Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Building an outboard engine maintenance stand

If you search a few posts back you will see that I built a new outboard engine maintenance stand. I based it on plans off the internet but made minor adjustments and so promised to post the new sets of measurements. And here they are..........

Sheet one: the basic design, notes and measurements
The castor wheels I used were 75mm diametre - to carry a weight of 50kg, each wheel with its own little brake 

Sheet two: assembling the upright section

Sheet three: component pieces and their measurements
I used timber stock 4" x 2" throughout (10cm x 5cm)

Below is the finished stand with my four stroke 3.5hp Tohatsu standard shaft outboard on it. Meanwhile I am now researching YouTube and the internet for articles on how to service your four stroke small outboard. I will post details of what I find in the next post. 



After that - its getting down to business and servicing my own outboard - engine and gear oil change; impeller change; spark plug change and stripping down the carb.

What could possibly go wrong given my past history?


Acknowledgements:

The original plans were drawn by D Hayes Jr and were available on Photobucket.  I didn't find them there - I found them on a general internet search for 'outboard engine maintenance stand plans. 



9 comments:

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

VG.. tick... :o)

What were the reasons behind angling back 8' I wonder??

steve said...

Steve, I've been wondering that too - I tried it out today with water bucket below and frankly I didn't get the 8 degree angle - I had to alter the shaft angle on the motor s the engine kept stalling because it wasn't angled right in the water - like when you go through lumpy seas and sometimes as the outboard lifts out of the water it stalls - i don't get the need for the angle. wish I'd thought about that before constructing it

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Very puzzling - a lot/most of the home made jobs show the same angled upright so there must be a reason... are they just designed so as to mimic how the engine would be on a transom I wonder? In which case you've already cracked it without knowing it, as you adjusted the angle of the leg to match the imaginary transom....

steve said...

my transom is vertical - so I need to adjust it each time I put it on the stand for testing and then need to remember to readjust it back to how it would be on Arwen's transom bracket!!

One more thing to remember - remembering anything for me, is quite an achievement :)

Scott said...

Yes, not sure about where the 8 degrees came from. Usually it is 12 degrees and that is the angle I used for mine.

steve said...

I will check but suspect I'm closer to that too

Anonymous said...

Most of the weight is in the top of the motor. This is why they tilt it back so the weight doesn’t pull the stand over

steve said...

that makes sense

Scott said...

Much more than the weight is the fact that mounting brackets are designed for the typical transom angle of 14 degrees or so. So by building the stand at 14 degrees the powerhead is vertical for working on it on the stand. The length of the back legs keeps it from being tippy in that direction.