Big wooden boat project [Splashed Sept 2017]

[proshadetree]

You sure have some ultracool toys there man. I love anything that goes bang. That Acadia is awesome.

 

[Ned L]

Thanks! they are kind of fun to tinker with. I also have about a dozen small outboards dating from the 1920's to the early 60's, as well as some other assorted engines collected over the years.

Just three weeks ago I picked up an interesting little marine engine. It is probably a 1970's vintage Universal "Atomic 2". This engine is based on a Kermath Sea Pup which is a quite old design. It is a tiny little two cylinder inboard. so small that one person can pick the complete engine and reverse gear up.

It came out of a 'glass sailboat that hadn't been in the water in probably 15 years. Unfortunately the boat (and therefore the engine too) had filled pretty well with rainwater a number of times.

Suprisingly, the engine is free, and I don't think the crank case got too much water in it. The reverse gear was filled to the top with clean rainwater. I have poured the water out of that and filled it with ATF. Soon I will pull the gear off and take it apart enough to see that all the water and any dirt & crud are out of it, then put it back on the engine. It is a nice little Hurth gear.

Here is the engine after a washing on the outside and removing some of the accessories.

This engine does have an electric starter on it (along with the backup rope pulley on the flywheel). I should have taken pictures of the starter as I disassembled it, especially with the rusty water, chunks, and black mud that came out of it. Yuk................ Suprisingly, after a complete teardown and washing with a toothbrush and soap in the kitchen sink, then gentle drying in the oven, and freeing up the brushes; when put back together it seems to run fine.

Here is what the magneto looked like when I opened it up. ........... Not too good.....

It has definitely seen better days too.

Again, I took the whole thing apart and carefully cleaned all the parts (snapped off a screw to one of the clips that holds the coil in place (oh crap!!) - drilled that out and re-tapped it.)

As I cleaned off the condenser a bit of rust popped off the case leaving a hole in the case. It looked pretty clean in there, so I wrapped a piece of Mylar tape around the case to keep dirt out and figured I'd see what would happen.

I put it all back together, it ended up coming our like this.

Not too bad looking, ............ Of course the test came when I put the cover back on it, hooked the plug wires to it and connected a couple of spark plugs. Give it a 'snap' and it is once again giving a nice blue spark to both plugs.

I have also pulled the carb. apart and gave that a pretty good cleaning. It was completely plugged up inside.

the next thing to do is going to be to drop the oil pan, clean that out, look inside and put it back on.

I figure I will have this little engine up and running by the end of the year. I'll put a video of that up too.

 

[proshadetree]

That's awesome. The unusual engines always intrigue me, even though they are normally the most painful.

 

[Patfromny]

Make sure to oil the wrist pins in the pistons when the pan is off. They haven't had oil on them in a few years. It's a good thing to do to prevent any damage until they get oil from running.

 

[shaw520]

just read all 25 pgs of this thread,...so dam-right im subed ! LOL

 

[shaw520]

No Title

Ned your build is a true inspiration,.. You and I have talked before about our families history in wooden boats. I still have a dream of one day restoring a 50+ ft live aboard that my very willing wife and I vow to endeavor. Our plans are to retire aboard while navigating the eastern shores following warmer weather. Recently I had the pleasure of boarding a 76' Trumpy (charter vessel) that visited our home port. I would seek something along these lines.

 

[Pusher]

I was trying to picture how the 5hp arcadia worked, and it seems like you would end up with a nice fuel to air mixture with the vapors coming from the crank case. Sounds like you would only have vapor at the cylinder. How did they deal with flooding though? If your carb was flooding you wouldn't know until the crank case was full would you? Maybe the mechancs are just lost on me. :-/ quite possible.

 

[Ned L]

Shaw520, ... Thank you. Trumpys are beautiful boats to say the least!!!! (more than a bit out of my league though. lol) I hope you do get to cruise the eastern shores, that would be great. I always enjoy talking 'wooden boats', ... thank you.

Pusher, ........ About the Acadias, ....I never said they were clean engines. (LOL).. You are correct with your logic, about the Acadias, and really any two cycle inboard engine. There are usually drain plugs or pet cocks in the bottom of the crack cases. yes, if you flood them to much you end up with a crank case full of gas and oil mixture. I believe that even if they are running well, after a period of time the oil builds up in the bottom of the crank case. My engine had not run for probably 25 years before I got it and when I got around to looking in the crank case there was a decent amount of oil sitting in the bottom (with some other general gunk). That didn't seem to bother it's running though.

