Giving a Bezoat a Second Chance

[Albert]

Forward:
This thread is largely brought over from hydroracer since the plug is about to be pulled. This is 100% still a project and I will continue to update.


Hello from New Brunswick Canada,
When I was a child some years ago my father stopped on a highway bridge in Cocagne to watch some real fast boats go in circles. The year after he brought me and my older brother at the time to spend the day there and watch the madness. It’s a really early and spotty memory for me, but I remember him telling me that some local guys used to race as well.
Fast forward a few years to middle school and I started hanging out with a really good group of guys who I’m fortunate to be friends with to this day. One of whom had the last name Carruthers. As the years went by you would occasionally hear a story about hydros, and my friend would tell me about going up to Valleyfield every summer to watch the gp boats run.
Fast forward ten more years, same good friends and now one is getting married. What better bachelor party than to pack up and go watch the hydros in Quebec.
Once there I found pits filled with blown alcohol big blocks, zoomiez and vintage boats running mechical fuel injection that I had only ever seen in magazines or on the web. This was so engaging as someone who’s Interests had varied from turbocharging cars, to snowmobiles, motorcycles , drag racing and all kinds of other weird motorized stuff.


Fast forward to this past spring. When “Carruthers” on this site offered to sell me a y80 with a spun crank bearing. Having looked through the manual I thought this doesn’t look to complicated. This combined with not having worked on a 2 stroke made it an easy decision. If I had been smarter I would have realized that once you have a motor you pretty much need to start shopping for boats.
Over the course of the summer I have been able to try a few Carruthers built hydroplanes, with Yamato 80 and 102 power. The first time in a boat I was hooked, such a unique driving experience.
Now join me in the present as I was part of a gathering of boats last week near Rexton NB. Perhaps some of the elder statesmen of this site may remember racing there in the 1980s.



After a great day on the water with half a dozen hydros in attendance and a few runabouts I was taken out behind “the shop” and shown a boat. It looked as though it had been stores outside for a decade and sadly it was.

Fortunately removal of some of the decking showed that internally it was in decent shape. The resident experts informed me it was a Bezoats and that when built it was a top of the line machine. Unfortunately for me while I’m a passable welder my experience with woodwork is non existent. But a deal was stuck hands were not shaken, libations may have been had and the next morning we picked up the boat with a trailer. Tag along as we keep digging and find out if this boat is really worth saving.

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[Albert]

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I’m going to gloss over a lot here but obviously step one was to strip the boat down.

[Albert]

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Decks were removed and many staples pulled to have a better look.

[Albert]

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Yes those are leaves. The boat was left outside for about a decade In the Canadian winter.

[Albert]

So while Adam Carruthers was doing wood work I went back to work on the blown up motor.
This was apparently a strong running 80 until the rod bearing let go, as you can see by the photo above some bearing material or possibly a piece of ring made it over the piston and played pinball. When I bought the motor it came with a 18mm replacement head. The 18mm head also had some pitting in the chamber, although no where near as bad, but it also looked like it had been decked quite a bit. Either way I decided to try and clean up the combustion chamber on the 14mm head.
The pictures speak for themselves, will this cylinder be down a little power...likely. But with no sharp spots to cause knock it should be safe to run. I'm about 80 percent done polishing. Need to level off a few high spots, but I'm pleased with how its come out considering the moonlike cratered surface I started with.

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[Albert]

More staple pulling, more sanding and the boat was ready to go off to the pro for major surgery. 79337
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[Albert]

So off the boat went to Adam Carruthers garage. He immediately made a decision that replacing decks and fixing air traps wasn’t going to cut it. So he sent me this picture and I was in shock. 79339

[DeanFHobart]

So off the boat went to Adam Carruthers garage. He immediately made a decision that replacing decks and fixing air traps wasn’t going to cut it. So he sent me this picture and I was in shock. 79339

Keep up the good work… There will be lots of pride when it is completed.

[Albert]

Mr Carruthers wasted no time and has a new bottom on this thing within days. Unfortunately that was only part of the work required to bring this one back. 79340

[Albert]

Next step was to find a few clamps. 79341

[Albert]

You can see in the previous pictures that the port side sponson was open to the elements for a few years. There was some significant rot in the stingers and so surgery continued.
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[Albert]

Back to the clamp bin and before you know if the whole of one front sponson had been re-skinned.

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With the sponsons done it was a real turning point in the project (pun intended) as it was time to flip the boat over.
Hard to tell at this point from the front that it wasn't brand new.
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[Albert]

More clamps and more new wood.
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At this point Adam was working so fast I thought the boat would start smoking. All this work had been done in a matter of weeks.


I think it was only a couple days after that when I received a picture of the boat with decking roughed in. I honestly hadn't been this excited about anything in years. It was unrecognizable and truly the first view of the boat this was to become.
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[Albert]

A week or two past and the wood work was done. If memory serves me right the boat went to the Carruthers shop in September and the west systems was put on to seal up the work in late November or early December. A truly incredible amount of work done in a short period or evenings and weekends. 7934879349

[tlpyamato]

Hey Albert:
I've been following your thread over at HydroRacer (forum name: nail33). I'm glad that you're moving it to this site. I look forward to seeing your continuing progress.

