the joy of working with old outboard engines?

From time to time we get called to work on old large and small two stroke outboards. These can either be a same fuel line blockage caused by little or no maintenance by the owner. Or it can be simply that an old part as given up the ghost after many years of good service. Either we get to the bottom of it and in many cases get the engine back up and running. Or we let the owner decide whether to go for a new engine or repair their old one.  The one of last old Evinrudes's had I worked on was down to a worn out fuel pump that had seen better days and a new one was far too expensive, so rarer than scraping the engine it was decided to fit a pump that did away with the VRO system and go to the old system of mixing the fuel and oil mix in the tank and use the type of pump that run the model before the VRO system was inducted. this new pump did the job the only problem was that I had to make a bracket to mount the pump as the exsiting bracket was not the right shape or size. However, with a bit of cutting of a small plate and drilling of fixing holes in the plate and the new pump mounted on it, it was time to fit the pipe work and bleed the fuel system and fire up the engine and ensure the new fuel pump system was working correctly. This it did and the boat and engine was returned to the owner so that he could continue his holiday with his family.

The other old Evinrude had a gear shift problem, in the the owner dropped the engine and broke the gear shift lever. A small part, but a bit of a job as the power head has to come off the leg so has to gain access to the broken part and replace it with the new lever. A small part, but a costly mistake to make. A had the job to do last year on a Evinrude 25 which was not staying in gear because of a worn out lever. that was fixed and the owner is happy that the boat and engine performs well and as not broken down since.  

Working nearer to home base for a change

This last week it has been a week of working on projects nearer to home than at the other end of the country in Port Edgar in Edinburgh. It has been a hard week as it involved changing the engine beds on a yacht. this meant a lot of cutting of fibreglass and removing steel plates and cutting down the old wooden subearers so that it was down to the correct height for the new engine to go in. While that as been going on there as been a new project speedboat come in which needs its fuel system sorting out and to get it running again. So it is a busy time in the run up to the Bank Holiday and people needing their boats to enjoy the holiday period.

Looking at a new restoration project boat?

Today we when a looked a a possible restoration of a modern classic motorboat in need of a lot of TLC and an amount of money to bring a Modern Classic Motor Boat a Princess 25 back to life after a number of years of neglect, the basic boat is in good condition.

However, it will need a good clean out and sorting from top to bottom and everything sorting out from the galley sink to the boats' engine re-installing and running up and sea trials doing.

As J-Star Boats is a one stop repair business and its staff are trained in many of the services we offer, or if they do not have the skills then we can source them for our list of sub contractors we know and trust to do the work to a very high standard.  Giving the owner the peace of mind that they can go to sea in a safe well found boat.

We even do jetski engine servicing

From time to time, we get clients who ask us to do work on their engines. This one is a case of just that. The client asked if we could get his son jet ski to run. When we took carburettors to pieces we found that the insides were full of dirt and water. As everyone knows petrol engines do not run on water, it helps if there is petrol in there.

Here are a few photos of what we found when stripping down the carburettors.

 This  photo is of what was washed out of the carburettors, not a good start, no wonder it would not start.