September 4, 2026

Pointer 3

Tuesday

With new fasteners and sealant now on hand, it was time to reinstall the outboard.  To begin, I cleaned up as needed the epoxy-filled holes from last time, and prepared tools and equipment for the job.  I also spent some time cleaning old sealant (silicone) off the outboard mounting bracket.

With the crane, I placed the outboard back on the transom, reinstalling the steering cable with new grease in the process.  With the outboard properly positioned on the transom, I drilled the top two holes and temporarily secured it with bolts to hold the outboard securely while I marked and drilled the lower holes, which were more critical and difficult because of the lack of access from inside, and the existence of a cross-transom fiberglass brace that was poorly positioned in terms of the lower outboard mounting bolt location, so it took some thought to avoid drilling through and into the bracket.  There was only room above the bracket, and this space was not large, so eventually I determined the drilling location and drilled the two holes, one on each side.  Even with the larger hatch opening, access here was difficult, which complicated this portion of the installation.

With all the holes now drilled, I removed the outboard from the boat again–just a little, to give me access to the drilled holes–and applied sealant to the holes, then bolted the outboard in place, starting with the two top bolts (easy), then the lower bolts.  These bolts proved challenging once more when I discovered that the partially-threaded bolts didn’t allow full tightening of the nuts.  While this appears obvious when reviewing the photos above, I could not actually see these bolts in real life, and did not look at the camera footage till later.  So I found this out the hard way, during installation and with everything gooped up, when I couldn’t tighten the nuts.  I had to remove the bolts and quickly build some 1/2″ thick fiberglass spacers, each roughly the size of the washers but not too large because the clearances were tight between the deck above and the transom flange.  With the spacers installed, and a washer above, I could finally tighten the lower two bolts.

After cleaning up the excess sealant from the installation (leaving the sealant around the two large upper washers for now, as it had started to set up and would be easier to clean the next day), I installed the control box near the helm, using sealant behind the plywood spacer and securing the block with three machine screws.  This installation was quick, as I had done all the prep work the day before.

With the work in the bilge done, I installed the larger 6″ plastic deck plate with six screws and sealant.

Afterwards, I secured the control cables and wiring harness leading back to the transom with rubber-lined clamps screwed to the inside of the boat, and secured the excess wire harness and battery cables as needed in the starboard transom corner, ensuring that the wiring had ample slack to allow the engine to turn both ways and  tilt.  I next installed the battery box just forward of the splashwell, after ensuring the engine could tilt as needed.

The owner had provided a new fuel line, but the hose had no ends installed, to allow it to be customized to any type of tank or engine.  So I ordered the engine end needed; this would arrive in a day or two, and after that I could test-run the engine with a temporary fuel supply.  Before I replaced the engine cowl, I checked the engine oil level:  filled to the proper level and no oddities visually present in the oil on the dipstick.

There will be one more update once I am able to test-run the engine, along with a video highlighting the entire project start to finish.

Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours