I recently acquired an old 1979 Johnson Seahorse 15hp. A local outboard mechanic was going to junk it, and I told him that I was looking for a clunker to break down to see how she ticks. I managed to take her completely apart, and put her back together again. She must have taken water into the crankcase, as it was rusted pretty good, but I managed to clean it up. I then put her back together again, but I have two questions. First, I realized that as I was putting tha two halves of the crankcase back together again, I could not spin the crank shaft if I snugged the bolts in. I assume that this is because I did not replace the gasket (remember...this is just for practice), and that that little bit of clearance made the difference. The second question is...when I finally got to replacing the plate that the magneto coil etc. mounts to, which sits around a circular collar formed by the two halves of the crankcase, it no longer fit! I don't get it. It seemed fool proof. The seam looked tight as a drum, but the darn plate wouldn't fit on it anymore. What went wrong?<br />If this had been a real job, I would have been in trouble. Could the fact that I may have left the crankcase bolts just a tad less than super tight to overcome the problem of the crankshaft not spinning have made the difference? As I said, the seam looked tight to me, but.......... Any advice would be appreciated.
