Engine
The items
listed below improve life for me with my Mercury (Mariner/Nissan/Tohasu) 6HP four stroke long shaft outboard and may or may not
be applicable to other engines. This engine was fitted to my Drascombe Coaster
and a similar one is fitted to the Drifter 22 which has now replaced the
Coaster.
Folding Engine Stand
The engine
lives in the garage in the winter and a suitable stand was needed. The
resulting stand was made up of bits of timber that were to hand plus a couple
of old door hinges and
a handful of coach bolts.
The dummy
transom is set at a similar angle to the Drascombe Coaster (and Lugger/Longboat
Cruiser) motor mount so that the engine will sits upright without adjustment
when transferred from the boat to the stand. However, the Drifter 22 engine
mount is more vertical so I will have to change the stand by removing the
wedges. It is made just wide enough to allow the toggles on the motor’s
mounting bolts to turn freely when tightening the engine onto the stand. This
makes the stand as narrow as practical.
The sloping
braces are fixed at the top with hinges. In the Summer
when the engine is on the boat, the coach bolts at the bottom of the sloping
braces can be undone and the braces folded flat. The foot pieces are also
attached to the verticals by coach bolts driven from the side. These can be
slackened so the foot pieces will swivel up and fold flat against the verticals
making the whole thing into a small package that can go away until next lay up.
The addition
of a pair of wheels from the ironmongers and longer coach bolts to mount them,
have now turned the stand into a trolley so that the engine can be wheeled instead
of carried into the garage. The reason that the wheels are on the inside is to
conserve space in the cramped garage in my house which serves as my workshop.
If you have further to go, stability would be aided by putting the wheels on
the outside. Now that it has become a trolley it also needs handles which have
now been fitted. They each have two fixings. A big screw into
the end of the engine mount and a coach bolt through the top of the uprights.
Removing the coach bolts enables the handles to be swung down to reduce the
space taken up with the motor mounted in the winter and so the whole thing still
folds flat for summer storage.
Gear lever
The latest
models have the gear shift at the front of the engine. That was not so when Appuskidu's engine was new. Accordingly, the gear lever was
brought to the front of the engine, with a rod made from a piece of thick wall
plastic conduit tubing bolted through the hole in the gear lever which is
provided for the optional remote controls. The front of the tubing is supported
by an iroko block bolted to the front remote control
mounting and the front end of the tubing is finished with a wooden handle. The
back end of the tubing was heated in a saucepan of boiling water then squashed
flat in the vice. It was then drilled and attached to the engine’s gear lever
with a bolt, penny washers and a nyloc nut. The
length of the extension is limited by the need to be able to turn a partly
tilted engine without fouling the deck. It is accepted that the engine can now
be fully tilted only if it is set straight ahead or fully to left or right.
John Hother thought this was a good idea too and the picture on
the right shows how he has achieved the same result on his Lugger using
different materials. (It also shows his lowered motor mount).
This
modification has since been updated.
I have
replaced the wooden bracket which supports the gear shift rod at the front of
the engine with one bent from aluminium and sprayed mercury black as shown
above. The dishing of the large hole in the new bracket which supports the rod
was achieved by sandwiching the bracket in the vice between a block of softwood
with a similar size hole and the round end of a ball pein
hammer. This bracket also has a mounting surface for a “Tiny Tach” digital rev counter and hour meter. The meter in the
picture is a “SenDec” one. Much cheaper Chinese ones
have since become available.
I also
purchased one of these remote control rod ends from Aquafax.
I discarded the white plastic part and used the spring loaded turn pin to
replace the bolt that had previously attached the gear shift rod to the
engine’s gear lever.
Finally, I
replaced the wooden handle with a plastic one created by cutting down a black
trapeze handle and filling its hollow side with epoxy that I had tinted black
to match.
Here is a
simpler version of the same mod seen on the Lugger “Karma” at a river Dart
rally. This time all in white plastic tubing. The
handle dangling at the front is for this boat’s version of the tilt unlock –
see below.
Tilt lock
Releasing the
tilt lock to lower the engine is not a convenient operation when you are still
doing several knots under sail and are single handed, trying to steer and need
the engine running as you pass through a hazardous area.
It is now facilitated
by a cord which passes from the tilt lock lever over a deck eye fixed inside
the transom and back to the mizzen mast mount. The motor can now be quickly
dropped into operating position when needed without having to grovel around
under the engine. The tilt lock lever is not of large enough diameter to accept
a hole big enough for the cord to be threaded through directly. The solution is
to drill the lever with a small diameter drill and fit a stainless “keyring” of the type used to secure clevis pins, then attach the cord to that.
Shallow water drive
I have
disabled this useful half way tilt position altogether. The reason is that when
the boat is going faster than the engine is driving – as when motor sailing and
surfing down following seas - the motor is kicked up by the water flow under
the boat. The motor then clicks into shallow water drive position and stays
there with the engine racing and the prop dipping in and out of the water. If
the motor is released the problem immediately recurs. Older outboards had a
manual reverse lock catch which would work well in this situation but progress
and automation have again taken a wrong turn so that you can’t lock the motor
down.
A piece of
dowel in the shallow water drive slot prevents this problem at the cost of
losing the half tilted position which is so useful in shallow water. If anyone
has an idea on how to turn the reverse lock into a tilt lock which will allow
the best of both worlds please let me know.
Steering lock up gubbins
As the steering
friction adjustment on these engines is not reliable I devised a quick release
steering lock.
The idea being
that when steering with the boat’s tiller the engine can be locked in the
central position and when engine steering is needed the lock can be quickly
released.
There are two
main timber components. A cross piece and a hinged bracket.
The cross piece bolts under the front of the engine using the holes where
remote steering would be attached. It protrudes to the side of the engine where
a hinged bracket is screwed to the boat’s motor mount. A hole
in the cross piece lines up with a hole in the hinged bracket when the motor is
central. A pin can then be inserted through the holes to lock the engine
in position. The hinged bracket is arranged so that the hinge pin is on the
same axis as the pivot of the engine. This means that the engine can be tilted
with the “lock” engaged.
The lock pin
was cut from a piece of a broken glass fibre tent pole. The source of the knob
is long forgotten. The white cord is a lanyard to stop the pin going AWOL when
it is not in use and the loop of shock cord is to stop the pin from vibrating
out. The shock cord will be replaced by a mechanical catch yet to be devised.
When the pin is withdrawn, the hinged bracket drops and the engine can be
steered in the usual way.