[Albert]

Hey Albert:
I've been following your thread over at HydroRacer (forum name: nail33). I'm glad that you're moving it to this site. I look forward to seeing your continuing progress.

Happy to see you and Dean here.

Don't spoil the ending. I'll try and get some more copied over later. It's really a shame to loose all the conversation on the old thread...

Still lot's to do to get the bezoat and 80 working top notch so I'll keep documenting the progress.

[Albert]

At this point it became an exercise in sanding again. The bottom was flattened and the top was sanded smooth and prepared for paint and clear coat. The boat was also given a weigh to settle the bets.
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[Ketzer]

Well, I am very impressed! And at my age, that ain't easy to do.

[Albert]

Ketzer,
Adam Carruthers deserves most of the credit. His woods working skills are top notch by any standards. Much less for a young guy.

At this point in the project I was still picking away at the basket case yamato 80. I’ll document that further a little later on.
I picked up the bezoat just before Christmas 2020 and went to work sanding with 320 then 600 to make sure I had a great substrate for the paint and clear.

I had never sprayed clear coat before and it took me two tries to get the bottom of the boat to where I was happy with the results. 79352

[Albert]

With the bottom done it was time for some paint. Much tape was used and I was working in paint supply at the time so I went through many colours before I found a combo I was happy with. But after a fair amount of work I had a boat that looked fast standing still!
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[Albert]

Ok, let’s look at the motor now for a few minutes.
The motor was definitely a “once he has a motor he’ll have to buy a boat” play in retrospect. The motor had sat a while after spinning a rod bearing while being raced in Standish. The motor arrived in 2.5 milk crates and while I’m a total boat amateur I’m somewhat competent when it comes to working with mechanical things.

Once the motor was appart I began the back and forth with TJ for the parts to repair. A used rod, new crank pin gaskets rings and an exhaust manifold to replace the cracked unit I had.

I will say that I did sub out the pressing of the crank. A former employer of mine runs a vintage motorcycle repair business and was good enough to treat me well on it. I figured something fundamental like that I was best to rely on some outside expertise…at least for the first one.

I like this picture because it shows how hard the rod tried to reach atmosphere.
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This is supposed to be egg shaped right?
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But before you know it you have a bottom end.
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Ahh but what do you do with this?
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Luckily a few years hanging out in the automotive industry has put me in touch with smart people and good product reps. A few years ago Mazda had a problem with keyways shearing off crankshafts. So loctite developed a product for fixing damaged keyways. (Spoiler alert it’s held up great for two years at this point).

[Albert]

Still the show must go on and racing outboards are thin on the ground in rural eastern Canada.
So together it went. One of the big problems was the head. Some needle bearing material had made it over the piston and made the top of the piston and the head look like a good spot for a lunar landing.
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But again parts are rare so version one of this repair just got smoothing and on it went.
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Then it was time to go together. I admit I snapped a piston ring by misaligning it. The proceeded to have to large a ring gap. (Stay tuned for predictable results to come).
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[DeanFHobart]

Looks like you need some new parts.

[zul8tr]

Luc
Welcome over to BRF and great to see you continue the B and Y80 project here and other related items. It is a shame that HR is going down and great stuff over there will be lost :-(

March on with your great performance.

Pete

[Albert]

Pete, I just like having the story documented. This seemed like the best place to do it. Stay tuned for more updates.


Around this time in the project spring 2021 things were starting to come together. There was a long hunt to find a proper life jacket. Then a bit of a hunt to find a prop. I was very fortunate to find a Ron France prop that has proven to be pretty good on my boat. When wanting to learn more about Ron the Canadian prop maker someone directed me to this site to learn more.
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With a prop a jacket and boat and a mostly complete motor I it was almost may and the ice was starting to subsidize in the river. I got off my butt and finished up the motor. The only other major struggle was the foot was seized to the tower. After much heat, a can of penetrating lube and more force than I would have liked I was able to get the food off and check it quickly before final assembly. 79365

Not long after that it was time to test fire the basket case motor. The motor that was deemed only good for spare parts. A good cleaning was in order but this was at the end of final assembly.
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And this was the magic moment.

https://youtube.com/shorts/k2SMfDsQL6o?feature=share

With a motor that ran and a boat that looked great it was almost time to test.
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[Albert]

May 24 2021 the first shakedown!


