1960 Mercury 300E
Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 6:20 pm
The project 300 continues sowly. The last post was in Deceember 2016 and the changeover of the forum hosting put paid to some of the history.
A some stage a used coil arrived courtesy of ebay.com. I was able to get it sparking properly, but unfortunately broke a chip off the disty cap by putting too much pressure on the tang that prevents the bolts from shifting position. A decent used one, to replace the black troublesome version arrived later, from a kind fellow enthusiast in the US.
The most recent task has been to drop the lower unit - I discoved the tilt tube wasn't seized, which means hope for a keeping the mid-section as a spare. As envisaged the l/u hadn't been removed before, so was a bit like wrestling an aligator to remove it. One day I'll cut some wood wedges to help separate it. What looked like fishing wire on the propellor shaft was in fact dessicated weed.
The water pump cover proved hard work - these screw in on top of the wear plate above the impeller and the top has 4 lugs that match the special tool used to remove it. Generally speaking, heat and penetrating oil are enough to shift such things, but not this one. The tool sat proud because the shaft seal had ballooned with rust, by knocking the tool down to gain purchase on the cover I inadvertently distorted the underlying wear plate. After 10 days of the 50/50 recipe it still was welded in situ, the cover threads melded into l/u housing threads. I finally made the decision to drill it and break it up - they're NLA and about $45 in the US so was a bit painful to do. The impeller below had long set, spun on the shaft and has perished.
A some stage a used coil arrived courtesy of ebay.com. I was able to get it sparking properly, but unfortunately broke a chip off the disty cap by putting too much pressure on the tang that prevents the bolts from shifting position. A decent used one, to replace the black troublesome version arrived later, from a kind fellow enthusiast in the US.
The most recent task has been to drop the lower unit - I discoved the tilt tube wasn't seized, which means hope for a keeping the mid-section as a spare. As envisaged the l/u hadn't been removed before, so was a bit like wrestling an aligator to remove it. One day I'll cut some wood wedges to help separate it. What looked like fishing wire on the propellor shaft was in fact dessicated weed.
The water pump cover proved hard work - these screw in on top of the wear plate above the impeller and the top has 4 lugs that match the special tool used to remove it. Generally speaking, heat and penetrating oil are enough to shift such things, but not this one. The tool sat proud because the shaft seal had ballooned with rust, by knocking the tool down to gain purchase on the cover I inadvertently distorted the underlying wear plate. After 10 days of the 50/50 recipe it still was welded in situ, the cover threads melded into l/u housing threads. I finally made the decision to drill it and break it up - they're NLA and about $45 in the US so was a bit painful to do. The impeller below had long set, spun on the shaft and has perished.