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.
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 mounted at a
similar angle to the Drascombe motor mount so that the engine will sit upright
without adjustment when transferred from the boat to the stand. 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.
Gear lever
The gear lever
was brought to the front of the engine with a rod made from a piece of heavy plastic
conduit tubing bolted through the hole in the gear lever that 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. The dishing of the hole 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 that seems to be no longer available.
I also
purchased one of these remote control rod ends. I discarded the white plastic
part and used the spring loaded turn pin to replace the bolt that previously
attached the gear shift rod to the engine’s gear
lever.
Here is
another version of the same mod seen on the Lugger “Karma”. 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 large enough for the cord to be attached
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 - 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.
