It was a busy spring and early summer, I finally got a chance over the weekend to try and run my winter project: the 1952 Elgin 16hp. (Code name "Big Green Toad") While Elgins from the early 1950s are relatively common, this model doesn’t turn up very often. I’d been interested in them for many years, they are best known for being the first outboard with a fiberglass hood. Had a chance to run Bob G’s last summer and thought it pretty cool, when an opportunity came up to buy one I went for it.

Servicing this thing was a bear, while the carb and magneto weren’t terrible, the waterpump was just awful. I had the factory manual but it was less than no help dealing with the waterpump. So I wrote up my own service procedures on it should others need it. The write-up can be found at the following link: http://www.oddjobmotors.com/elgin-16.htm

Here’s a short video I did of the first start-up, I’m still shocked it actually ran! (One of the Fairbanks Morse coils was very questionable…) I never seem to be able to get the darn videos to embed in this new phpBB board, I’ve tried [media] and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= as well as html coding and nothing seems to work – here’s a link:

https://youtu.be/Uulaq–BNjQ