Motor Well Completed

 View aft, sorry for the mess, these two show the completed deck, a mix of old and new with a hatch to allow access to the steering. The original decking is spruce that is full of knots so filling in the missing planks was easy, simply dug through my scraps of 2 bys and ripped and planed as needed. Reminder, if you click on these pics, they enlarge.

 This, on, below, is of the completed motor well consisting of a short length of 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe, two threaded adapters, two thought hulls, and a pair of shims cut from PVC trim.

 The through hulls threaded nicely into the PVC adapters ( a piece of luck) and the bottom one is set in 3M 5200, between  all of the layers inside and out. I am wondering if I should have added grease fittings at top and bottom, but don't think I will need them.

 The upper part of the well is held in place by a 2 by 3 block that has a half round cutout to receive the PVC and held there by a clamp that I found in a box of misc. hardware in the dump.  The bolts are 1/4 inch stainless salvaged from my old sailboat.  All bedded in thickened epoxy. Did I need the uprights? I don't know but somehow they tied the whole thing together and I had just enough epoxy left so I did it.

 Here is a view of the back deck showing the hatch Should give good access and maybe allow for a bit of storage as long as I am careful not to overdo it.

 I really like the look of that deck, it just makes the lines of the boat more apparent as opposed to the gapping hole I began with.

A Little Progress

Missing pieces of rear deck milled out and installed (temporarily) with drywall screws while waiting for the bronze order to come in.  Hatch for access to steering has been cut into deck.  Need to decide on hardware for that.

 Ebay comes through with a $25 steering arm that fits nicely on the motor shaft.  Probably should have cleaned out all of the mess before taking pics, sorry.

 Rear deck assembled.  Since it is all spruce decking and since the original is full of knots, milling out the new decking was simple.  Scrap 2 bys ripped and planed supplied the material.

 Middle thwart.  The components are all salvage from other boats.  The seat top was originally the front seat back from an old  Penn Yan, The other components from misc. boats that had turned to mulch but still had some salvage value.

 Have had thees oarlocks hanging around and they might work for my 8 foot aux. power source.

 Rear hatch open, need to decide on hardware, also needing a flag holder for the flag pole and all around light. Hoping I will be able to steam the coaming to fit these tight curves.  Have installed blocking under the decking to provide a fastening surface for the coaming.

O-Ring to the rescue

Wondering how to eliminate the slight amount of slop in the fit of the shaft in the thru-hull fittings I cam up with the idea of using o-rings.  Was able to find just the right ones.  The plan it to push the o-ring about 3/4 inch into the thru-hull, both top and bottom of the tubular motor well and fill the space with epoxy thickened with cabosil? The shaft will be wrapped round with poly film to keep it from sticking to the shaft.  When cured the epoxy will make a nice snug bushing.

 O-Ring around shaft makes a nice snug fit and will keep the epoxy from running through.  Before pouring epoxy, ring will be pushed down about 3/4 inch.

 Clamp found in a box of junk at the local dump will hold shaft in place. There will be a block of wood on each side to assist and take up the space between clamp and thwart.  I cut new shims for the bottom just one degree more than the last ones and now the motor well is in better alignment.  Next problem to solve will be what kind of betting to set the whole works in.  Any suggestions? Harry Bryan made some excellent suggestions about what kind of steering arm would work well in this situation.  Now I need to fugue out how to attach it.

Success and a Mystery

I have finally been able to finish cutting through the shaft on my Minn kota Traxxis 80 trolling motor. This brings me one step closer to putting it into my 1910 power dory. The original motor was a low hp make and break gas motor—now we will be going electric.  Here are some pics;

 First attempt at cutting the shaft.  The tubing cutter did not have enough depth.  Needed a pipe cutter which I finally found at Essex Rental.  When I told the counterman what I was doing, he got the cutter and we went out to the truck and finished the cut—no charge. Thanks.

 Here is the finished product.  Now I need to bore a hole through for the clamp.  Should be a piece of cake.  Please notice the brown wire.  That is the mystery.  Why is it there?  What does it do?  The insulation has not been stripped, there is no connector on the end as they other two wires have.

 A closeup of the three wires above. I will neaten up the cut, but there are no rough edges, seems to be some sort of carbon fibre.  And, below, the motor in place with a temporary spacer.  I am counting on the bottom of the hull to act as a doelfin.  Waiting patiently for an answer from Minn kota on the brown wire.

Motor in Place (More or Less)

I have dry fit the motor into the tubular motor well and mocked up a skeg and guard.  Here are some pics including the ones I thought were lost yesterday.  The digital world is a mystery to this old carpenter.

 Here is the mostly apart head just before i was able to remove the control panel's last two screws.

 And now all is apart.  The blue knob unit is the speed control, forward and reverse.

 And here is what will get inserted up through the motor well.

 A view of the skeg mockup from the bow

 And a bit closer.  The white collar is a bit I had to cut off one of the thru hulls and now am using it as a temporary spacer. Will try to find something better before we are finished.

