TOPIC: Litter of Big Twins

Just had to share, the wife's not up (not that this would impress her)!

Drove two hours tonight after work to check out two '57 Johnson 35hp's. One was supposed to be near mint, the other a likely parts donor. The "near mint" turned out to be a long shaft RDE-19 (maybe a 6 rating on a 10 scale) and a short shaft Evinrude (Lark?) 25532 also a 35 hp. I guess I was a little disappointed that the near mint wasn't so minty so then he says he could throw in the other old motor he has... Turned out to be a 30 hp RD-18. The RD-18 is in the middle of the pic.

Plans are to do some swapping with the "good" RDE-19 and convert it to a short shaft and remote steering (it's a long shaft and tiller) with parts from the Lark and add a fuel pump. I'm thinking if I remove the 5" extension from the long shaft and switch out the water tubes and shaft it'll work out... or is there more to it than that? Cowl needs paint too. The pull rope also doesn't retract, but that's minor at the moment since it's electric start. Will look good with the Invader, if she's ever finished!

But I have no plans for the RD-18. It isn't frozen but that's about all I checked on it so far. It's a sweaty one, definitely a fixer-upper. Will probably go to a good home at some point in the future.

Now to figure out how to break it to the wife I came home with THREE motors in the morning!

If you want to sell the tiller handle please let me know. If you need any parts for the Bigtwins I may have them. Foe some reason I just keep getting more and more

Allan

Hey, when you shorten that motor, don't just hack off the water tubes at an angle with a sawsall, like the guy who shortened my motor did.

jepstr67 wrote:

Hey, when you shorten that motor, don't just hack off the water tubes at an angle with a sawsall, like the guy who shortened my motor did.

1957 Bigwins had an extension added to the main tube.

If you look up into the Leg you will see a bump in the tube

The extension is swagged to slide over the main tube.It may need to be heated to break it loose, for they are tapped on new.

They are not solder, glued or anything. They are a tight fit and stay between the pump and the main tube as not to come off after putting everything together

davesinvader,

WELCOME ABOARD.
NEAT find too.

yours, satx

Thanks folks! Been lurking for awhile and slowly digging into my '60 Invader. Finally turned up the heat on the work this summer and found this dude on Craigslist with the motors. I have the 58 Lark that came with the boat running and ready, but I've always liked the look of the red Johnson motors much better, so I jumped on it. Thinking of taking the fuel pump off the 58 Lark and adding it to the RDE19 so I can run it on a single line tank. I've seen info about how to do it; doesn't look too tough.

Thanks for the tip on the tubes Texan, I likely would have botched that one! And I'll keep you on mind for the tiller handle.

After a little cleaning and closer inspection, I'm thinking that I don't have two 35's and one 30hp. It looks like I have one RDE-19 35hp and two RD-18 30hp's. One of the 30's had a swapped out transom bracket on it with an Evinrude Lark 35hp tag on it and its freeze plug number doesn't match the transom bracket number. If you look at the two "parts motors" in my pic you'll notice two have the smaller, rounded flywheel and the RD-19 has the larger, toothed flywheel. And the intake baffles on the two powerheads are different than the RD-19's. But back to my main question: if this is true does anyone know if I can still go with my plan to change the RD-19 long shaft to a short shaft by removing the extension an swapping out the shaft/water tubes, etc with one of the two RD-18's? From the outside, the lower units look identical... same bolt patterns, size, etc. I haven't busted in to them yet and won't be able for a few more days, just figured someone here has tried this.

What you need to do is not change Lower Units (LU) however take the 5" extension out

Here you will take the drive shaft and the shift rod out of the 30 hp.

The your paint will still match and all will be OK.

Changing the shift rod will require you breaking the LUs apart, however that is no biggie, and while apart you can clean check things out.

You will need a new Spaghetti seal that you can enough to do 5 or 6 motors here
www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/search.shtml?searchQuery=6VFC2&op=search&Ntt=6VFC2&N=0&GlobalSearch=true&sst=subset

or over 80 motors here
www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/search.shtml?searchQuery=6VFC5&op=search&Ntt=6VFC5&N=0&GlobalSearch=true&sst=subset

I had a similar experience over the weekend, I traded away a 'Fat Fifty' for a pair of BigTwins... A '57 35hp Javelin, and a '59 35hp Lark. I also sold a '76 25hp, but I bought a 1960 Lone Star, 40hp Lark VI & trailer.... (I told the wife I'm just fixing it for someone else)...