1972 Mercury Kiekhaefer Merc 200 20 hp

Here we have a real sweet engine. It is a 1972 Mercury Kiekhaefer Merc 200 20 hp.

This engine came to me from the original owners son. It was bought brand new in 1972, then due to family complications it was left sitting unused for 15 years in its original package until it was used the first time. It has got a few scratches and dings from usage and storage but nothing major. Unfortunately, the prop is missing after some clumsy mechanic lost it when trying to service the engine!

Now, what in the world is Kiekhaefer (pronounced Key-Kay-fur)? I hear you all say.

Well, lemme tell ya (said in my best redneck accent):

Carl Kiekhaefer is the engineer behind the the brand that is nowadays known as Mercury Marine. Originally the engines were called Kiekhaefer Mercury (sort of like Kiekhaefer was the brand name and Mercury was the model name). The company was called Kiekhaefer Marine and was founded by Carl in 1939, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Long story short, Kiekhaefer ran the company until 1969 when he resigned as President of the company. Officially, the company changed its name to Mercury Marine but decided to use the name Kiekhaefer for a couple more years out of respect for the founder. In 1973, the Kiekhaefer name was dropped and were thereafter simply known as Mercury.

That makes my 1972 one of the last Mercurys featuring the Kiekhaefer name, which is quite cool.

Here are some pictures. Hope you all enjoy!

And it came with its original gas tank.

DIY: Rebuilding an outboard carburetor

Today I'm going to show you how to rebuild a carburetor using a carb kit. The patient today is my 1961 Johnson JW-17 3 hp. The engine wants to go, it starts right up and fires well but then it revs really high and dies. Those symptoms indicate mainly an air leak somewhere, but it may also indicate a clogged up carb. So, the next step is to rebuild and re-gasket the carburetor.

Here is the engine as it sits. It is missing the lower part of the engine cover, so if anyone has got one please contact me.

Start by removing the face plate. Notice that someone at some point has attempted to repair the carb using some ordinary automotive body filler. Luckily the damage behind the filler is no big deal, it's just the air box fastener plate that has broken off. That issue will be addressed later.

Remove fuel line

Remove the air box bolt

Remove the two nuts holding the carb to the engine. Do remember to remove the throttle returning spring.

Realize that this is so much easier to do without the tank in place. Remove tank for better access.

Remove carburetor.

Get yourself one of these. Make sure the kit fits your engine in question. This kit fits almost all 1950's and 1960's Johnson and Evinrude 3 hp engine, plus a few more, your local dealer knows whether it fits your engine or not and can supply you the correct one.

Remove the fuel bowl. Inspect for damage, dirt, varnish, anything that looks suspicious. This bowl happened to be surprisingly clean.

Inspect the carb kit, make sure it contains all the parts it should.

Install clean high speed nozzle and brand new nozzle packing. Install new float pin and seat.

Install float. I used the original one after making sure it floats. I will replace it with a brand new one some day. Should have done that while rebuilding it, but you know. Oh well.

The carb kit comes with a new float pin, but strangely enough it is about 0.5-1.0 mm too long, which doesn't seem like a problem when installing it, but the fuel bowl won't fit when using that pin. So I had to re-use the old one after cleaning it thoroughly.

The camera flash made the carb look whiteish under the float. That's just an optical phenomenon, the carb is perfectly clean. Normally, white powderlike substance in the carb indicates water in the fuel system.

Set float level.

Install new fuel bowl gasket and reunstall the fuel bowl.

Install new needle packings, the red ones in this picture. Be sure to remove the old packings first!

Install needles and needle packing nuts.

Admire handywork!

Reattach carb to engine and hope for the best. 

This is a simplified version of rebuilding the carb. The process is really quite straight forward and you shouldn't encounter any real difficultues. The only hard part might be removing the float valve guide, which sometimes is really stuck in there! If you destroy the guide, it's no problem per se since the carb kit comes with a new one but be careful not to destroy the carb.

1977 British Seagull Silver Century

Here we have a 1977 British Seagull Silver Century. Serialnumber WSPC986HH7. It is made in August 1977. It is rated at 5 hp.

This one is in a really good, unrestored condition. It has been sitting for at least 25 years in a dry and warm basement. It has obviously been well taken care of. It came with its original owners handbook in English, an owners handbook in Finnish, and with spare prop springs and a Seagull spanner, all contained in a Seagull plastic folder.

This Seagull is a clutched model, which means it has a forward gear and a neutral lever. It is really handy, compared to my other Seagulls that are direct drive models.

The Silver Century series were more or less the same as earlier models but they had a silver painted powerhead and larger, more squarely shaped fuel tanks.

Today I fired it up for the first time and a little while later it got its first outing in the sea. It worked perfectly on our fishing trip.

For startes, here is a video of the engine running. Sorry about the sideways video, need to figure out how to get it rotated..

Original decals still readable!

Clutch lever visible in this picture

Feelgood picture of the day