 This is a close up showing the cutout in the skeg (2 x 12 x 54 inch white oak) the trailing edges of which will be feathered to eliminate turbulence on the prop.  The top projection on the skeg is to add support to the metal (now in the form of a piece of tubing) protection of the prop and motor.  I am considering bringing the metal down in front of the prop, almost vertical to give it more strength. Can you picture it?  I want to use 3/4 black iron pipe for the metal guard, maybe have it let into the top of the skeg and terminating in a threaded plate (can't remember the correct name) on the flat in fromt of the prop.  The pic does not show it well but there is plenty of room. I realize I should have put something while behind the motor to make it all more clear.  Click on the pics to enlarge.

All Stripped

Well, this never happened before, lost a whole slew of pics of the dismantling.  There was a collar around the shaft that came off nicely, set that aside and took out the two screws I could find for the main control panel, then found two more.  There two would be the last to be removed and they did not want to come out, probably the heads were buggered when installed.  I was about to drill them out when I gave it one more try and got them both out.  I had pictures of all of this, please feel free to use your imagination. 

Removing the control panel I was able to thread the two wires, on the left of the pic above, out and slide off the mounting bracket and now I have just a shaft and lower unit with no other accouterment. 

Tomorrow I will flip the hull, dry fit the tubular motor well and insert the shaft to see where it should be cut.  At the same time I will be able to get an idea of what I will need for a skeg and other protection for the lower unit.

Tearing Apart the Traxxis

The living room floor has become the operating room, mainly because the shop is littered and full of other projects. Dropping a screw on the floor out there would make finding it the literal needle in a haystack,  Here are some pics beginning with the last time we will see Traxxis as a whole.

 The next two show the wonderful articulation of the tiller which sadly we will forgo in the interest of maintaining the illusion that this old boat has not been modernized.

 Here is the tubular motor well and the next shows the detail of the lower assembly with the full thread thru hull, a necessity since the threads need to be longer to fit into the plumbing adapter.

 A closeup

 Aaarrggh, the pristine, brand new motor is being torn asunder

 There were six screws to get the top off revealing the underside of the battery tester.  I am hoping to be able to mount this somewhere in the boat when all is said and done.

 and six more to take the tiller apart, fortunately all the same!

 Tiller apart

 and speed control knob (in blue) removed from tiller arm.

 A shot directly into the control panel.  I have tried removing the heavy battery wires from the panel but guess I need to go out to the shop and get some pliers, but before I do I wanted to post this much.  While at the computer I got on the WB index and found the article on stick steering.  Not sure there is enough detail there but I need to read further.

The Tubular Motor Well Assembled

 Above is a reminder of what we are shooting for (click on photos to enlarge) I am thinking of using 1 inch pipe for the metal part of the motor protection rather tun flat stock.  The prop measures around 11 inches so the skeg will be pretty large.

 A thru hull with wedges to allow well to be vertical

 Motor well dry fit using new full thread thru hull, the one above did not have enough threads to allow the adapter to be threaded on.

 The motor well will be affixed to the thwarts.  The afterdeck will have a hatch to make all of that nice space available for storage.  New deck beam to the right was needed as decking is only `/2 inch spruce.

 Pictured below is a closeup of the thru hull/wedge combo.  When it is permanently installed there will be bedding and thread tape to hopefully give a water tight seal.

 Below shows the original electric switch.  I have not tested it to be sure it functions but if it does it will do nicely for the nav lights.  Trying to decide if the control head should simply stick up above the afterdeck.  I would function beautifully but clash with the beauty of the old boat.  What to do.  I could also shorten the tube, cut a slot in the thwart for the handle to stick out of and hide most of the modern stuff while maintaining the convenience of one handed control.  It may be easier to decide once the motor arrives on Tuesday.

 And, here is a shot of the power prop.  The motor comes with the weedless variety as part of the package so I will have a spare of sorts.

Working on Motor Well Design

So many good ideas.  Kick up rudder mount, transom mount, tube style motor well with skeg?  Which would serve best?  Which would make the least impact on a future  restoration allowing for the installation of the original one lung hit and miss banger?  I am leaning strongly towards the skeg and tube option. A steel bar would complete the protection of the motor. It would need to be removable for the installation of the motor.  No problem there.  Here is a sketch—click on it to enlarge.

Not very pretty, but fairly in scale. The steel would run up the transom and onto the skeg enough to be bolted in place.  Since the skeg will be of 1 1/2 spruce, I suppose the steel could be the same width by one quarter? The thru hull threads fit nicely into a threaded 1 1/2 inch PVC coupling which in turn accepts the 1 1/2 inch pipe. There would be the same thru hull/PVC arrangement at the top of the pipe as well.  The top of the unit will be supported by a thwart of some sort.  Altogether makes a fairly good support at top and bottom for the shaft.  Not sure how the steering will be accomplished but should not be too much of a problem.