Fletcher 170GTO - as if I don't have enough projects.

[Ed]

hahahahaha

[Ed]

So a minor but important update.

I found a complete tilt/trim unit from ebay USA and had it sent over, all in for about £260. So not too bad. It was promised working and ready to go, and initially it looked fine:



So I tested it on a battery and it made a horrific noise and seized. Hmm not good. Off cam the motor case and here is what I found:



Turns out the motor case had suffered some kind of heavy impact breaking a corner off one of the magnets. This had jammed in the windings tearing them apart. Bad!!!

Bits of copper wire:


So I emailed the seller saying about the problem asking if he had any new motors I could replace with. He said not but would refund $100. So I set about trying to think how to solve this. A new motor is around £150 and I didn't want to waste even more money. So at this point I decided to do it the old-skool way...

I stripped the armature and drew down how it was wound:


Armed with this I searched and found some suitable enamelled wire on ebay.


Then the fun began!


After only about 20 mins I had finished:






And now its all back in one piece and is working absolutely fine on the bench!!

Just need to re cut some of the threads and get the correct bolts and I can fix the trim unit onto the transom bracket. After this I can start thinking about the power head!

Awesome :)

[jokaboat]

I am even more in awe

[Ed]

Don't be!! Seriously I'm as amazed I managed thisl!! No fear/nothing to loose helps though haha

[jokaboat]

It's when you start building your own motors from scratch I'll be really impressed

A pal of mine helped build a full sized steam train a couple of years ago

Mind you he was a blacksmith working at Eastleigh Railway works at the time.

http://www.nrm.org.uk/AboutUs/PressOffi ... leigh.aspx

[Ed]

That's great!

[jokaboat]

Proper engineering, not quite the fine tolerances that you work to but a lovely beast when it's got a full head of steam up.

[Capn Jack]

Well thats wound that situation up nicely!!

[T 15]

great job, keet the pics coming....

[Ed]

ooh ooh progress!! (kinda)

I have a bench full of boat engines. I've stripped both mercury in-line six block. One needs a clean and overhaul, a couple of broken rings, so a 'new' piston. The other from my old blue boat, has catastrophic failure of the bottom crank bearing due to water ingress, and is looking rather sorry for itself. Block would need a bore, new pistons and such like. However it does have some parts I can use - like a piston, for the other engine!

It all needs a clean and I need to find some piston rings, but other than that all looking good!

[JORIDAPILOT]

Miraculous Ed, I wouldn't dare attempt these tasks.
I was alright when I replaced my 1970 Mark 1 Escort engine and I have rebuilt a 1952 Triumph Thunderbird engine from scratch but these days the engineering is so complex that I would be left with a bucket of bits when I thought it was all back together.
I will stick to building engineering, it is amazing what you can do with stones, sand, water and a bag of grey powder.

[Ed]

These engines are all mostly 1960/70s design. Quite amazing how fast you can pull them to bits really.

Some pics:


Stripped of ancillaries, and crank case cover removed. You can see the intake reeds main bearings and conrod big ends.


Crank and pistons removed. Quite interesting as unknown to me, there is damage to cyl 3. One of the ring lands has cracked. No bore damage, but some crown and ring land damage.


The damaged piston. You can see that the rings are stuck in place too. Carbon does this mostly. The rings stick, then you start to loose compression, or they can jam get caught and snap etc..


The ring land damage.

Everything else looks fine, the bearings are good, and no issues I can see with anything other than sticky rings and a bit of sand getting into the engine, causing I believe this ring failure. Corrosion in the water ways isn't that bad either. Clearly hardy engines these.

Soo..

I decided to then pull apart the old I6 engine that died on my mate Steve. The one that propelled us around the IOW with the SBR massive!! This was rather more um interesting lets say.


Both engines in bits. So I'd always known that the first I6 engine we had, had issues with its bottom water seal. And TBH it should have been fixed as soon as I saw this. I did try to remove the power head (engine block) from the mid section but it was stuck solid. 30+ years of corrosion. It wasn't going anywhere. In the end I had to sacrifice the mid section and cut through it with an angle grinder and finally managed to separate the engine from it.

Anyway on the bench I pulled the crank case cover of and woah. Now I know what happened, namely THIS:


On the left is a bearing carrier, the bottom crank one, and two water seals (well they were once) on the right is the old lower crank bearing- what's left of it. The rest is around my bench and has been eaten by the pistons.. which as it happens look like this:


Number 6 ouch... water getting into this one has ruined the conrod big end crank bearing surface, con rod and gudgeon pin bearings. Then failure of parts/rings etc has killed the piston BADLY and the bores don't look great either.

5 isnt looking so good either:

Notice two stuck rings.

No6 bore:

Loads of impact marks on the combustion chamber surface.

But at the other end no 1 2 3 4 are fine, and are a perfect fit for my other engine!



So what will happen now is I shall clean everything on the new engine, get a set of new rings and start re-assembling the whole thing with all new seals! Keypart have rings in stock, and I have everything else so shouldn't take too long really

[Matt13]

I like all the pictures. I don't know what the words mean.

[Ed]

I like all the pictures. I don't know what the words mean.

hahahaha, I hear that a lot!!!

[jokaboat]

Smashing write up and pics Ed, literally in the case of some of those pistons!