How Soft is an Aluminum Motor?

One of the downsides to an aluminum block is the motor is fairly soft and it caution is not exercised you can easily strip bolts in the motor. Over the years this has manifested its self on our Flying Scott on the two top starter mounting bolts.

For our motor, the starter has always been an issue and I'm not sure if the bolts were stripped before I got the motor or if they were stripped by Action boat when they "worked" on the starter or if I stripped them in one of my many R&Rs of the starter.

The solution to this problem was to install a set of Time-Serts. These hardened steel sleeves are an ideal fix and actually result in a higher pull resistance than the original aluminum block. The Time-Serts for this job are the 5/16-18. This allows you to use the original size starter bolts. They are sold in a kit with 5 Serts, the drill, tap, counter bore and installation bit.

Installation was very easy, if fact a little too easy. The aluminum is so soft the drill cleaned out the old threads in seconds and the tap, which is usually the hard part, was easily turned with a tap wrench after lubricating the hole with WD-40. The tap turned into the hole with little resistance and cut beautiful new threads. The counter bore created a nice indent for the Sert and the final step was to screw in the Sert with the supplied driver tool. In under 10 minutes the motor was ready have the starter remounted.

My observation is that the Aluminum is really soft so I need to take extreme care in not over tightening any of the bolts/screws in the block. The good news is the Sert completely eliminates the need for the starter bolt to come in contact with the aluminum on future R&Rs. Now I have a nice strong attachment point for the starter.

Paint it Red

This 1960 McCulloch ad features the Flying Scott with the lower cowl painted in Red. I'm thinking about repainting my motor... maybe it needs a little dash of "hot sauce"?

In other random notes... I need to find one of these Scott McCulloch Outboard dealer signs for my garage.

This one is in the Mikkelson Collection and the image is from woodyboater.com. Got one you need to get rid of... E-mail me.

McCulloch Outboard Motors Styled by Raymond Loewy

The Raymond Loewy connection to the Dorsett is well documented in Dorsett sales literature and supported by the cool dash plaque on our Dorsett Belmont. In this McCulloch ad from 1957 the Royal Scotts (40hp) are spotlighted as also being a Raymond Loewy design. While the 60 h.p. Flying Scott is not attributed to Lowey, it's design is consistent with the sleek lines of the Royal Scott.

This article from Outboard Boating 1958 also indicates that the McCulloch outboard motors received their unique styling from the same famed industrial designer.

Some time ago the controlling interest in the Scott Atwater Manufacturing Company was bought by the McCulloch Motors Corporation, one of the country's largest manufacturers of chain saws. McCulloch already had a well-established two-cycle motor experimental engineering department. Within a year of gaining control of Scott-Atwater. McCulloch's experimental facilities plus a generous experimental budget began to generate some changes. The first evidence of the new policy was apparent when in 1957 the Scotts were regarbed in colorful, sleek and sprightly cowlings created by noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

Read the full article from Outboard Boating 1958

Google books also returns quite a few results with Loewy and McCulloch mentioned including a McCulloch review in The Fisherman, Volume 9 also published in 1958 where they mention the McCulloch outboards are “smartly styled in the Raymond Loewy Associates’ latest designs”.

 

If you don't know who Raymond Loewy is... his most famous “boat motor” was the Coca-Cola Dole Deluxe... read this article Raymond Loewy: the man who designed everything from the Verge.