Reply To: Power Head Cross Reference for 1958 Evinrude Fisherman 5516

[Mike Nazarenko]

Difficulty in pulling the engine over:

• the pistons are still in cylinders, I have not yet removed them from the crankcase.  I can move each piston up and down by hand, plus I can see much of the pistons, rings and cylinder walls through the exhaust port.  No rust, smooth cylinder walls (no scratches) and dull gray color on the rings.
• the connecting rod bushings are silver colored and not bronzed.
• the other night I reassembled the power head on the workbench (when not concerned about new gaskets and  proper torquing it only took about 10 minutes), put the flywheel nut on the top with the flywheel and turned the crank, it was still hard to turn with a breaker bar.  I thought it would just spin around easily (no plugs, minimal assembly tightening), it did not.

Replacing the connecting rods:

• Ed Elliott contacted me this afternoon with NOS connecting rods.

Crankshaft:

• Will clean up the crankshaft tomorrow with fine grit sandpaper and spec it out.  If it fails there are a couple online.

Removing connecting rod and checking pistons:

• Reviewed the Johnson service manual and will make a cradle out of wood as you suggest.  This should de-risk that procedure so I don’t damage the pistons.
• Will also check ring gap, really hoping I don’t need new rings, they are not a cheap date.

Running with oil:   I have and will continue to run with 16:1 on my engines.

Lower unit

• in the PM I sent to FrankR I mentioned that it was a shame to tear the gear case apart, the fluid was clean, the gears were in very good shape but this is a new to me motor.  I did replace the impeller, water pump housing, impeller housing plate, upper bearing oil seal, prop shaft oil seal then sealed and successfully pressure tested the unit.   It rotates easily with no unusual effort.
• When I had the hard pulling trying to start it after completing the initial rebuild I was really hoping it was the shock absorber rubbing on the bearing carrier.

Cleaning the journals and crankshaft

• Other than fine grit sandpaper and maybe acetone, is there anything else to do to clean them up.

Thank you for you detailed reply, there were some issues with posting and maintaining the photos in the post.