Whooo Hooooo!!! Found the misplaced part, bled the fuel system and cranked the engine on the stand. After about 5 seconds of cranking it fired and puffed out some white and black smoke then quit. After another 5 second crank it started and idled along! Black smoke cleared up in a couple seconds of running. After maybe 10 seconds I shut it down because it's currently inside (exhaust build up) and the cooling system is completely removed and I don't want to go backwards on this thing.

Now on to temporarily getting the cooling system hooked up, testing the transmission and letting it run for a good while to see if my hopes are correct at this point. If that all checks out then it's on to resealing, cleaning, painting and all the work on the boat to get ready to put things back together.

Excited to have a living engine! Here's hoping it's healthy too.

Happy New Year to all!

-Ben