Thread: F100 Problem number one through ....?

Things starting to come together for ya...Congrats.

Originally Posted by Slab

I did not mention my other self inflicted problem.

Attachment 482891

I always think I know better. So, because I thought I'd be taking this engine apart again, and since I was only "testing" it running a little. I thought I'd do the smart thing, and not tighten the flywheel to specs. I figured "gootentight" would be good enough. After all, I broke three pullers getting that darn flywheel off the first time, I wasn't gonna go through that again. Well, well, well. It turns out, it wasn't the smart thing!

I sheered the Woodruff Key between the flywheel and the crankshaft! doh

The good news is, that flywheel was real easy to take off this time!

And when you think about it, with the timing off a bit, this may be part of the reason I smoked the gears in the starter motor. Backfires while trying to start it, spinning things forcibly backwards. Don't really know, but a possibility.

And you guys thought I knew what I was doing.

Still cheaper than a new outboard or Outboard Mechanic's School. I can't say I have ever seen a broken Flywheel Key, a first for me.

Originally Posted by Rojo

Still cheaper than a new outboard or Outboard Mechanic's School. I can't say I have ever seen a broken Flywheel Key, a first for me.

Second one for me!

Here's the story about the first time I sheered a Flywheel Woodruff Key.

It was long ago, I was in my twenties, My buddy and I were fishing out of a square back Grumman Canoe. The canoe had a 3.6 HP Sears outboard on it. A storm was approaching.

We were on the far side of the lake from where we were camping, on Lake Carrol in Illinois.. We watched a squall line approach. We decided to high tail it back home. I had this little 3.6 HP motor running flat out through three foot waves. The motor was out of the water half the time.

We were coming up to a bay, and I turned to stay nearer to the shore. That was the big mistake. The canoe flipped. It's a longer story, but with 60 MPH winds and 3 plus foot waves, we were in trouble. We both had our life jackets on, but my buddies orange old style (I think they call them Mae West style) flipped off over his head and was gone. I had not zipped my life jacket up, and it had flipped up over my head, and i was under water. We both seriously thought each other were dead. Anyway, we did make it, my buddy floated to shore holding the plastic 6 gallon fuel tank, and I was able to pull my jacket back on. We lost all other tackle and fish poles, and we did not care. We lived.

OK, so as it turns out, that 3.6 hp sears outboard motor was running flat out when it hit the water. It would not start again. About a year later I decided to investigate, I took the motor apart and I found a sheered woodruff key between the crankshaft and the flywheel.