Here I am, awash in a leaky 12 ft aluminum lifeboat full of partially and non functional vintage outboards..........
and going into a local thrift store, I find an old Heathkit CM-1045 "small engine" tune up meter. Tach, triggered off a spark plug wire, dwell, ohms, etc. Unfortunately the 3 "C" cells ALSO appear to be vintage LOL
Since you like marine stuff and stories, let me tell you one.
The family and I went to Lake Powell for a 4 day boat and camp and we took my aluminum 14 foot Bayrunner with the 45hp outboard.
It was loaded down with everything we would need for the 4 day camp at the lake.
Got the boat in the water and headed out across bay to find a nice camp site and that motor was pulling hard but we had a nice plane and were on our way, when all of the sudden the motor went wide open with no load on it.
I had a brand new Delco Marine deep cycle battery and a brand new 5 speed trolling motor, so I used that to get us to a spot of land where I removed the bottom drive section to find the drive shaft was twisted off right below the motor.
I thought "How the hell does this happen?" but I found out.
The gasket between the motor section (power head) and the drive section blew a section out and the exhaust was blowing directly on the shaft and heated it so much that it basically heated and softened the shaft until it twisted in half.
I bet if you look at some of your motors you will easily see how this can happen.
I was so pissed that I threw the entire bottom section in the lake as far as I could throw it, prop and all.
The next day I was itching to get the family back to the boat trailer, as we had gone quite a way out when the motor was running and I knew it was going to take a good long while, but they wanted to stay and play in the water for awhile.
I finally convinced them that since we were so far out it might be a good idea to get off the lake while we still had daylight, so around noon I asked who wanted to spend the night in the boat out on the lake with no running lights tonight?
That did it and we headed back on that single battery and the trolling motor.
By the time we got back to the boat ramp I was turning the trolling motor off for 10-15 minutes at a time just to let it build back up enough to spin the prop again.
We finally made it right as it was getting completely dark, but that brand new battery was dead and the tolling motor had gotten so hot it melted the outer housing like it had been throw into a fire.
I took the trolling motor back where I bought it and they asked "What the heck happened to it?"
They said it looked like it was thrown into a fire, and I told them the story.
They were so proud of it they replaced it free.
As near as I could tell it pulled that entire load of 4 people and 4 days of camping gear, fuel, water, food, drinks, toys and all almost 25 miles.
