Plastic Classic Forum

Hello,
I'm sure it's been covered somewhere but I can't find the threads.
So how would/should I go about filling the prop shaft hole. The Atomic 4 is long since gone and I'm going to use a 10hp outboard. I don't plan to ever fit an inboard. I will eventually fill the prop aperture but not this year, just want to get sailing quickly:)
My thoughts were something like this... From the exterior, jam a wood plug in to about 3/4"-1" below the outer fiberglass surface. 2. Fill the recess with thickened epoxy. 3. Cover with 4 to 6 strips of 6oz fiberglass strips over the opening and taped to hold in place until sufficiently hard to cut clean with utility knife. 4. cover with bottom paint when the rest of the hull is done.

See any problems with this method? Got a better quicker/simpler/safer method?
Thanks for any inputs
Ed

If the packing gland and cutlass bearing are still there; I would just stick the shaft back in place and tighten the packing up until it doesn't leak. a shaft collar on each end would prevent the shaft from moving.

You never know what may happen down the road, and keeping the option for an inboard is smart in my opinion. You may not find the outboard works as well as you like.

Yes in most cases that would be an excellent idea, but there were missing pieces and a well worn shaft so I dumped them in the dumpster when the boat was at the yard. Now after some more thinking I might just cut the cutlass bearing tube off, flush with the hull and work from there:)
Thanks to the thought.
Ed

In that case; yes, just cut the tube off and grind a bevel, then patch like a through hull hole.

Put the outboard on a bracket. If you find, after a couple seasons, that you really do like the outboard then do the job properly and put it in a well. In my experience outboards on brackets on sailboats are a tremendous nuisance. If you have an outboard, you'd better not mind paying other people money to repair it and maintain it. I prefer to fix things myself and my outboard drove me mad. Now I have an A4 and, despite being engine illiterate, I am able to do all the work myself.

Crazer wrote:If you have an outboard, you'd better not mind paying other people money to repair it and maintain it. I prefer to fix things myself and my outboard drove me mad.

In 40 years I've never paid someone else to do work on my cars, motorcycles, boats, generators etc... and if If I go crazy it's my own fault:) I'm restoring a 1957 Evinrude Sportwin 10hp 2cycle to put on my outboard bracket. I find repairing an outboard orders of magnitude easier than an inboard crammed under the cockpit sole. Plus these old models are dirt simple. I do plan to build a well like James Baldwin has done on several Alberg designs, just not this season. I hate the bracket because it is totally a raging pimple on that lovely transom:) Oh and the practical problems too:)
Edward

Then you'll be completely fine. I had a '57 Evinrude on my Sea Sprite 23 and it was the only outboard I've ever encountered that I liked. It was a 5 1/2 Hp, the only problem was I really needed a long shaft which is why I replaced it. That little motor pushed me 200+ miles from the Bronx all the way to Lake Oneida.

When I was in high school I used money from my newspaper route to purchase a brand new 1957 Johnson 5 1/2 hp ($210.00). This was essentially the sane engine as the Evinrude. It was my first outboard and just last year I gave it to a young boy in my neighborhood . It still runs like a fine Swiss watch.

Crazer wrote:, the only problem was I really needed a long shaft which is why I replaced it.

I got lucky and found this one with a long shaft installed and the short shaft in a box with a spare(old) carb. Also this motor had a factory upgrade to a suction fuel pump, whoo hoo no pressure fuel tank needed:) I haven't checked the compression yet but it had a nice thump,thump when I pulled the start cord. But best of all it cost a whopping $75, heck the outboard bracket cost that much:(

earlylight, your right, in that time Johnson and Evinrude were both made by OMC. I really didn't care which just not a Mercury, just happened on this one when a guy was cleaning out the garage.

Yes, I worked for a Johnson dealer on Lake Ontario the summer of 1957. 56 years later and even the original paint looked almost like it did when I bought it. They just don't make them like they used to.

That's the good, the bad is they are dirty beasts and suck down fuel like it was 1957:) But I really look at it as an Aux, not a motor that I'd run 1000 miles down the ICW or something. I'll be on a mooring so I plan for this motor to see very little use. If I ever do opt to be a motorsailor then a newer 4-cycle would be in the cards, but still no inboard:)

I hear you....The newer four strokes have a lot going for them, but price is not one of them. That said, I have a 2001 four stroke, air cooled 2 HP Honda that I hang on either my 8 ft 6 in inflatable with a roll-up floor or my little 8 foot sailing dinghy and it does a wonderful job, is extremely quiet and just sips fuel that requires no two stroke oil added.