Giving a Bezoat a Second Chance

[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.


This is supposed to be egg shaped right?


But before you know it you have a bottom end.



Ahh but what do you do with this?

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.

But again parts are rare so version one of this repair just got smoothing and on it went.


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).

[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.


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.

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.


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.

[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.


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.


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.

[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.


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.

[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 stable

[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.

[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.