Saving Old Seagulls

Took my perfectly well running forty plus out for it's first run in the sea since I bought it, and I had not properly secured the mount (entirely my fault) turned round sharply and the engine took a dive. Got it out in seconds. At first there was no spark, but have now clean points, changed plug, replaced fuel. Seems to spark well but will not start. Should I be looking at stripping carb to flush out the fuel chamber? Any ideas, thanks

Yes, clean the carb out. Hot water and detergent works well, then dry with hair dryer.

You need to get rid of as much salt as possible, some people say stick the engine in a tank of clean water to get rid of the salt.

I would dunk it in my test tank whilst cleaning the carb, blow it all off with an air line, spray with a can of WD 40.

Replace carb and run for a long time till it is well dried out.

You could also replace the gearbox oil, make sure there is no trapped water in gearbox.

H-A

Personaly I would remove the flywheel & Ign system & wash in fresh water & bake in an oven on low to dry it out. The last thing you want is salt crystals under the flywheel & in the Ign system. This is how i treated a starter motor off a diesel in a yacht that was partly flooded with salt water.

So this really does happen then
I'd do as above...

Hi
thanks for all suggestions. Stripped everything out, cleaned it all, then found the key "d shaped pin" that couples the top of the crankshaft to the flywheel had sheared. I can only presume that as the engine was submerged whilst running, water entered exhaust/carb forcing it to stop, but the flywheel had inertia and didn't stop quite so quickly, so that was the weakest link. I thank everyone for their help, it's great to have some ideas to explore,
Alan

Alan if you've sheared the woodruff key this would implt the motor was running when it hit the water & it hydraulic'd, i.e. stopped because the piston could not compress water.

There is a good chance depending on the revs when this happened that you've damaged far more than the woodruff key, conrod, piston assembly, crank shaft & cylinder head will all have to be checked to see if they are fit for use.

Good luck

Hi Charles,
yep it was running when it hit the water. Seems to turn over easily and has good compression. So will try new key before going deeper. Any ideas where to get one? I'm waiting to speak to John at SOS first.

John has them in stock.

I've seen bent conrods & blown head gaskets with bent heads from this happening.

It wasn't pretty, fingers crossed

coil in the oven, new woodruff key, points reset, flywheel and recoil reinstalled, fresh fuel, and you know it..................she's alive again, thanks for all the help, took her out yesterday for a couple of hours and she sings