Mercury 45
Before Photos:
As has been noted elsewhere - it is always a bad idea to buy a basket case. Never the less, I seem to fall into this trap way too often.
I mean, on paper, it sounds like a fine idea. Let someone else do all the hard work stripping the engine, getting all the corroded bolts undone etc. You can usually get them for next to nothing, because not many people are silly enough to buy one.
But when you have a good think about it, there are also a lot of bad things - broken studs, lost parts, and after all, if it was such a great project, why is thge owner getting rid of it - its often because it all just got too hard. But I must concede sometimes it is just because the owner lost interest, or came across something more promising.
These photos show it as I received it.
Thursday 1 July, 2021:
The basket case arrived by Courier today.
I didn't really do that much to it, just had a quick look around to see what I've got myself into. The seller assured me it was all there (don't they always??) and on first look, that might actually be true in this case.
After having a quick look, here are the issues I've seen so far.
- All the main parts seem to be there
- Cylinder - looked quite rusty, but mainly surface rust - cleaned up pretty well with a gentle wire brushing and running my honing tool through it. Lubed so it wont rust again before I get to it.
- Coil - hmmmmm - this doesn't look good - cover is cracked - and more worryingly - I've tested it with my multimeter and while the Primary looks good, the Secondary looks like it might be open.
- Crank - again, a bit of fresh, surface rust - cleaned off with oil, wire brush and a light sanding and it came up well. Greased to protect it until I get to do some serious work on it.
- Piston looks OK - but the rings are missing - no big deal - I would be replacing them anyway.
More things I saw were there - water pump - but the impeller seems to be missing - no big deal, I wouold be replacing it even if I did find it.
So at the moment, the plan is to attack the Barrel first. I have already cleaned out the cylinder, and honed it. But next week I am heading off for a weeks work out in the bush, so I will take these two bit ((both sides of the Block) and clean them up, clean up the faces of the crankcase to ensure they are nice, clean and flat. I will order some new rings as well. And actually, now that I think of it, I will take the piston along as well and get that ready to go back in. I should probably give some thought to getting some new bearings as well - because they are beyond salvation.