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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

More clamps and more new wood.
79346
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...

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

79343


With the sponsons done it was a real turning point in the project (pun intended) as it...

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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Next step was to find a few clamps. 79341

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

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

More staple pulling, more sanding and the boat was ready to go off to the pro for major surgery. 79337
79338

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...

79334

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

79333
Decks were removed and many staples pulled to have a better look.

79332
I’m going to gloss over a lot here but obviously step one was to strip the boat down.

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,...