Any thoughts?

[thornbackflound]

Got a chance on this JONSTONE 20HP,LOOKS ROUGH BUT, PROMISED ITS A RUNNER?JUST WORRIED IT LOOKS IN A BAD WAY?PLUS I DON T THINK MY PROP FROM MY MARINER 1983 IS GONNA FIT,MORE MONEY?

[Burtox]

I had one of those engines on the back of my first boat. The bloke ran it up in a bin it sounded fine. It turned out to be the biggest piece of junk I had ever own. I wasted too much time and money on the piece of junk. My advise is to save up your money and buy a tidy Yamaha. I had a 50 and 90 two stroke and they never let me down. I hope this help as I wouldn't want you to fall into the same money pit.

Cheers Paul

This was bought to you by the iPhone app in the isles of scillies

[9D280]

I've still got one......

Threre are two ways of looking at this - as I know you are engine-less at the mo.

As the post above, or If it's like £50, and can be seen runing, It will likely get you on the water, but with risk. Tillers are a p!ss to fit, as they just bolt in, and the thtrottle engages via that lumpy disc in the middle of the bracket. There are two things that make them run like a bag of poo:

First is the throttle lever On your "front view" pic right behind wwhere you can't see because of the starter is a tiny plastic roller on a pin,held in place with an O-ring! You won't be surprised to hear that it can fall off, and instanly throttles it back , and it behaves more like a 15. (The roller runs against the shaped bit you can see to the left of the starter handle in your pic) Replacement - somethig like £6, including another O-ring to break....

Second pain with them is they have idle mix adjust. Pointless unless you regularly take it to mountain lakes a mile up form sea level, and is a classic thing to get accidentally adjusted so they run like a dog at idle. That entire mechanism you see dead centre can be removed, the screw adjusted & locked in place, and the hole used to mount a deadman switch.

Visually it's in a state, but so is mine and it goes so I would see if it runs, if it's rough as the proverbial badger's posterior, remeber the idle adjust and look for that plastic roller on the pin (it's what opens the throttle plates if you follow the mechanism back to the carbs - throttle cable / lever is attatched to the spark advance) Probably worth doing a cmpression check too at that age. For what it's worth they were an early 60s design that went out of production C. 1974.

I wouldn't spend lots on it, but the visual state might work in your favour. Also remember there is no tell- tale on these - so look for water spraying (literally) out the top exhaust port if it;s afloat, or dripping out the exhaust (behind the prop) if it's on muffs.

[thornbackflound]

Many thanks there gents,is it a JOHSTONE? and he wants £150.00 ,and the prop is damagerd,says my mariner one will fit it?here are his words

This is what he said in his email
this is the last of the photos,i hope you can see what its like,anyway i got a mate to pull to motor over and it sparks on both cyliders with great compresion,also i dropped it in foward and reverse and pulled the prop round and it spins the engine,so the gearbox is still good,i have advised though before this goes out again to service it,hope its what he is looking for and all the best.

a little worried as you can see,he is honest about it,just trying to do the right thing.

[Nasher]

TBF

As you may have seen from other threads I’m not adverse to taking on a ‘project’ myself, and have done a few over the years.

I’d not want to take that engine on for more than £100, mainly because of it’s unknown internal condition, both in the powerhead and leg.
If anything needs to be stripped down you will encounter some stripped threads or broken bolts, so I’d think you need to decide if you can afford to take the chance on it being a pile of scrap and losing the money. Not to mention the disappointment of another engine going bad on you.

There are a few more engines popping up on Ebay, Gumtree etc at the moment, as people think they’ll get a better price this time of year. In reality the amount of engines being made available in this price bracket keeps the price down and bargains can be found.

If it was me I’d offer him £85 to start off and keep looking on the less well known web sites.

Nasher.

[Nos4r2]

The Mariner prop won't fit it-your mariner should have a through hub exhaust. That's a shear pin prop on the Johnson.


IF you can find a tiller, it might be worth a punt but definitely not at £150.

[9D280]

Originally Posted by thornbackflound

Many thanks there gents,is it a JOHSTONE? and he wants £150.00 ,and the prop is damagerd,says my mariner one will fit it?here are his words

Yep, or an Evenrude, Only the paint job was different! Can be found on the brochures here: http://www.old-omc.de/

Now, this may or may not be of help, as It was about 10 years ago, but I managed to find a replacement gear / dog clutch set for mine from a place in Upminster the name of which now escapes me. (Boating Maina rings a bell? If it wasn't them it may be the Outboard shop alongside). Whether they still have the rest of the engine is anyone's guess..... TCS in Grays also had a few bits lurking in skips- er I mean classic engine parts storage recepticles ) and certainly used to have a good selection of archaic props hanging on their wall.


Can you get a proper run with it before you buy? If the gearbox has been abused chances are it will jump out of gear as soon as you open the throttle. Other thing with them that I would be wary of if the prop is damaged - the gearbox is axially split, so is a class A1 PITA to re- seal if you need to go inside... May be worth asking to see the gearbox oil as well to check for leaks?

Having said that, there really isn't much to go wrong with them. There's probably more wiring in my remotes than that entire engine!

[thornbackflound]

Many thanks gents, sound advice,i have decided not to buy it,i want something a lot newer,just missed out on a cracking 6hp 4 stroke which i reckon would push the sib and at a few more hundred quid on top of the 150 .would of done it,still ill wait ,been waiting this long,so a little more won t hurt,boo hoo,lol