carb floats

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Just one more important piece of information I now have staight in my head.
Thanks for the clarification.

Wonder how much other stuff that someone would find valuable like those powerheads/pumps was blown up in WWII. Probably more than we could ever imagine.

[Mark75H]

Correct on the Johnson P motors being mostly pre-WWII production. I looked it up, my book shows the last production year being 1950. It is also correct that they are not the "pumper" motors.

I think there were 2 sizes of the fire pumps. One used an inline 2 based on the 15ci Johnson K and could donate parts to an A class KR type motor and the other was similar to the 4-60 and could essentially be converted to an F motor with a lot of work and some parts from Hubbell or some other aftermarket parts maker. The motors are far from drop on donors in either case. The motors in a warehouse in Europe that had to be destroyed would have been 33hp "SpeediFours" not exactly 4-60's but similar. About as similar as 140 hp Mercs and Merc T-IIX's ... the same thing only different (as my brother says).

Back to the carb floats needed ... they are nothing in the realm of what you know anything about, Fred

[Allen J. Lang]

The floats are cork and fairly large used in the Vacturi AO 500 carb. The P 500 4 cyl engines were not for high speed rpms.The late Bud Wigert mentioned in a letter that he purchased a large group of them from a surplus store and that they had weak cranks, usually lasting 3 or so races. He also mentioned the Speeditwin blocks to use were from the early '30s as they had the biggest transfer passages. I noticed in an article in the Antique Outboarder that Bud Cowdry (?) used to enlarge the fuel transfer ports by welding to the outside and virtually elimate the origional passage.
The Speeditwin is the engine prefered with a P-50 once in awhile using a S Johnson recontured Lower unit.
Ye Olde Desert Geezer

[niesenracing]

sorry about not answering earlier i forgot i posted. Yes the cork ones they all decided to fall apart at the nationals last year. although i cant really blame them since the motors were built in 60's by my grandfather put in storage raced by my father in the 80's put back in storage and now raced by me