this is rather long but has a few important hints for first timers, way back when I was just a teenager my mate and I thought we should get our own boat, so we started looking around for something cheap that needed some work, I had heard of just the thing in a persons backyard, we went around and had a look at an old 18 foot runabout, all it needed was a new transom, new floor , new windcreen and seats, new steering, new trailer and a "small" repair to a crack the full length of the keel, what a find we thought. We asked the guy what he wanted for it and he said his wife had been nagging him to dump it for years and we could have it for free!! what a bonus. Now all we needed was a motor! found one that was a perfect match, an old in line 6 merc just lying in the grass beside this guys garage, asked him what he was doing with it and he said it was going a while ago and only needed a tune!! we got ot off him for $150 (tells you how good it was huh!) we nearly killed oureseves getting in the back of our car (on the back seat with one door left open a bit), took it home and started to install it, had no idead about height or anything else, it had clamps on it so we just tightened them up and started thinking whether we should bolt it as well, yep we thought we will, found some old bolts and drilled a couple of holes and tightened them up, (no stainless, but we would replace them later, never did though) the old fuel tank was a rusty old 5 gallon job, but we would buy a new one later (never did though) time to start her up, no battery so the one from the car would do! the control cables where extra long, about 30 feet or so, we just coiled em up on the floor, we would get some shorter ones later (never did though) hooked up the earmuffs and kicked her over, sort of honked a bit and spluttered and finally got a bit of a run on, not much water from the tell tale but we could replace the pump later (guess what? never did) great we thought lets take it to the ramp. Battery back in car, hook up rusty unregistered trailer and off we go, in the water, back to car for battery start her up and away we went, it turned out the 5 gallon tank was heaps as the hull was full of water in about 20 minutes and the motor had a belly full of dirt from the old tank anyway. back home and time for that "tune up" HHmm one plug was so rusty that it would not come out, oh well we will replace 5, lots of outboards had less than 6 cylinders anyway! found some old plugs the same reach, plug numbers did not match but who cares, we could get some new ones later (we never did)pulled the drain plug from the gear box and after about 5 minutes a sort of globby cream glug appeared from the gearbox, oh well we will change the oil when we get the new plugs (never did though) time for the carbies to clean out the dirt from the fuel tank. pulled them in a thousand bits on the grass and kind of got them back together again, time for a test start, out with the battery, on with th ear muffs, away she went again (no better than before) but one carby was flooding, my mate gave it a hit with a hammer and it stopped, great we thought, battery back in car away we go to the ramp, battery back in boat, kick her over and it started but carby was flooding again, off with that miracle of engineering, the old merc cowling, petrol was flowing from one carby, we did not want to stop it in case it did not start again, so my mate found an old trailer roller pin in the motor well, he went to give the carby a whack and I do not know what happened, but there was a blinding flash and that unmistakable "wooommppf" that only large amounts of petrol makes when it is ignited, my mate turned to me and he had no hair on his arms or eye brows, fire extinguisher he yelled, I turned around to the one in the boat when we got it ,the bracket had rusted to pieces and we had tied it with some cord that was impoosible to break and the knots where too tight to get undone in a hurry, finally got it free and guess what did not work! the motor is still running at this stage and feeding fresh fuel to the blaze!! we found an old plastic container and filled it with water and doused the old girl, no airbox on this motor so the water stopped it quick smart but spread the fire to motor well, we where just thinking about running like hell when it just sort of went out! great we thought what a kucky break, we towed the beast back home, cleaned the fire damage as best we could and put her up for sale. A guy came by and we told him it goes like a charm, only needs a tune up! and he gave us $500-00 for it, hey that was easy, maybe we should get another fixer upper and try to make a few bucks from home. thank god we never did and I got myself a proper boat., The moral of this story is never buy anything that only needs a bit of a tune.
