Morris Minor Owners Club

may be of interest to some...

I found some old boat engines today and happened to have my camera.

Photos here http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp28 ... res019.jpg

The block castings had 950 and MOWOG cast on the manifold side.

Some interesting features -
The starter motor is mounted higher than the car version, meaning the distributor would not fit in the normal place. The distributor hole is blanked off and the distributor is mounted on top of the gearbox.
A cam driven fuel pump is fitted on the side of the block
A different front cover has an extension on the cam which directly drives a Jabsco water pump, there is also an extension of the cover to the oil filter side of the engine but the back of this was blanked off on both engines, I assume a water pump could be driven from this.
A bowman heat exchanger is fitted, exhaust gas and raw cooling water exit together
Updraft Solex carb.
Cast iron oil pan
Lots of small stuff you can see in the pictures

I hope someone finds this as intersting as I did!

Steve

I rebuilt a 948 Vedette years ago and I have a side valve Vedette in my garage at the moment. Photos on the Series MM notice board. There are also some photos of the A Series Vedette.

If you go to the picture then delete the "/pictures019.jpg" from the address you can see the rest of the pictures.

What's all that logging in to a private photobucket about?
I'm OK on cars but computers>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I dont understand it either, I have just changed the photobucket account to public, I cant tell what difference it makes though as it always logs me in automaticly. No secrets there anyway!

Quite a major set of differences!
There was I thinking how clever they were re-siting the dizzy up on high to avoid any water sloshing around, and then I saw the carb air pickup pointing ocean-wards! I'm not conversant with marine installations, but that looks a little dodgy to me!

theres four engines there, stripped from ex hire fleet boats(which have been broken up)
they gave years of service with no problems.
i would'nt recomend anyone using an ex marine engine in a car as river/sea water is used as cooling and blocks have been known to rust through.

the said engines are laying next to a public footpath but are on private property.

Excellent - well found. Wonder why they didn't just use the standard water pump ?

The standard water pump requires hoses. There are none on the Vedette, all connections are made with copper pipes and threaded joints.The engines are normally installed below decks or in sheltered comprtments well away from the influence of the sea or weather, so the direction of the carb intake is not important. Mine has an elbow on the intake to turn it horizontal and to collect the crankcase fumes. What is missing is a drip tray under the carb to prevent any fuel leakage into the bilges.
The dizzy is driven off a cog between the flywheel and epicyclic gearbox. The flywheel housing adapts the engine so that it will fit the gearbox which was originally fitted to the s/v Vedette.
On my engine the ignition is powered by a magneto driven off a large dynamo which in turn is driven off the timing chain - no fanbelt. The plugs are 18mm D16s.
I am missing a few parts, the exhaust section which bolts on to the back of the water cooled manifold and the starting handle assembly which bolts on to the cylinder head and operates from the rear of the engine via a rod to a chain and sprocket on the front of the crankshaft. I could also do with a gearbox if you can slip one into your pocket!

There are obvious hoses on these units - and tiny little water pumps with that complicated drive from the cam. Would be interesting to see how that was done ! Probably the A series pump wouldn't draw water up - so they had to go to a different design of pump.

When I work out how to get the water pump and timing chain cover off my engine I will take some photos.
There is also a nice brass pump for pumping the old oil out of the sump.

The Jabsco is a proper positive displacement self priming pump, it pumps the river water through the weed filter to the engine. I had dinner with a couple of Jabsco guys a few years ago, they still make these pumps in the UK but were moaning that they dont make any money from spare parts as they are so reliable. As long as you dont run them dry and filter any big bits out of the water, and turn the greaser every now and then thay last for years.