Motor Running Rough, Try Some New Paint!

First I have to commend fellow woody boater David Van Ness for having the patience of a Drivers Ed teacher. This guy is a saint. I was agonizing about the various troubles of getting this flat head running smooth. David would talk me through little simple tweaks on a cell phone while looking at boats in Mystic…. AND WOW, what a difference. We had rebuilt the carb, but with a quarter turn of the screw, perfection! That darn rich lean adjustment, sometimes you overlook the simplest things. Now timing is another story and not for the faint of heart. That requires having your 15 year old son drive the boat at 2500 rpm, while you sit in the engine compartment moving the distributor until it sounds right. Dear god! Who thought of that.. Certainly not one of the Chris Craft attorney’s.. HA.. Anyway all that made a massive difference. But for some reason things were just not right. So I put a fresh coat of engine paint on.. HEY! I couldn’t keep bugging David at the show, and that was all I had left in my mechanical arsenal.. Sanded some rough places and shined up the brass name plate, and dang,, double dog dang! she just perked up. I swear to the woody boat gods on this. Maybe it was that the motor just settled into it’s groove, maybe it was the massage from all the polishing, but off she purred. Ya know, when my wife gets her nails done, she runs better too, mmmmmmm Photo above is from Fellow Woody Boater Bill Basler of the Chris Craft Antique Boat Club. If you want to see more engine glamor shots, this is the nicest engine on the web..Click Here..