Projects Outboard Motor Car

Greetings. I have this crazy idea to build an outboard motor car featured in a January 1932 issue of a magazine. Not exactly sure the name of the magazine but may be Modern Mechanics’ Illustrated? Any info on the exact issue will be appreciated. Crazy idea I know but there seams to be a glut of vintage outboards out there for sale on Marketplace cheap and I’ve always wanted to build a cycle car.

 

It's not a crazy idea. I can remember Evinrude powered dirt midget roadsters running with V8 60 powered cars in the early '60s in Oklahoma City at Taft Stadium. It was some extremely exciting racing. There's a thread on here from 2008 ***led "Midget Racers back in the 50's" that has a lot of information on what you want to do.

 

I like that! I do have a couple of vintage outboards kicking around…

 

Here's the Hamb link:

Midget Racers back in the 50's | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)

 

Cool. Thanks

 

Interesting old-timey project and while old is good Yamaha makes a nice 5.0 v-8.....

 

I'm thinking a 200 horse Merc 2 stroke.

 

I have the throttle control from a Seagull outboard on my 32 coupe. Its a neat, slightly swoopy, chromed item. Its new duty is to unlatch the forward tilt of the home built, Glide style, bench seat back. Does that count as an outboard motor car!

Chris

 

Maybe.

 

Yes.....Elto 4cyl. outboards were used in quite a few midgets in the 40's. I had two of the engines that I had hoped to put in a couple of midget projects that I had, but life got in the way. It was really neat to see and hear the different sounds of the Elto engines. They would have to always run way up high to keep them wound up since they had no low end torque for coming off the corners down low.

 

Is that you lippy? Or your alter ego "yippee"?

 

Often thought these old washing machine engines were neat, may take a quartet of them to power a small car.

 

that diagram has some crazy stuff going on.

 

Sounds like fun, just saw a new 500 HP outboard for sale....that should work!

 

I've got an old washing machine motor or most of one out in the shed that I picked up somewhere about 30 years ago.

With the outboard you have to figure out how you are going to hook up the cooling system and run a radiator . I've got an old 9-1/2 horse motor in the shed that would probably be a good candidate.

 

Speaking of old washing machines, my dad converted an older (think MAytag) from a gas engine to an electric motor when he was a teen. I recall seeing it at my grandparents house growing up, but by then it had seen its last wash. It had some geared types of rollers to **** in the clothes and squeeze the water out of them. My grandma had it outside next to a water basin(on a hand pump). I guess she’d fill the basin up with water to rinse the clothes, then run the through the rollers and put them on the line to dry.
Okay, back to outboard driven cars

 

First thing I thought about was how to cool the engine. And being “cool” just won’t do it! LOL

 

Make ou a recirculating pump! Lol. I wonder if any outboard motors were air cooled?

 

re: cooling - doesn't the diagram show an "old ford radiator" and "water circulation" lines? Seems already thought out if your motor moves water through it by design. Or, am I missing (usually ) something?

 

lol. Sorta does, but the outboard motors I have have, didn’t need a radiator, but nothing more than a 16hp engine. Water was pumped through and out. When I bought a fairly new fishing boat, they broke the engine in, and just submerged the prop down in a 55 gallon drum of water.
They showed me the set up, I wasn’t there for the break in, think they told be 2 or so hours of running.

 

I admit I didn't look at the drawing too closely but would simply hooking up a radiator without a pump work? Or would the existing system do the job?

 

Just the "gear type water pump" also shown.

 

It would need no water pump, just thermo circulate just like the model T does.

 

I had a two-stroke trolling motor, found out couldn’t use it in my “great state” got it to run and sold it. But the two outboard 4 cycle engines I had, (might be tough to explain) had a rubber thing that looked like a damper/coupler, water came in the front, the rubber thing them pumped it up, then it would exit, but alway had a supply of water being pumped through. How much was determined by RPMs the engine was at.
No, I’m not a boat guy, I firmly believe the best day you have with a boat is when you sell it.

 

I KNEW IT!!

I always miss something.

 

Appropriately enough called a "mangle".
Don't get your hand caught in it!

 

Outboards have a water pump. They also rely on the prop to stuff water up to the water pump which is mid way up the leg. Lakes have unlimited cooling capacity. It could work with a radiator, just need to set it so that it only runs as fast as it can cool and probably some sort of electric pump to feed the internal pump for want of a prop in a lake. Some early 60's OMC outboards that had thermostats just sipped water and blew out steam (didn't last long as a design idea). Fun project, I bet you'll figure it all out. Look up the AOMCI (antique outboard motor club international).

 

On every outboard motor I've owned (a dozen or so) the water intake was well ahead of the prop. I've not seen one where the prop actually "stuffed" water up to the water pump. FYI, some of the labels on this image are wrong. Anticavitation instead of antiventilation, etc. The water intake is correctly labelled.


And now for some fun stuff. How about an Evinrude 300XP V8 outboard powerhead in a Swedish Volvo? Can you say throttle response?



Now lets go for a ride....

 

That is wild!
There is some serious money in that conversion.