Good morning AOMC members.
I have a slight problem. I bought a 1966 Lark 8 Electric shift model for 25 bucks. Motor is in great shape from the looks of it. It did not come with the controls for it though, so basically I am wondering if it would be easy to build a small switch running 12V power to select F, N, R. The wires don’t look very thick either, so would a boat battery overheat those wires? I doubt I could find a shifter for this close to where I live, and I don’t want to sink hundreds of dollars into something that might not even work.
Also, there is a tube attached to the exhaust plate, and I figure that as the exhaust gets hot and travels down the tube, it expands the metal coil in the automatic choke to then turn the choke off. Is that how it works? However, there is also another hole in the exhaust below it that is also threaded but has nothing plugging it. I am more than happy to not use the automatic choke and would like to remove that pipe… my question is, should both of those holes be capped if I get rid of the auto choke?
Thank you for any advice. I know they didn’t make electric shift models for that long, and in my opinion, you can’t go wrong with a mechanical shift linkage. No wires, fewer problems!