Spent the last 4 weeks going through the port engine. Checked the cooling system which still had saltwater and brown mud inside. Took everything apart and cleaned it thoroughly. Strainers full of mud and in bad shape, must be replaced.

Corrosion on all headers, three had a hole (galvanic corrosion?) and water was pouring out. Had it welded and it seems to hold.

Made a test set up for the fuel system and fixed the flooding condition of both carbs.

Designed an engine test stand and had it welded at local shop. Turned out pretty overbuilt and heavy. Just how I like it.

Completed the engine with everything I had removed and refurbished, set up a somewhat wild cabling, added the battery, a fuel tank and a dashboard and finally after 11 months since I first saw my Cigarette I could run one engine.

Started right away at first try, stable idle no hesitation when accelerating, great sound! One header started spilling water, couldn’t see from where so I finished for today.
Happy to finally see some progress.

Wow, you are running on shear desire and fortitude, nice job! Be very careful with your manifolds, if there were 3 holes I’m sure there are other places where their weak in that aluminum now. I would drain them after each run and psi test them semi frequently.

You are probably right, chances are that it could leak into the exhaust and ruin the engine. Especially as it will sit for a while as I pulled the other engine.

So starboard engine is out and waits to be opened.
Lots of work in the engine bay too. What a mess.







Old fuel pump still there

Had to laugh at the old fuel pump. When I bought my top gun, it had two electric pumps & also mechanical pumps on the motors. One pump didn't work so instead of replacing it, the previous owner just made a bypass hose to take it out of the loop. Other pump had to be turned on to run that motor.

While waiting for some tools (a 3/8 12 pt socket is difficult to find in this metric country) I had time to look at my boat and found that the stern has moved up almost an inch after pulling the engines.
My first thought was that the hull changed shape but I remembered that the long wooden bunks at the keel were bend downwards before, now they are almost straight. So the hull was slightly curved already.
Question is how straight is the hull supposed to be?

The boat sat 20 years on the drydock on just two merely 2’ long bunks, that can’t be good.

Do I have a hook?





Drydock with wooden bunks, probably an afterthought to gain some clearance

I would think if the stern was lifted it’d be the opposite of a hook, being more rocker.. or are you asking if you’d have a hook w the engines in? But either way I’m not sure if how it currently sits on the trailer w/out motors in it is a good accurate measure of anything unless you had previously taken some sort of measures and references with the motors in?

Ya, must be a rocker, I mixed that up.
I never took any measurement from the ground to the bottom of the hull so I can’t say what has changed. I only know it sat nice and snug the whole length on the bunks and now it doesn’t. Either does it touch the rubber block in the center. It did before and it still does 8’ forward (there’s a second one).




What I did when I had the trailer/cradle made, was to make a mock-up of the shape of the hull at the stern (blue) and 20’ forward (green). At that time the boat was still on the island and I needed something for the welder. Worked out well but obviously it doesn’t tell if the hull is straight or not.

Took the starboard engine apart and as expected salt water had entered and seized cylinder #5




My idea to just swap all parts to the spare short block was too optimistic, one cylinder head has corrosion damage. This sets me back a month or two.

Salt water, its a love hate relationship