97fordrunner
Seaman
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2014
- Messages
- 71
Good Afternoon All, thought I would take some time to post up pictures and story behind my Sea Scout. I ended up getting the boat on trade for a 14' Itasca fishing boat I had that was far to small for me and my family ( was very narrow and had 3 Aluminum benches) .
So What I have is a 14' Sea Scout Run About that the hull is in pretty good shape, the floor is solid but covered in green indoor/outdoor carpet, the seats were recovered by a 6 year old and look terrible with stray staples everywhere. The engine is a 50hp Johnson 50ESL71 which when i picked it up I was told ran great and had been out more on that in a moment. The windshield is cracked and will need to be replaced so if anyone has a suggestion on that please throw it my way.
This is my first leap into the classic boat world and am pretty excited even though gremlins keep popping up everywhere.
So I got the boat home and ran it one the hose to make sure it at least started and ran, it did. However this motor doesn't have a tell tale and I had to keep holding the cups to get them to seal to get enough water pressure into the pump cavity to allow water to flow and that was kinda messy so I was happy at least that it ran and went to the launch .25 mile away.
I got it in the water and it floated and had 0 water in the bilge so that was a good sign, I went to start it and the starter just spun and didn't engage the flywheel at all the first 3 tries then the 4th it fired up and idled ok. I let it idle for awhile checking the temp with my heat gun and was happy that it was hovering around 100 deg at idle so I put the cover on and set off. Out of the hole it was sluggish and through the mid-range to full throttle it also seemed like it wasn't all there but would get up to about 30 mph so I figured that wasn't terrible for a poor performing motor on a boat I essentially got free...... And that's when the fun stopped. I was making a turn and backed off the throttle and engine just flat out died and when trying to restart cranked really fast figured for sure the motor went. Got towed back to the landing and pulled out headed home. After some diagnosis I found the flywheel nut was hand tight and pulled the plugs and checked the timing and it was 90 deg off so when i backed off the flywheel kept spinning and blew the key- So I pulled the flywheel ( since it was barley on) and replaced the key and it fired right back up but still poor performance.
I've been messing with it going the the factory manual double checking carb settings and timing and everything seems in spec. I have not checked the spark intensity or power since I don't have a spark checker yet. I did pull the plugs after I ran it and the upper plug seemed we when the lower was bone dry so i'm not sure what that's telling me.
My plans at the moment are to get all the old Bimini mounts removed and fill the holes and repaint the rail, Re-upholster the seats and re carpet the floor, In stall a stereo and some new Gauges to keep an eye on motor performance. Upgrade to LED lighting and rewire it to a new Fuse & power dist box.
I would like to figure out how to install a tow pole in the stern to pull tubers & Wakeboard behind a little nice but not sure how to attach that just yet- I'll find it here i suspect with some searching.
Here she is.
So What I have is a 14' Sea Scout Run About that the hull is in pretty good shape, the floor is solid but covered in green indoor/outdoor carpet, the seats were recovered by a 6 year old and look terrible with stray staples everywhere. The engine is a 50hp Johnson 50ESL71 which when i picked it up I was told ran great and had been out more on that in a moment. The windshield is cracked and will need to be replaced so if anyone has a suggestion on that please throw it my way.
This is my first leap into the classic boat world and am pretty excited even though gremlins keep popping up everywhere.
So I got the boat home and ran it one the hose to make sure it at least started and ran, it did. However this motor doesn't have a tell tale and I had to keep holding the cups to get them to seal to get enough water pressure into the pump cavity to allow water to flow and that was kinda messy so I was happy at least that it ran and went to the launch .25 mile away.
I got it in the water and it floated and had 0 water in the bilge so that was a good sign, I went to start it and the starter just spun and didn't engage the flywheel at all the first 3 tries then the 4th it fired up and idled ok. I let it idle for awhile checking the temp with my heat gun and was happy that it was hovering around 100 deg at idle so I put the cover on and set off. Out of the hole it was sluggish and through the mid-range to full throttle it also seemed like it wasn't all there but would get up to about 30 mph so I figured that wasn't terrible for a poor performing motor on a boat I essentially got free...... And that's when the fun stopped. I was making a turn and backed off the throttle and engine just flat out died and when trying to restart cranked really fast figured for sure the motor went. Got towed back to the landing and pulled out headed home. After some diagnosis I found the flywheel nut was hand tight and pulled the plugs and checked the timing and it was 90 deg off so when i backed off the flywheel kept spinning and blew the key- So I pulled the flywheel ( since it was barley on) and replaced the key and it fired right back up but still poor performance.
I've been messing with it going the the factory manual double checking carb settings and timing and everything seems in spec. I have not checked the spark intensity or power since I don't have a spark checker yet. I did pull the plugs after I ran it and the upper plug seemed we when the lower was bone dry so i'm not sure what that's telling me.
My plans at the moment are to get all the old Bimini mounts removed and fill the holes and repaint the rail, Re-upholster the seats and re carpet the floor, In stall a stereo and some new Gauges to keep an eye on motor performance. Upgrade to LED lighting and rewire it to a new Fuse & power dist box.
I would like to figure out how to install a tow pole in the stern to pull tubers & Wakeboard behind a little nice but not sure how to attach that just yet- I'll find it here i suspect with some searching.
Here she is.
