"Classic" small, Japanese-based engines

[billw]

So, as my back gets weaker, I am gravitating more towards resurrecting smaller motors. The other day, I pulled a battered 2hp Mariner (Yamaha-based) out of the local "transfer station." (Still the DUMP, in my book….) It was missing a few parts, like the gas cap. I started looking on eBay, thinking that finding this stuff would be easy, because most of them ended up being stuck from carrying them the wrong way, etc. Wow, the pickings are slim and expensive. I ran into this same thing before, trying to find a carb for a Tohatsu-based 3.3 Mercury. Why do you suppose a gillion of them were sold but the used parts availability is so slim?

Long live American manufacturing!

[76-j]

Bill- I feel your pain.
The remedy is this lil ol’ Johnson ( not mine )
https://newjersey.craigslist.org/boa/d/ … 16287.html

[david-bartlett]

quote BillW:

So, as my back gets weaker, I am gravitating more towards resurrecting smaller motors. The other day, I pulled a battered 2hp Mariner (Yamaha-based) out of the local “transfer station.” (Still the DUMP, in my book….) It was missing a few parts, like the gas cap. I started looking on eBay, thinking that finding this stuff would be easy, because most of them ended up being stuck from carrying them the wrong way, etc. Wow, the pickings are slim and expensive. I ran into this same thing before, trying to find a carb for a Tohatsu-based 3.3 Mercury. Why do you suppose a gillion of them were sold but the used parts availability is so slim?

Bill,

You answered your own question. You got your motor at the DUMP, because someone threw it away, rather than parting it out. My brother in law has a 3hp Mariner he brings me from time to time to "fix" for him. Not a bad little motor if you like that sort of thing. Just keep them away from salt water.

[reivertom]

Too many old OMCs to mess with odd ball stuff.

[auldscott]

Carburetors are bound to be expensive, but for example, Crowley Marine has a gas cap assembly for a 1988 Yamaha 2 hp for $20 (just guessing about your motor’s age). I realize that you’re looking at used parts, but sometimes new OEM parts are surprisingly cheap.

That doesn’t answer your question about used parts availability. If eBay prices you found are typical, it would seem that anyone with a small Japanese motor that had some problem or another would part it out.

Good on you for saving a motor, even though it’s not your typical AOMCI fare.

[rapier]

Plenty of used bits available on ebay UK for all these..I have a smelly and faded old Tohatsu 3.5 that has been run in salt all it’s life..it gets flushed properly though. If I can get parts from her to you cheaper than the ebay shipper let me know and I will.

Nick

p.s. here the DUMP (as I too know it) is euphemistically known as the ‘Recycling Center’, even though most of it seems to go into a compacter.

[jerry-ahrens]

The parts prices for some of those motors are expensive, if they haven’t gone NLA… I just had a 3. 5 Merc 4 stroke in the shop last week. It had sat with ethanol fuel, that ruined the fuel shut off valve (melted) and really did a number on the carb. Nothing a can of Powertune won’t clean, so no worries there. The price of the carb kit was $86 from Mercury, that included a float, bowl gasket and inlet needle. It also needed a fairly expensive fuel shut off valve. Of course then you hope you have all of those tiny passages in the carb clean when you get it back together and pull the starter rope… seems like I see ”part is no longer available” on some of the Merc/Tohatsu motors I work on, from time to time.

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