C&K
Well-known member
We have an '84 Alumacraft Pro 17 that we bought when we retired in 2019. We had bought a lake home on 640 acres with a 1/2 mile of lake frontage and we went looking for a boat that we could leave on the lake 7 months of the year. Although when not using the boat we have it in our ShoreStation boat lift. We looked at all sorts of new boats, but my wife found this '84 in the dealer's used showroom and she immediately liked the deck layout. I do to, it has bass boat style seating with storage under seats, where all the new ones had pedestal seats. Raised fishing deck platforms both bow and stern. Enclosed bilge. It's a really nice boat and was Alumacraft's "Luxury Series" back in the day.
But it needed a lot of work. The transom was rotted. So I had to replace that. The wiring was a cobbled rat's nest. Since I had the rivets drilled and the transom out of it, I pulled all the rest of the decks and completely rewired the boat and put new decks and carpets in it.
A year later we had a really nice boat that we liked, and now comes the part about the outboard.
The boat came with an old Chrysler Force 50 on it. The engine ran good and it pushed this heavy boat at 24.7 mph GPS. But I wanted a Mercury on it. And the one I wanted was a early to mid-80's 50hp four-cylinder two-stroke. It took a year to find one and when I found it it was not in very good shape. The previous owner couldn't get it to run. He had "rebuilt" the carbs and screwed those all up. During the process of trying to get it to run he had replaced the stator, trigger and ignition switchbox. He put a new water pump in it, but when he put the lower unit back on he got the shift shaft out of time so it wouldn't go in reverse. In the process of trying to get it running he ran it without water and burned his new water pump up, but he didn't know the difference. And then he figured he finally had 'er - it was running on only two cylinders but he didn't know the difference on that either. So he painted the lower unit and leg Caterpillar yellow, he painted the cowling and top end John Deere green - these were the color of spray bombs he had laying around the garage. Then he took it out on the lake and on two cylinders it would barely get his 15ft Alumacraft up on plane, which he thought was really going until it locked up.
Let's just say this guy was not a marine mechanic.
So he advertised the engine on craigslist for $500 for parts. Doesn't run. This is where I found it and I gladly paid the $500 for it because all the ignition parts he had put on it were worth that.
I tore it down. It had a broken reed block on the #2 main bearing - there's no way it could run on the top two cylinders. I bored the block .020 over - factory pistons used to come in .015 and .030. I put .020 Wiseco pistons in it. I did some mild port work on the transfers and exhaust ports - not full racing port timing, but enough to let it breathe a little better on the top end and still idle smooth at 650 rpm. New reed blocks and two-stage racing reeds. Went thru the carbs and re-worked them for E15 ethanol blended fuel (premium 88). It's got more compression with the overbore and it needs good gas - it will ping on non-ethanol "recreational gas". With E15 I can run 34 degrees of timing advance and it's a cleaner, slower and cooler burning fuel than straight gasoline.
Ran it and broke it in in the test tank. After breakin I put it on the old Taylor marine dyno and it put out 67.8hp at the prop shaft @ 5,800 rpm on the powerhead. So I bought a new Solas 17" pitch prop for it.
In the end, May 2021, got a new boat, new outboard, all for under $6,000 (but a lot of work). And it pushes our Pro 17 at 38.0mph @ 6,000 rpm. It could use a bit more prop but I'm happy with the hole shot with the Solas 17. It jumps right up out of the water and on plane inside 5 seconds. Couldn't find any of the old blue-stripe decals. So I re-decal'd it as a 60 with the later red and silver stripe decals. It is the only 60 four-cylinder in existence built on a 44 cube powerhead. It's actually closer to a 65 or 70, but the red stripe 60 decals were readily available.
A few photos I snapped during the rebuild and engine swap, and the final product. The boat has a CMC PT-130 power tilt and trim and jackplate. So the original power tilt and trim was removed from the engine as it was no longer functional anyway and parts for the hydraulic pump are impossible to find anymore.
But it needed a lot of work. The transom was rotted. So I had to replace that. The wiring was a cobbled rat's nest. Since I had the rivets drilled and the transom out of it, I pulled all the rest of the decks and completely rewired the boat and put new decks and carpets in it.
A year later we had a really nice boat that we liked, and now comes the part about the outboard.
The boat came with an old Chrysler Force 50 on it. The engine ran good and it pushed this heavy boat at 24.7 mph GPS. But I wanted a Mercury on it. And the one I wanted was a early to mid-80's 50hp four-cylinder two-stroke. It took a year to find one and when I found it it was not in very good shape. The previous owner couldn't get it to run. He had "rebuilt" the carbs and screwed those all up. During the process of trying to get it to run he had replaced the stator, trigger and ignition switchbox. He put a new water pump in it, but when he put the lower unit back on he got the shift shaft out of time so it wouldn't go in reverse. In the process of trying to get it running he ran it without water and burned his new water pump up, but he didn't know the difference. And then he figured he finally had 'er - it was running on only two cylinders but he didn't know the difference on that either. So he painted the lower unit and leg Caterpillar yellow, he painted the cowling and top end John Deere green - these were the color of spray bombs he had laying around the garage. Then he took it out on the lake and on two cylinders it would barely get his 15ft Alumacraft up on plane, which he thought was really going until it locked up.
Let's just say this guy was not a marine mechanic.
So he advertised the engine on craigslist for $500 for parts. Doesn't run. This is where I found it and I gladly paid the $500 for it because all the ignition parts he had put on it were worth that.
I tore it down. It had a broken reed block on the #2 main bearing - there's no way it could run on the top two cylinders. I bored the block .020 over - factory pistons used to come in .015 and .030. I put .020 Wiseco pistons in it. I did some mild port work on the transfers and exhaust ports - not full racing port timing, but enough to let it breathe a little better on the top end and still idle smooth at 650 rpm. New reed blocks and two-stage racing reeds. Went thru the carbs and re-worked them for E15 ethanol blended fuel (premium 88). It's got more compression with the overbore and it needs good gas - it will ping on non-ethanol "recreational gas". With E15 I can run 34 degrees of timing advance and it's a cleaner, slower and cooler burning fuel than straight gasoline.
Ran it and broke it in in the test tank. After breakin I put it on the old Taylor marine dyno and it put out 67.8hp at the prop shaft @ 5,800 rpm on the powerhead. So I bought a new Solas 17" pitch prop for it.
In the end, May 2021, got a new boat, new outboard, all for under $6,000 (but a lot of work). And it pushes our Pro 17 at 38.0mph @ 6,000 rpm. It could use a bit more prop but I'm happy with the hole shot with the Solas 17. It jumps right up out of the water and on plane inside 5 seconds. Couldn't find any of the old blue-stripe decals. So I re-decal'd it as a 60 with the later red and silver stripe decals. It is the only 60 four-cylinder in existence built on a 44 cube powerhead. It's actually closer to a 65 or 70, but the red stripe 60 decals were readily available.
A few photos I snapped during the rebuild and engine swap, and the final product. The boat has a CMC PT-130 power tilt and trim and jackplate. So the original power tilt and trim was removed from the engine as it was no longer functional anyway and parts for the hydraulic pump are impossible to find anymore.
