Reply To: Restoration of 1964 3hp Johnson JH 19A

[Monte NZ]

Hi crosbyman, lindy46 and Tubs.
First of all crosbyman I have to make a very embarrassing confession! I did retorque the head bolts, but in doing so, discovered that I had only torqued them to 50 inch!!!! ………must have got sidetracked by a phone call or something and forgot to complete the job……..I have now done them to 80inch!.
In reply to your suggestion lindy 46, I removed the recoil unit and started it with my drill, but the rattle is still there.
Tubs, I checked the magneto lever and that seems fine.

A point I would like to mention with running of the motor is, that I noticed it wasn’t idling as well as it had previously, so I did a compression check and discovered that compression had dropped to 50psi. I then gave it a good dose of Sea Foam and let it soak overnight and after another run compressions were back to 65psi, so it looks like sticky rings were the cause.

Thanks once again for your replies
Monte NZ