I very well may be the guinea pig for this one, the idea of a kabota tractor engine sounds pretty appealing. Any how, the old A4 is now sitting on a plastic crate in the middle of the floor. My God those engines are heavy! I could hardly lift it the 2 foot off the floor to get it up on the crate. Now I just need to some how get it out of the boat. Who ever built that chart table in my boat has my gratitude, It lifts up and the right side of the stair supports lifts out as well, so pretty much it gives you access to the whole space between the bunks, it made it very easy to get the engine out of there, well except the having to crawl through the cockpit locker to get to the prop shaft. Anyhow, would it be ok to leave the prop shaft as it is? Im a bit concerned that with out the support of the transmission it may slide and cause a leak. Anyhow, I forgot my camera, but I will bring it tomorrow and take lots of pics. When I was climbing around back behind the engine, I noticed that some one glassed the hull to deck seam. looks like they did a good job too.
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promise Ill bring my camera tomorrow. Anyhow still haven't gotten the engine out of the boat, I am going to buy some 2x4's and make a scaffolding to pull the engine up, then slide it onto a couple more boards and lower it down into my truck. On other fronts though I'm making lots of progress. I pulled the prop off, and slid the drive shaft out of the boat, I am going to plug the hole with a dowel and then glass the hell out of the back were the shaft used to go, at least this way I will be able to easily remove the glass and the plug if I decide to re-power later. After pricing the betta engine, I feel it may be a while till I have the funds to purchase one, so outboard for now. I also removed the old shut off valve for the water intake for the old engine. It was frozen open in a big way, so I am just going to replace it with a new one, and then for added security I will put a threaded cap on the other end. Honestly I would much rather put a proper sea cock on instead of that horrid thing that pearson put there, but time is running short, and I think that it would be a bigger job to retrofit a new fitting. I will probably go ahead and do it this fall though when she is hauled out for the winter, or maybe even glass over the old thru-hull. I have recruited the help of my father to re-finish the outside wood work. Its pretty far gone, but I am going to put many coats of tongue oil on it, I think that if enough soaks into the wood, it may actually look decent. I was just going to varnish it, but it is dried out to the point of pending dry rot, so I think the oil will be better for it. I am hoping to have her launched very soon, and I will continue all my fun projects afloat. Just gotta get the thru-hulls under control then into the drink she goes.
I ended up sanding a much larger section than what is shown in this picture, but after that I started putting glass on it, and didn't want to get it all over my camera, so more pics will have to wait. The plan is to put 9 layers of fibreglass cloth over the hole, stopping every 3 to let it dry and sand out the wrinkles and any small air pockets. After that I am going to fair the whole thing with a couple of layers of fibreglass bondo, and then sand and repaint the whole thing. If I go to re-power her later, Ill just sand off the glass and pull the cork. I ended up just getting a brass cap to put over the old engine water intake, I was going to use a bronze ball valve like what was on there, and put a cap over that, but I could not find a 3/8" valve. I highly doubt that the cap is going to corrode through any time soon, but I have a spare just in case. Ill probably glass over the hole next year anyhow.
Oh, and I removed the 150lbs of lead in the bow, and am going to move it to the back were the engine was. I guess I will build a box or something to put it in, I don't want pieces of lead flying around in the event of a rollover.
Originally Posted by Fox