 

[Ned L]

This weekend I did a bit more tinkering on the Atomic 2. I pulled the reverse gear off, ... it actually came off quite easilly.

Here is what it looks like inside the bell housing.

A bit gunky but really not bad.

And here is the pressure plate on the back of the engine. Again a bit gunky but not bad.

Looking at (and in) the reverse gear, things look pretty clean inside, but there is definitely some gunk settled in the bottom. It is all nice and tight, and has some plates that I can take off to see inside so I think I'm going to try simply flushing it out well with kerosene (filling and lots of shaking) to see how clean I can get the inside. If that seems pretty effective and if it seems to function smoothly I don't think I will disassemble the housing. ......... It will get only occasional runnings, show demonstrations and things like that, so I won't have to rely on it daily. ...... And a complete teardown is something that can be done later with.

With the reverse gear off the engine is small enough to carry to the basement and work on where things are a bit warmer. ......... And only because I have one there I can use the electric chain hoist on a trolley (house I-beam) to move it around. I don't really need to use it, but it did make draining the pan easier.

There was a cup or so of clean water that came out of the pan first, along with some peanut butter sort of stuff at the end, ... yuk. Dropping the pan will let me clean all that out well along with seeing what is going on inside. I hope to do that tonight. I really don't expect any issues as there wasn't much water and the engine was never run with the water there. ....... We'll see.

 

[proshadetree]

Get some pics with the pan off. I want to see how the rods look. Some of the older engines look like they have pencils for rods then some look like the came out of a mac truck. Looking at how for we have come, i still think sometimes engineering needs to look back.

 

[mickyryan]

where would you find parts for that ? and what did it come out of ned?

 

[Pusher]

Thanks for the explaination! I didn't know about checking the case. I'll keep it in mind.

Pretty neat technology you have.

 

[Ned L]

Thanks for the explaination! I didn't know about checking the case. I'll keep it in mind.

Pretty neat technology you have.

Thanks,... they are kind of fun to tinker with.
Something else about the two cycle engines is they normally have good size grease cups at both main bearings at the ends of the crank case. Because the crank case alternates between being pressured and under vacuum it needs to be airtight. To accomplish this a very heavy grease is used in the cups.

 

[Ned L]

The pan is off, ...... A good bit of nasty wet looking peanut butter like stuff in the bottom of it, but everything inside looks like new. I have pictures to post tomorrow.
As for where can parts be found, there is a place on Mass. that specializes in the Atomic 2's and 4's. Luckily so far I don't need any parts. ...Something like the starter looks like might actually be just a lawnmower engine starter.

Oh,..., the engine came out of a fiberglass sailboat of about 22 feet from probably the 1970's.

 

[Ned L]

So this is what started coming out of the oil pan after the water and oil.

and this is what was left in the pan after I dropped it.

Now that's some nasty looking stuff.

 

[GA_Boater]

Throw the pan in a 350 degree oven for 55 minutes, Ned. You'll have a scrumptious peanut butter marble cake to go with coffee. ::hungry:

I guess the floating oil over the peanut butter helped keep the motor from seizing. Have you peeked inside the cylinders?

 

[Ned L]

Yum!., ...... tasty.

I have taken a look up inside the block, ..............................


First, .... this is what the pan looks like with just a quick wash in the parts cleaner at work.

 

[Ned L]

And when we look in the other direction. .......................

Everything looks like brand new!! Real happy about that.

.

It is a heavily balanced two cylinder crank shaft (both throws in the same direction), so you really don't have much room to see what is above the crank shaft, but things look real good.

Again, ... being heavily balanced it is a bit of an odd looking crank shaft

The oil pump pickup will need to be removed and cleaned out well.

Being such a small engine, the crank shaft actually passes though the block (more like a lawnmower engine), so removing the pan doesn't disturb the main crank seals at all. A nice, little, and yet massively built engine.

 

[Baylinerchuck]

They don't manufacture engines like that anymore. Rock solid for sure.

 

[shaw520]

Very cool,... I imagine the tandom throw crank is the reason she shakes a bit when running