There’s an art to working on junk. I like your dedication and tenacity. They be in short supply in most cases.
Now, what is this???:
Bolts break…no mater what. Feels good when you drill one out right. I don’t know which works better about loosening agents. I like watching the wax get sucked in. PB blaster seems to work…wax isn’t as flammable…so there’s that.
The picture looks like a locating pin stuck to the piston… Or cracked up through. Either way, find a good machine shop to check the block and crank since it’s apart.(Nice to have other eyes depending on price and you having micrometers)
Considering your drive to fix something, I’m in the pool !!!.. that with that motor done right… might outrun you.
There's an art to working on junk. I like your dedication and tenacity. They be in short supply in most cases.
Now, what is this???:
Not sure what the round shape is. The ring locator pin is intact. Only guess, is a purely random shape produced while the ring was being spit out. It appears to be made of the same material as the rest of the piston body. Here's a pic of the intact ring locator pin.
I’m livin on the edge. No micrometers here. Everything else on this old girl is 25 years old and she just doesn’t warrant any significant investment. I’m gonna spend about $180 on parts and throw her back together. See what happens.
I’m going to be optimistic as say she runs another couple of years. I’ll try to remember to video her first start. Could be comical.
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17' Henry O Hornet w/ Johnson 88 spl
26' Palmer Scott project hull
14' Bentz-Craft w/ Yamaha 25
Piston to con rod small end done. Needle bearings are a pita. You have to nest the bearings in the end of the con rod. Then, slide wrist pin into piston and through bearings with out having them collapse…which they do. Manual says buy this tool which is just a little plug the width of con rod that sits inside bearings until the wrist pin pushes through. Had a tapered candle. Mic’d the wrist pin and cut a 1/2" length of candle. Perfect. Easy on aluminum piston and held bearings in place.
Install rings. Slather with 2 cycle oil.
Slide into cylinder and mate to crank.
Lightly tightened con rod end cap and spun crank several revolutions. Everything was smooth.
In the am, torque con rod end cap. Close case. Reinstall all the 12million things I removed.
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17' Henry O Hornet w/ Johnson 88 spl
26' Palmer Scott project hull
14' Bentz-Craft w/ Yamaha 25
people rarely understand the NEED to do a carbon treatment on their motor.
Based on the pictures, if I were betting, I would bet that you got carbon build up behind the rings, ring sticks out just bit farther than it should, and catches the edge of the port on the way down. The broken piece of ring ends up banging around on top of the piston until it gets spit out the exhaust port.
Seen it happen over and over again.
Morale of the story…
the inside needs to be clean as well as the outside
PS
if you ever do another build like this, you can order caged needle bearings for most motors, and they are only a few dollars more than loose bearings, and vaseline does a really good job of holding the loose bearing in place while doing your assembly.
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com
IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
Get it man. Those needle bearings will make you swear.
I rebuilt a Merc 125 that had those as well as 6 different ring compressors. My girlfriend at the time was trying to help me put the assembled crank back in the block while taking off each ring compressor…and told me where I could put the whole motor. She never did get a boat ride.
" Mic’d the wrist pin and cut a 1/2" length of candle. Perfect." The only thing mic’d was a candle…classic. My long lost twin.
Won’t be long now.
First, I hoped that it might be possible to split the crankcase with out removing the power head from the exhaust adapter and it was suggested that it might be possible. It may be possible on other motors, but, on a 1995 88spl (or 90, or 112, or 115), there are two bolts going up through the bottom crank case head assembly (bottom end bearing cover) through the cover and into a ring that goes around the crank shaft. You cannot open the crankcase without removing those two bolts. No way to get to those to bolts without removing the block from the exhaust adapter.
Second, I cannot lie. I did not ‘mic’ the wrist pin. I used a vernier caliper which I like because it makes me look like a Wizard when people see me use it. Invariably, “how do you read that”? (Knew how to use a slide rule for about a month, then never picked one up again. Those guys are Wizards.)
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17' Henry O Hornet w/ Johnson 88 spl
26' Palmer Scott project hull
14' Bentz-Craft w/ Yamaha 25
slide rule…
okay guys im 52 and my dad used one when i was kid
and he is 87 now
I am sure he still has one somewhere.
I will stick with my cell phone
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com
IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com
IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
I’ve still got one of mine in my desk i used before I got a calculater in 1965. It would add, subtract, multiply, and divide and cost only $1,200. It was 12" square and weighed 2 lbs
Late yesterday afternoon, hooked her up to the hose. Because I’d slathered everything inside her (including the cylinders) with 2-cycle oil, she had to spin ten or twelve rotations before she fired, and the first fire was a huge backfire. Scared every dog within a mile and set off a huge barking. My German Shepherd came out of the garage and looked at me like W-T-H Was THAT!? Next turn of the key and she was running. Took her a little while to work through all the extra 2-cycle oil in the crankcase (and I’m running her on 25:1 for break in) so there was some stumbling and coughing. But, a light touch of throttle would smooth her back out. Watched temps of heads as she warmed up. Bottom pairs of heads sat at about 145 degrees and the tops just a little warmer closer to just under 150. Compression check after running about 30-40 minutes showed about 130 psi on the new piston.
I’m a glutton for punishment. Getting that hole up to 130 psi makes me immediately think, I could buy 3 sets of rings, pull the other pistons, hone the holes, and slap it all back together again. But, I think I’ll resist that dark thought, put her in the water and see if she make it through a gentle break in. I think I can do a little trolling for trout while we let those new rings wear in.
Here’s another surprising thing. I kinda’ regularly point a laser thermometer at my heads to make sure they are cooling. Been doing it for years. Before I tore her open, I was getting external head temps in the 140s. 'About where they should be, I think. When I pulled the stbd water jacket cover off it looked like this.
The channels on the other side of that gasket were just as bad. Channels in the block were generally clear and took very little light wire brushing to clean up. Pulled the port cover off and cleaned that side also. Can’t believe she was cooling given that much salt buildup .
. Talk about old school. I wonder how many are out there that could still read one?
