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.

Go Big or Go Home

Am I Having Starter Problems Again?
I decided to do a mid-winter start up to run and flush the motor and found I have another starting/starter problem. This was the original issue when I bought the boat and it took me a full season and 3 starters, new battery cables, new dual batteries and a new starter solenoid to sort out. Here we go again...

Since dry-docking the boat in September, I have kept both the batteries on trickle chargers to keep them fresh. But when I went to start the motor both fully charged batteries were unable to turn the motor. The starter was able to rotate the motor about 1/4 of a turn and stopped. When I removed the plugs the motor would turn freely. But the batteries could not turn-over the motor!

The Starter Isn't Getting Enough Amps
Wondering if I might have a bad cell in a battery, I took my Jump Starter/Charging station and dialed it to 40 Amps and connected it to the #1 battery. I was still unable to turn the motor. Next I took the Jump Starter/Charging station and connected the positive clamp to the starter relay and connected the negative clamp to the starter body. (These are the two positions the battery cables connect to the motor.) Essentially I by-passed the battery cables. Then I turned the key and the starter spun the motor robustly and the motor roared to life!

One of the symptoms I've had is the starter getting very hot. I'm told this is a result of the starter not getting enough Amps so the loss of amperage in the cables would make sense.

Here are my old battery cables. They were made from a #6 gauge jumper cable with crimped-on auto-parts store ends. (Its the orange and black cable, ignore the arrow it is pointing to cotter pins.)

Go Big on the Battery Cables
I decided it was time to upgrade the battery cables. Originally I had made a set of cables using a set of #6 gauge battery jumper cable purchased from the local car parts store. I cut the clamps off and crimped on bronze battery cable ends. Since I am running a pair of marine starting batteries I should have 2000 cranking Amps and this should be plenty to turn this starter/motor. I did some research and found there are several factors including the diameter of the cable, length of the cable and the quality of the connections that work against long battery cables. I have all three going against me.

I found a website that recommended to get 100 Amps through a 15' cable you need at least a 1/0 gauge cable. Not 6, not 4, not 2, not 1 gauge... 1/0! And they suggested 2/0 to be safe. I found a seller on E-bay that makes custom marine quality cables and ordered a pair of 2/0 cables for just shy of $185. They called and warned me these cables are 5/8" diameter each. When the cables arrived they were impressive (and heavy). I worried I wouldn't be able to run them around the motor under the cowl.

The Installation
I spent the better part of a day re-running the cables and neatly attaching them to my batteries and to the starter solenoid and starter. Guess what? I turned the key, the starter spun the motor and she fired right up!. The moral to this story... a #6 battery cable is like a straw and two 1000 Amp batteries are like a fire hydrant. The 2/0 cables are likely over kill but they are more like the fire hose I needed.

The battery cables on my 15' boat are 15' feet long! The positive cable starts a couple feet from the stern on the port side of the boat at the battery on/off switch. The negative cable is on a ground buss on the back side of the board where the on/off switch is mounted.

 

The battery cables go back to the stern and across the transom and they are attached on the starboard side of the boat where they then pass through the cable hole in the splash well.

From the cable hole they they continue back to the middle of the boat along with the fuel line, electrical harness along with the steering and throttle control cables.

They pass into the motor housing along with the fuel line and then around the front of the motor and down the starboard side of the motor.

 

The negative cable runs under the starter is grounded to the motor at the starter bracket.

 The positive cable goes all the way back and is attached to the rear side of the starter solenoid. 

In all that's a 15' journey for the amps to travel.

1960 Dorsett Belmont - Newport Harbor 2013

Summers over and we took the boat out of the water for the season. Here is our slideshow from many outings enjoying the Newport Harbor this summer.

Sharpe Family Photo Summer 2013

Sharpe Family Photo Summer 2013
a.k.a. the "Meerkat Family Goes Boating"

When we were all actually together this summer, unfortunately the motor was still in the final tuning stages and the boat wasn't out on the water. So this image photo is merged from two photos. The first is from when we all jumped into the boat in our back yard last Christmas. With the camera propped up on a ladder, Kylen set the timer and scrambled into the boat. We all popped our heads up and click, Meerkats! Using the magic of Photoshop, I cut out the background and laid the image on a photo we actually shot from inside the boat while cruising the Newport Harbor this summer. As far as I'm concerned this is Christmas Card material.

Scott Racing Division

Bob McCulloch pushed the envelope chasing boat racing speed records and in 1958 his new 3 cylinder 60 hp Flying Scott was introduced. The Scott 60 was popular in NOA OPC racing 1958 and 1959 where it enjoyed some success, especially setting speed records.

Here are a few photos collected from the web of Scott Racing Team and their 1960's era PowerCat racing boats.

Team McCulloch boats at Carlsbad, CA Source: http://powercatboat.com/35.html

The McCulloch factory was at the LA Airport so a lot of the testing and racing was done in the salt of the Long Beach, CA harbor.

Source: http://www.powercatboat.com/33.html

And for fun... a few modern "racers" with their Flying Scotts...

  

Dick Davis doing 60 M.P.H. With a pair of Scott 75s strapped to the back of his PowerCat.

source http://www.powercatboat.com/video/video.html
 

 

My friend from FiberGlassics.com "Pony Boy" in his G3 with 75HP Flying Scott...
mine wouldn't be running without his help!