Birthday boat

[shipwrightParticipant @shipwright]

Amy,

It is possible that a sparkplug will show a spark outside of cylinder but fail when screwed in and under compression – have you tried a new plug ?

Ian

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I had a moped years ago and the odd bit of carbon used to fall off and block or partially block up the outlet of the exhaust pipe. Took me ages to find out what was up, as of course as soon as the thing stopped, the hole became clear again !!

Ashley

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Thank you all for the advice.

Ian, I have tried swapping plugs, to no avail.

Mark. Thanks, I think a blocked transfer port/ damaged piston skirt/ bent conrod is looking the most likely cause now, (I have come across a couple of weedeaters with pressed steel conrods!) I shall continue to dismantle the engine, until I get to the bottom of this! Maybe a badly worn big end bush?

Bob, I did briefly consider swapping the entire engine with the generator, and going all blonde, the next time Sam tried to start the generator!

Thanks again

Amy

[IAN_IParticipant @ian_i]

Stay with it AJ…tomorrow is another day….

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Thanks Ian

The chase is on, and I'll catch me little gremlin, I will!

[shipwrightParticipant @shipwright]

Hello Amy,

Just in case you need to clean the carb here is a video – a bit of a fiddly process and in the case of Ryobi engine a rebuild kit is not available :

**LINK**

Good luck with the engine troubleshooting.

Ian

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Thanks for that Ian, Quite timely! (our ryobi weed eater packed up last week, that link did the trick…)

Just a quick up date.

Been really busy at work again, so little progress. I have decided to go ahead and install the weed eater engine, but I will also continue to investigate the generator engine problems. I really want to get this boat back on the water……

I shall post as and when I get the time to work on her…

Thanks all

Amy jane

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Hi all.

Well it's been an eventful week. I fixed my car, Yay! (replaced the distributor) and got a new, big, and flash work shop. Yipeee! Due to "company restructuring" (storeman got sacked) I got a "promotion" (more work, same pay). Part of my new domain is sole charge of the 600 square foot sorting room, with it's two 30' x 4' work benches…After 30 seconds of intense negotiation, (let me build model boats during my lunch break, or I won't accept the position ) the matter was settled. (She who dares, wins). So no more drafty sheds, and cramped work spaces for me!

A start has been made on installing the weed eater engine

Looks a bit lost in there after the generator engine, but is much higher revving, so with a cut down prop, I'm hoping the performance will still be pretty good. I have a few ideas about not making it sound like a weed eater engine…. I wont have to modify the engine cover at all, which is good.

engine mounts ready to screw in. The weed eater has a centrifugal clutch built in, so the dog clutch has been discarded.

A bolt was ground and filed down for a drive dog. I will use a short length of the weed eaters flexible drive cable as a coupling.

Aj

[IAN_IParticipant @ian_i]

Hi Aj..

Congrats.. on job and the boat is looking good, hope this is the fix you need.

Ian

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Congrats on your promotion, Amy J

The "new" engine looks just about right for the build

Could you not give it a little TLC?……a good wire brushing will work wonders!

Nice looking model

Bob

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Thank you Gentlemen.

I have high hopes for the new engine, and yes Bob, I will give the engine a tidy up in due course. (I'm still thinking of a suitable excuse for returning the weed eater to the hire company sans engine….)

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

A bit more progress…

The engine and tank is in, and flexible coupling done.

The coupling is a short length of the weed eater drive cable, slid in side a short bit of s/s tube. A turned down bolt is on either end , one squared for the engine , the other slips into the prop shaft, and is welded. The tube is then squashed to capture the cable. The after engine mount is set on a rubber block, to allow a little movement. The forward engine mount it screwed to the hull. In an effort to stop the the whole thing sounding like a weed eater, I want to transfer the engine noise to the hull, (to give a nice rumble) and minimise the exhaust noise. To this end, I decided to retain the generators exhaust and muffler. The weed eater muffler had the outlet jammed up against the engine, so I closed it off with a bolt, and tapped a new nipple in.

A length of s/s pipe was cut and bent to shape to connect the engine up to the existing exhaust.

which I will weld up next week.

Aj

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

AmyJ. You know that really this should have been the choice from the off. Look how easy iy is compared to the other one, no faffing around with clutch arrangements and so on.

