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I have a KF Mercury, I also have a SD 20 Johnson. In my opinion neither one would be desirable for a first outboard. Both the KF and the SD are direct drive outboards. Meaning they have no neutral or reverse. Both are heavy and powerful, not so easy to work on. I would suggest a three horsepower Johnson or Evinrude. 50’s through the 60’s are similar and are easy to work on and they usually run great with a little TLC. Parts are available, three horse motors pre-1950 are also a good place to start.
dale
get’em wet….don’t let’m set
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Found one
Ad says; KG7 Hurricane, all original, 120 psi on each cyl. factory Phelon ignition. $650
Seems rather pricey.
Not an authority. Here is a bit of what I have been told, and my experience. The KG-7 Hurricane has several performance upgrades over the KE & the KF – 7’s. I believe there are 8 reeds instead of 4, improved porting, larger crankcase opening, and a little larger carburetor, than does the lightning. Someone I believe to be knowledgeable in these told me “a stock Hurricane is only 1 or 2 mph. faster the stock Lightning, but 1 mph. wins races”. These small differences make the Hurricane a different animal, and the reason they sell for more. Hurricanes aren’t plentiful as many have been used up. Hurricane cases have a seal from the factory and if the seal hasn’t been broken, it increases its value considerably. Is a clean Hurricane, with 120psi. compression, and still having its the seal worth $650.00? Don’t know. I do know you have to watch out for fake’s. I really don’t have a lot of interest in many motors after the war but there use to be a bunch of Mercury guys on here always bragging about the Super 10. Jim, the coil guy, was sell a couple at Tomahawk. He was trying to sell this Lightning to someone at his site. I felt I could trust his description of the motor. $175.00 wasn’t out of my price range. The guy didn’t look that interested so a butted in and said, I’ll take it. It needed seals and an impeller. Compression was 115+. Ran the crap out of it one summer and gave it to a friend. Was at a meet and a guy was asking $125.00 for “White Lightning”. It has the after market twist throttle. I’ve seen the twist throttle sell for as much as he was asking for the motor so I bought it. It was a running motor and all I did was clean it up and paint it. It only has 90psi. My friend (another senior delinquent) who has my first one, put his on his boat to “compare how they ran”. His motor has much stronger acceleration but once I got mine wound up he was just creeping away from me. So – a Lightning and Hurricane are 2 different animals. But even a well used Lightning is a lot of fun on a 12″ boat IMO.
A "Boathouse Repair" is one thats done without having tools or the skills to do it properly.
I would reccomend initially ignoring the desire to go fast and getting an outboard with a Tecumseh-made air cooled powerhead. Having something simple and easily understandable is a lot more fun than being angry about troublesome complicated designs you don’t understand. My suggestion would be to start with a real simple motor and if your son’s interest continues, then you can move on to something harder. If at first he faces designs that are tricky to work on or confusingly conplex, frusteration may result and then no more interest in outboard work.
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