We just bought a 17' whaler with 1999 johnson 90 ocean pro. All data plates are illegible but i'm 99% sure it's an J90PLEEB and I have the original receipt for the motor so i know it's a 99.
The current issue first and why i'm turning to a forum for some suggestions... I just got her started up since replacing a bunch of stuff and it's leaking water pretty baadly just under the upper mounts. Here is a video of the leak.
video 1: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2QySCqyLitQL35YT6
And another... video 2: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QQsyJL3pvFKUNGS2A
The boat and motor were poorly maintained and we decided to strip the boat to get her back ship shape and do some maintenance on the motor with the idea that it would be worth maintaining in the short term while we look for a motor to ultimately repower the boat and sell this motor. Ultimately we just want to use her this summer but wanted to stop up all the leak spots and loose fasteners first.
The biggest issue with the motor when i got it was the steering yolk was rusted badly enough that I didn't trust it to be safe with family aboard at speed. I ordered a bunch of parts and got to work. After breaking a few bolts and finding out the midsection had a big hole in it under one of the lower mounts I ended up replacing the midsection entirely along with the steering yolk tube and all associated seals. Also replaced the lower and upper mounts with used freshwater mounts from ebay (good enough for this motor).
The thing that is sticking in my mind is that when i got around to replacing the upper mounts in the powerhead the aluminum just below the cavity was badly cooroded and some of it broke away from the casting. Just crumbled like wet sand. I studied the upper mount geometry carefully and decided that the upper mount cavity and structure would not be affected and I replaced the upper mounts and re seated the powerhead on a new gasket.
Fast forward to today I finally fired her back up and now have this leak. At first I thought maybe the hose was over feeding the water intake but it does the same when i ran the motor in a barrel except water and exhaust came out of this spot (no video of that). So I figure there was some aluminum that was holding down the gasket in that spot just behind the drive shaft that isn't getting held down now.
So i'm thinking i'll order a new powerhead gasket, pull the powerhead again and take a closer look. I wish i'd taken pictures of the spot before putting it back down but i scraped it nice and clean and vacuumed out all the sand. compressed air, acetone wipe, pretty sure i did a good job. What i'm hoping is that maybe i can fabricate a plate or maybe a sculpted piece of jb weld or something just to go where the bit that was isn't.
Has anyone ever seen this happen before! Thank you
-Alan (aka SOS)
The current issue first and why i'm turning to a forum for some suggestions... I just got her started up since replacing a bunch of stuff and it's leaking water pretty baadly just under the upper mounts. Here is a video of the leak.
video 1: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2QySCqyLitQL35YT6
And another... video 2: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QQsyJL3pvFKUNGS2A
The boat and motor were poorly maintained and we decided to strip the boat to get her back ship shape and do some maintenance on the motor with the idea that it would be worth maintaining in the short term while we look for a motor to ultimately repower the boat and sell this motor. Ultimately we just want to use her this summer but wanted to stop up all the leak spots and loose fasteners first.
The biggest issue with the motor when i got it was the steering yolk was rusted badly enough that I didn't trust it to be safe with family aboard at speed. I ordered a bunch of parts and got to work. After breaking a few bolts and finding out the midsection had a big hole in it under one of the lower mounts I ended up replacing the midsection entirely along with the steering yolk tube and all associated seals. Also replaced the lower and upper mounts with used freshwater mounts from ebay (good enough for this motor).
The thing that is sticking in my mind is that when i got around to replacing the upper mounts in the powerhead the aluminum just below the cavity was badly cooroded and some of it broke away from the casting. Just crumbled like wet sand. I studied the upper mount geometry carefully and decided that the upper mount cavity and structure would not be affected and I replaced the upper mounts and re seated the powerhead on a new gasket.
Fast forward to today I finally fired her back up and now have this leak. At first I thought maybe the hose was over feeding the water intake but it does the same when i ran the motor in a barrel except water and exhaust came out of this spot (no video of that). So I figure there was some aluminum that was holding down the gasket in that spot just behind the drive shaft that isn't getting held down now.
So i'm thinking i'll order a new powerhead gasket, pull the powerhead again and take a closer look. I wish i'd taken pictures of the spot before putting it back down but i scraped it nice and clean and vacuumed out all the sand. compressed air, acetone wipe, pretty sure i did a good job. What i'm hoping is that maybe i can fabricate a plate or maybe a sculpted piece of jb weld or something just to go where the bit that was isn't.
Has anyone ever seen this happen before! Thank you
-Alan (aka SOS)
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