Keep up the good work etc etc

Ashley

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Quite so, BUT, that wasn't the point of the exercise!

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Fair enough. Some things just have to be done. Ashley

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Amy,

Cracking stuff! Sometimes the journey is better than arriving!

Len

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Only once you have actually arrived….

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Once is good enough! Mi sub might only dive once (in which case I shall claim it to be a true representation of the original)! Keep plugging.

Len

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Hi all,

Len, Your sub will be a cracker!

Well, the exhaust is hooked up and insulated, the throttle servo in, plug lead screened. all that remains to be done is hook up the petrol tank. The weather is all gret and grindy again, but she shall be in the water at the soonest opportunity……

I have stripped down the generator engine and could find nothing wrong with it. The rings are good, the bore is fine, no damage to the piston or blockage in the ports. The big and small end bearings have no play. Gaskets all good, so I'm flummoxed. I've reassembled it, and will but it on the test bench for a try in due course. Shall let you know….

Aj

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

Hello all

The boat has had a short run on the water, and was just getting up on the plane nicely when the coupling failed. Oh well…. I shall have to do a bit better. Other than that I'm very happy with the new set up. The motor runs beautifully, and is quite happy with the engine cover on, even sitting at idle. She sounds good too. Once I've got the coupling sorted, she'll be a cracker!

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Amy,

Just reading your thread for an update and suddenly realized something. You are entering text, picture, text, picture etc and it's all in sequential order! How do you do it? Please go to the 'Soapbox' bit of the forum, find my thread on 'Site problems and solutions' and please tell us!

Len

[Amy jane SeptemberParticipant @amyjaneseptember49770]

OMG

What a fraught week!

As I have probably said before, I find this boat a real hand full to lug around. I was taking her down to the water the other day, and took a tumble on the slippery ramp. Waaaaa!!!!!! Damage? broken prop, stripped gears in the rudder servo, and bent propshaft. Waaaaaa!!!!!!. And just to finish the job off properly, I landed on top off the boat, and broke the wind screen! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a suprisingly short sulking period, I hammered the prop shaft straight, made a new prop, (just bent ali sheet this time) replaced the rudder servo with the metal geared one I'd used on the clutch and rebuilt the windscreen. Whew…

At Lynn's suggestion, I replaced the failed coupling with this

a bit of compressor hose, with a bit of heavy kevlar braid slid over it, attached with two hose clips each end.

so here we go……

Yipeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very happy ….and relieved!

She has had a good few runs, and I've managed to fine tune the prop. She ended up needing a much smaller prop than I had expected. I've settled on a 3 1/8 x 5, (aprox) which gives her good speed, with out screaming her lungs out. (she is faster than she was with the generator engine too)

BTW the engine is a Still fs86, 25cc.

After the debacle of falling over, I've been leaving the boat on our launch, it's easier to get myself out to the launch than model out of the car and down to water. While I was disapointed not to make Sam's birthday, I've left the boat on the launch, with a "Dear Sam, I built this for you, Love Aj" label on it, for him to discover.

A huge thanks to all who have followed and contributed to this thread, I very well may not have finished the boat with out your encouragement, I love you all!

Yes, Bob and Ashley, I'm still keen to have ago at making a skipper, but that shall be a separate project. For now I'm going to call this project finished.

Amy jane

[Diede van AbsParticipant @diedevanabs87670]

Hi Amy Jane,

Sorry to hear of your accident, but very good you have picked yourself together again and recovered the boat to its full glory.

Shaken as the pictures may be, she still seems to put out a very impressive performance. Your husband should be very proud of you! I hope he likes it as much as we do.

Please let us know what he thinks of it, and make some sharper pictures with him driving it (or even better; shoot some video footage and upload to the Youtubez).

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Well done AJ. Fabulous, and at long last. Please now invest in a decent camera!!!

We all knew you could do it. Well, most of us….ok, a few then, I ALWAYS thought it would be great, sometimes.

Only the driver to put on and it will be finished. A nice clip of it zooming about would be fantastic, on u-toob.

Ashley

[Andy CParticipant @andyc56856]

Sorry to hear about your stumble. Glad that you are ok, sounds like it could have been worse for you as the boat is a bigun. Good to see her on the water too and just above it too.

Well done on such a great project.

Andy

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