Mercury Mark 40-H

[Mark75H]

Alan, gas and milk cost 35¢ back then and our family of 6 lived comfortably on less than $50 a week. $37 would have been more than a week's pay for a lot of people. The current $490 price for D gears isn't that bad in comparison.

The 25ss came out in '73 and was painted all black, just like the 60J before it in '68, so by '76 there was a well established history of painting the whole lower unit black.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In 1982, I bought 80 pistons with wrist pins, keepers and 3 rings for 20H / 55H applications in standard but mostly .015 oversize for $12.00 each plus tax! I got to choose them for weight and wrist pin height (some neat differences were found decreasing combustion chamber CCs) before I took the ones I wanted that were near the same in groups of 4.

How about a complete new assembled unit 55H gearcase ready to bolt up, add lube, grease and run for $129.00! Or one set of 55H gears for $40.00 a gear.

Your Merc 20H parts pricing was yesteryears realities.

Those were the same prices dealers got and for racers belonging to a registered club known to Mercury at that local area level. That was called Mercury racing support.

[Aeroliner]

Hi John,
Well the post did open up a little discussion. I started a Mercury Dealership up on Long Island in 1970. Sold it in 2004. Yes it was great when Mercury was really behind the stock and MOD racers. Somehow they sort of lost their way, but they still build a great product. I sold parts to the folks from EORC where I was a member and raced with the troops in the North East. They were fun days that's for sure.
Alan

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These days I am still floating on some NOS parts and at those prices and our clubs parts banks back then anyone who wanted to update did it in volume with some extras on the shelf for eventualities.

I took a quick sneak out to the garage to have a good look at the Nydahl front case in mockup. It is a very tight compact setup where you can use 2 large reeds per side V type reed blocks per carb or 3 reed per side blocks you you either have 4 or 6 transfer reed openings per carb. I have no idea which is better as opening square area is virtually the same.

One variation this housing lends itself to is that adding or putting a 3 port to work on the side of the block on the fuel pump side or like Quincy Deflector Alkys had which tunneled out the back of the reed blocks into the third port could still be installed and 2 more carbs added. When does breathing overkill actually happen when you add all these V reed structures and add a 3rd port per cylinder which is a piston port? No idea but they did work on the old Deflector Alkys and they were a part of the Quincy Flathead technology that came after the Alky Deflectors.

Lots to keep in mind and still no really re-inventing the wheel to make a fantastic Kurcz 444 engine or going some other routes others already pioneered the way for.

[Aeroliner]

Here are a couple photos of the latest boat we have built. Its an old speedliner M-510 that we lengthened to 11 ft 8 in with a 24.5 in wide bottom. Have to add the rest of the hardware and it should be ready for testing this winter. David and I can build the boat from about 10 ft to 12 and a half. We will see how it runs with a old 30H and then a 30 mod motor.
Alan

[Aeroliner]

We used the Epifanes system to finish the boat.

[Aeroliner]

Sam,
Over the past year I have been looking through all the old Mercury manuals and parts books looking for a where used manual. Finally opened a box last week end and found a near perfect 1999 one. If you still need a good clean one to copy you can borrow this one. You can get my contact info from aeroliner-boats.com.

Alan

[F-12]

Beautiful job on the runabout, gentlemen. Furniture quality. I know it will run as good as it looks. Thanks for the pics.

[Aeroliner]

We have started a new mod motor building activity. Currently the plan is to build a 44 like the old six cylinder TX looked. The engine will use four Tillotson HR carburetors without pumps and two mercury block mounted units. The engine will be ported to Harry Brinkmans specification and a few other things might come along that we intend to try. To start with we expect to use a Mercury Mag rotated back 15 degrees to clear the carbs. I have added a few photos.

Alan

[Aeroliner]

We have been working with a grinder and a hard chrome plate guy to see if we can repair prop shafts. As it looks right now it appears that if the shaft has good threads and that the un-chromed section is good where the forward bearing runs we should be in good shape. The only stipulation is that the wear on the chromed area must be under .010 inches. We are running a trial batch of 7 "Ds" and 3 A/B/C's to see how it will come out. Once we get the prototypes back we will have a cost for repaired shafts. I would think that if we could do a couple hundred in a batch we will have a very attractive price for the units. Let me know if anyone is interested. If this works well we might move over to try to repair drive shafts even thoug we are building new "D" units

Alan