THE ARRAN BOATS BLOG

I bought this as a project boat as it had not run in 14yrs.

Came with a 70hp two stroke Yamaha outbox with power tilt and trim.I was unable to test the engine on collection but on inspection it was obvious that it needed work.There was spark on all three plugs so I cleaned the fuel system and put it on an external fresh fuel supply.The engine wasn’t seized so with some oil down the bores and the plugs out I span it over.I put the plugs back in and It fired up and ran with good water pressure.

The engine selected gear both forward and reverse and the power tilt trim worked.

I noticed water leaking out the water jacket cover in three separate locations.One of the holes was large so I decided/had to take the cylinder head off to investigate.All 14 of the bolts however snapped they were absolutely solid no movement either direction even with applied heat and penetrating oil.

I can get new gaskets and a new cover plate but the snapped bolts are the real problem.As can be seen the pistons and bores are in great condition.The cylinder head is also in great condition but the cover plate needs replacing.I will take the engine apart and try a specialist engineering company for removal of the snapped bolts.In the meantime  I will remove the engine and look for a replacement engine to get the boat back on the water.

The above right picture shows the snapped screw which held the bottom edge of the windscreen in place.

The above is the screw hole after the plug and remaining screw had been punched through.

The windscreen on the boat was cracked and had fibreglass tape run around the top leading edge and also along a crack to reinforce it.It was held I’m place along the top by stainless bolts which were easy to undo.

Its lower edge was held in with rusty screws which nearly all snapped when I tried to remove them.Once off I saw that the screws were set in plastic plugs.I was able to punch the plug and the remaining broken screw inover until it fell out the other side.

Thats the remotes and seats removed although one of the seats wasn’t secured to the floor anyway.I gave it a quick clean and have spent the rest of my time thinking about how to replace the curved windscreen.