for the winter.
