The Old Fishing Boat Motor…

When we had our family lake cabin in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we had a Glastron speedboat and a small aluminum fishing boat powered by a Mercury outboard.  When we sold the cabin, we kept the boats and the motor.  The two boats moved on to new homes, but the old Mercury boat motor took up residence in the basement of my parents house.  The motor is as follows:

Year: 1971

Make: Kiekhaefer Mercury

Model: MERC 75

HP: 7.5

Twin Cylinder

11 cubic inch displacement

Over the past year or so, Dad has been working on getting that motor running again.  He had to replace almost all the electrical wiring, the fuel lines, the fuel pump, the water pump, and the gas tank lines.  Once it was all back together, he was able to bench test it by filling up a garbage can with water and running the motor inside of it.  It started great and ran even better.  However, this was far from a real world test, so we hooked it onto the back of the S.S. Dinghy and set off!

 

The S.S. Dinghy is only rated for a 5 HP motor, and the lake we were testing it on has a 6 HP limit, but we figured it was just a small test ride, so we would take our chances!  The motor started and ran great!  It is amazing how much difference there is between a 3 HP motor and a 7.5 HP motor!  That Mercury can really make that duck boat move!  The added weight of the motor makes it a little harder to get on and off the trailer, but if we ever had some big water we needed to get across to duck hunt, this would be the motor I would want!

 

 

Since my old Johnson motor still needs some attention, Dad and I were thinking we would get mine running right over the winter and then maybe sell both the Johnson and the Mercury and put the proceeds toward the purchase of a new 4-stroke motor!  The thought of having a reliable, fuel efficient, low maintenance boat motor is very appealing to both of us!  That is the plan as of now, but who knows, anything can change!

Reviving an Old Kitty Cat…

If you have been following my blog since I started it back in 2006, you might remember THIS POST.  Since that post, not much has happened with the old Kitty Cat.  I have been faithfully storing it in our garage waiting for my kids to get old enough so they can ride it and enjoy it as I did. 

A couple years ago, I did some research on where to get parts and how to make a few improvements, but didn’t really do much else.  Now that Maeve is getting old enough to ride it, I wanted to get it “snow-worthy” again.  Dad and I spent a couple hours one afternoon and got it running.  We figured if it didn’t run, it wasn’t going to be worth doing anything else to it!  It had some issues, but fired up after a few pulls and ran good.  Now onto the other things that needed attention!

One of the main design flaws with the Arctic Cat Kitty Cat is that it sits so low to the ground, so if you have more than about three inches of snow, it gets stuck.  This is something that caused enough of a demand to change, a few guys started putting together “kits” to fix this problem.  The kits are basically a two to three inch “lift kit” that drops the rear suspension down away from the frame and then raises the front skis up.  I did a little research on the kits and found a guy who lives in Minnesota that produces one of the best ones.  All the parts are professionally machined and laser cut.  The kit cost $100 total and was competitively priced with the other kits available.

Along with installing the “lift kit” the follow is a list of the other improvements/repairs we had to make:

- Clean/Degrease entire sled

- Install new track

- Install new rear reflector

- Install new side hood reflectors

- Repair cracked hood fin

- Straighten front bumper

- Repair small tear in seat (Thanks Mom!)

- Bypass broken ignition switch

- Fabricate new chain case cover bracket (Thanks Dad!)

- Clean carburetor

- Restore fuel shut-off valve

- Install and reroute new fuel line

I don’t have ton of photos of each one of these procedures, but I do have a few of the track and lift kit installation.  The before (left) and after (right) are shown below.  You can see what a huge improvement in ground clearance the Kitty Cat has now!

 

The kit itself went together great and everything fit perfectly!  Replacing the front ski spindles not only raised the front end, it also eliminated the slop in the steering system!  After everything was together, I installed the grass wheels on the front skis!

 

 

 

Now that everything was together and working great, we had to do a test ride!  The kids really didn’t know what to think of it at first, but after a little bit of coaxing, they couldn’t get enough of it!  Maeve isn’t too sure of working the throttle yet, so Dad and I got some exercise running along side of it, but I’m guessing once she is in snow, it will be a different story!

 

 

The kids had a blast on the test ride.  It made getting the 40 year old Kitty Cat going again totally worth it!  I can’t wait for them to ride it this winter!  It is a really neat feeling knowing that this has been in our family for so long and it is STILL going!

First Day of School 2011

Maeve is in her second year of pre-school this year.  This year, they have school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and are there from 0900 – 1130 (Last year they went Tuesday and Thursday from 0900 – 1050).  As always, Maeve was super excited for school!  She even brought her teacher a picture she made over the summer!  Both Shannon and I are super proud parents and pleased she LOVES school so much!  I can’t believe she will be in Kindergarten next year!

 

 

Onto the Doors…

Mileage: 88,601

 

Now that the majority of the Trans Am interior was done, I wanted to move onto a couple functionality items.  Both the driver and passenger doors, have random rattles inside and need a little attention.  The drivers door needs new hinge pins and bushings, window felts, new door handle cups, and window crank hole covers.  The passenger door needs window felts, a power lock actuator, new door handle cups, and window crank hole covers.  It also need some adjustment because the window drops below the window felt and catches it when you role the window up.  I decided to start with the passenger door first, since it would be easier.

The window felt was super easy to replace and looks so much better than the old cracked one.  I figured out why the window was dropping down so low, the bump stop had fallen off the bracket and was laying in the bottom of the door.  It appears a previous repair had also failed.  I simply reinstalled it and the problem was solved!

 

 

I finished up with replacing the door handle cups, and window crank hole covers.  There wasn’t anything wrong with them, but the paint was wearing off and they needed freshening up!

 

I put the door back together without replacing the door lock actuator or reinstalling the dust shield.  I pretty much ran out of time and didn’t want to miss out on driving anymore this year!  I will be sure to get the lock actuator purchased over the winter and get everything ready to go for next spring!