We’ve been down here since late last Friday, brought my 80 yr old Dad with us for his first visit to the lowcountry and saltwater fishing.
Dad and I had gone together and bought a used 16’ johnboat that has a 35 hp Merc with a jet drive unit on it (we mostly river fish up home where the jet drive really pays off).
We had used it a couple of times up home with no problems then the starter bendix came off when the retaining collar broke. I had the starter rebuilt, put it back on and everything seemed to work fine on the last river trip we did a couple of weeks ago before heading down here.
We went up Lucy Sat and ended up getting towed back because the starter bendix wasn’t close enough to engage the flywheel. The “lives on the dock” boat mechanic (Mike Harris) looked at it and kind of confirmed what I was thinking- we moved the brackets in closer and seemed to have just the right clearance for everything to work right. We went out Sunday for a few hours and everything seemed to be working even though we didn’t catch any keepers.
We were offshore with Capt Wally yesterday so we didn’t get out until almost noon today. We went west this time and hit some of the salt marsh creeks. Tried to move to another and the starter was making the same noise, I popped the cowling thinking “I’ve got this covered” but immediately noticed that one of the mounting ears from motor to the starter brackets was cracked
So we’re dead in the water until I can either find another power head for this jet pump or try to fix/weld the ear back (which I have some major doubts about).
Anyone around here know of a decent used 20-25 hp we can beg.borrow or buy to salvage the rest of the week’s fishing trips??? I really want to see my Dad tie into a good trout, red or ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ even a good manta fight would keep him smiling for a long time:smiley:
We’re staying in the second house on the left after crossing Sam’s Point bridge. My cell# (765)426-4437 but we’re on AT&T coverage which can be iffy out at best…text
You should be able to hand crank that engine by wrapping a rope around the flywheel. I wouldn’t let that stop me from fishing. Raymond Martin in Hardeeville can probably weld your ear back on. 843-784-6110
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
That would depend on the skill of the welder. I agree with the Cap. about hand cranking. I once hand cranked a 115 merc over by Great Sail Cay in the Bahamas (two feet on the engine and two hands on the rope). Heck, it even came with a rope stashed in the cowling!
I may need some lessons from you more knowledgeable gentlemen on how to pull start this 35
…3 years ago I was on pain killers and muscle relaxers (and my wife ended driving all the trip home) after I spent 2 weeks of pull starting just the little 9.5 that we had on the 14’r
-and that last weld was done by a union pipe and steamfitter that I’m pretty sure did about as good of a job as possible…
quote:I may need some lessons from you more knowledgeable gentlemen on how to pull start this 35 :D
Nothing to it. Most engines of that size come with an emergency pull starting rope, usually secured under the cowling as tanksgt said. If it doesn’t have one, any piece of 1/4 or 3/8" line will work, but it’s easier if it has a handle of some sort attached. The flywheel has a groove in it made for the rope and probably 2 notches in the top made for the stop knot in the rope. So tie a knot in the end of of a piece of 1/4" line, hook the knot in the notch of the flywheel, wrap the line around the groove 2 or 3 turns in a clockwise direction. Turn on ignition switch, make sure boat is in neutral and give it a good snatch. It will crank… I’ve hand cranked 200 hp more than once. If it’s tuned and you can spin it, you can crank it.
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
Didn’t mean to give you all the silent treatment last night but we lost power until sometime around midnight (looked like half of Lady’s Island was out too?).
I’ve got the boat on the trailer now. There is not a pull cord anywhere on the cowling but I’m betting Capt Stan or Mike will have something down on the dock that I can use. This motor has always seemed to be a little difficult to get started though, even with the new plugs I just put in it, so I’m not real thrilled about sitting there and pulling on it 20 times just to get it to fire…
In the meantime I’m also doing some calling around the local dealers to see what might be available but I’m afraid the vaca budget is going to be challenged :(.
Thanks for all the help in the meantime!
Good friends just up the road have offered his custom built wood boat (“If it’s not here when I get home from work I’ll know you have it”…truly great friends!) but there’s no way I’ll take that offer unless he’s going too!!! It was his wife’s birthday present to him last year and is his pride and joy.
After making a lot of phone calls this morning and having more than one person say to take to Jim Smith at Unique Welding, I gave him a call and he said to bring it on out for a looksee.
Took it on out and he’s pretty sure he can get it back together better than it was before. Since Dad hadn’t been any further east than that we headed on out to HI, did the pier and lighthouse then stopped at Johnson Creek for a late lunch.
Stopped at Dobsons to get our take shrimp order in, then Barefoot for some boiled peanuts and watermelon…just kind of made tourist of ourselves
Thought we’d drop in at Jim’s to see how the repairs were going before heading back to Coosaw. He had just got everything all lined up, tacked together and was checking tolerances/clearances on everything. I can sure tell that he’s worked on boats for a long time and knew exactly what needed to be done…definitely not the experience that the last welder had!!
Hopefully we’ll be back on the water in the morning-I sure hope so because Dad is worse than a kid in penny candy store every time he looks out at Lucy Creek now
I do know that I’ll have some kind of starter pull rope in the boat tool box when we go out to hopefully keep the starter demons away!
How long are you down for? I will watch for you in the creek and if spotted, I will stop by. I can be your back up if anything goes wrong. Good luck fishing.
Thanks for the offer Rifleman! We’ll be heading back to Boilermaker land next Monday-hopefully we’ll be back out everyday until then…doing a little neighborhood get together Friday that I’m doing some smoked pork for. so Friday may a short trip out. Shouldn’t be to hard to spot us-IN reg #'s and three camo seats on a tan colored john boat.