The plan since Thursday was to go out and test on Monday. Grandparents were lined up to watch the kiddo, boat was in the trailer and the weather forecast was calling for 60 degrees and almost no wind. I had plans to leave my place about 8am for the drive up with my daughter to pick up the boat.
Instead my daughter woke up at 5am and there was no getting her back down in her crib so I said screw it lets just pack up and go she may fall asleep in the car. That's when I opened the door to go put the carseat in and noticed the hard frost on my windshield.
Well no one likes a quitter, so into the car she went (fortunately slept most of the hour up once we were moving) and we landed and the grandparents a little after 7. We passed the Old Cocagne Regatta race course on the say up and the water had barely a ripple.
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By mid morning we had the boats all in one place and started picking off the last couple things on the to do list on the bezoat. Set the timing on the 80, put a sleeve on the throttle cable. Install the skid fin mount and fin (after Carruthers measured about 5 times to make sure it was bang on). As we were doing this the wind shifted to coming out of the east, this meant the usually very calm water in the testing area was starting to form small rollers. But no one likes a quitter so we carried on.
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By early afternoon we had all the boats ready to go, a pair of vintage bezoats, one 35 year old Carruthers built boat and one current CSH. So I bolted on my prop, put in the plugs, said a little prayer and after sending the rescue boat out with 2 buoys we decided to send the black bezoat out to check the water conditions.
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[Albert]

Ok, so sending the black boat out first was a bit of a cop out. So Now it was time to step into the water (by this point it was almost a bomby 60 degrees out ). But did I mention how people feel about quitters?

Here we go, it floats...time to get started.
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So I guess the question is how did it work? The short answer is that it works great. Only 2 minor glitches all day, lost my fuel cap and once had the motor cut out when I may or may not have shifted to much to look back at the black bezoat (definite moment on dread followed by great relief).
We didn't bother with GPS or recording laptimes, the water was only good enough to go full throttle for part of the straightaways. Instead I focused on breaking in my engine with pretty gentle laps and only the occasional short bursts of WOT to see how it was going to fly.79372

[Albert]

07-12-21

Just prior to this update my brother picked up the red 20ss boat pictured. This is how our first weekend of testing went.


Well I had a pretty humbling weekend. We had everything from a boat going under on Saturday (luckily only in 2-3 feet of water and motor was already shut off) to potential motor damage yesterday when a motor inhaled a piece of seaweed. While all this was going on with other boats I was struggling big time with carb issues. Ultimately we did get my carb mostly sorted and on my final test run I also got my coolant passages plugged with seaweed (won't be running at that low tide again). Fortunately I was watching and brought the boat in on lap two (was in and out of the throttle not full speed laps). My 80 got very hot but after cooling down and flushing the coolant passages it started fine and seems to be alright. Unfortunately I think Carruthers has some work to do on his.

Overall the win of the weekend was seeing my brother get more comfortable in his new red boat. He was making huge strides and getting faster every run out! His newly acquired 80 runs well and the boat seems quick and stable79429

[Albert]

08-25-21

Last weekend was the second annual last blast hydroplane event at Chapel Point in NB. This event was a regular stop for many racers in eastern Canada for many years between the 1950's right up until 1987.
With 15 boats in attendance it was time to see how my junky 80 and revived bezoat held up.


In short I think the numbers speak for themselves. I finished P6 of 9 boats in the 20ssh field (not bad for a rookie) and despite having some set up issues and some tuning challenges I never finished a heat last. I also was given the chance to run 1 heat of CSH where I was able to place P4 of 6 which I was pleased with.
Overall despite having a stomach flu and living off pepto and light food for the day Saturday I was very pleased. As far as I know I didn't cut anyone off, held my lines and had a great time. I think with further tuning on my motor (just need another 1-2mph right?) and some more seat time I will have a very capable set up. I ended up cutting the weekend short due to not feeling well while others ran Sunday. As always there's a huge numbers of people to thank, many Carruthers', k Smith for lending me a cut shirt, and a great group of friends who helped me pit and also helped run the clock when needed.

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[Albert]

So last winter I had a change to inspect my 80 again and this is what I found.
Ring gap had been way to large and a ring snagged a port.
Couldn't find a good used 15 over piston so out came the 3m fine foam polishing pad and I cleaned it up. Once that was done I got some fresh rings and gapped them tight...How tight probably too tight but I was careful this spring to break the motor in real gentle before driving it in anger.
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[Albert]

I couldn't go in and put the cylinder head back on as it was. It had bothered me since I did a quick repair last time. Once again there are no 14mm yamato 80 heads available so I needed to fix what I had. Now I'm not much of a welder and I don't own a mill or a lathe so fixing this head the proper way was out of the question. But one of my neighbours does have an old farm lathe and sometimes I have an idea that works. So an old spark plug base and I had a Y-80 squish band grinding tool.
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So once I had the tool and some grinding compound all I had to do was watch tv and twirl the tool until my squish band stopped resembling the surface of the moon. (yes I'll need to plane the head to get the comp back and ground down the other cylinder to maintain balance).
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Not perfect but big improvements with this done the motor was ready for action again.

[Albert]

With the powerhead buttoned up it was time to address the lower unit.
When I purchased this motor as a basket case the lower unit was seized to the tower. It required heat, lube, leverage, and luck to remove it. While it turned over smoothly it was letting some water in the oil once put back on so before this summer it was time to learn to rebuild one.
So I tack welded some bar stock inside pipe then started taking things apart, making sure to keep track of any shims.

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Some new bearings and seals and one o ring and I felt better about the lower unit.
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I also took this opportunity to do some light shaping. Because it's legal and I was hoping it would help with cooling which is kind of to be determined as I could only find rough water last summer it seems.
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