Giving a Bezoat a Second Chance

[Albert]

Forward:
This thread is largely brought over from hydroracer since the plug is about to be pulled. This is 100% still a project and I will continue to update.


Hello from New Brunswick Canada,
When I was a child some years ago my father stopped on a highway bridge in Cocagne to watch some real fast boats go in circles. The year after he brought me and my older brother at the time to spend the day there and watch the madness. It’s a really early and spotty memory for me, but I remember him telling me that some local guys used to race as well.
Fast forward a few years to middle school and I started hanging out with a really good group of guys who I’m fortunate to be friends with to this day. One of whom had the last name Carruthers. As the years went by you would occasionally hear a story about hydros, and my friend would tell me about going up to Valleyfield every summer to watch the gp boats run.
Fast forward ten more years, same good friends and now one is getting married. What better bachelor party than to pack up and go watch the hydros in Quebec.
Once there I found pits filled with blown alcohol big blocks, zoomiez and vintage boats running mechical fuel injection that I had only ever seen in magazines or on the web. This was so engaging as someone who’s Interests had varied from turbocharging cars, to snowmobiles, motorcycles , drag racing and all kinds of other weird motorized stuff.


Fast forward to this past spring. When “Carruthers” on this site offered to sell me a y80 with a spun crank bearing. Having looked through the manual I thought this doesn’t look to complicated. This combined with not having worked on a 2 stroke made it an easy decision. If I had been smarter I would have realized that once you have a motor you pretty much need to start shopping for boats.
Over the course of the summer I have been able to try a few Carruthers built hydroplanes, with Yamato 80 and 102 power. The first time in a boat I was hooked, such a unique driving experience.
Now join me in the present as I was part of a gathering of boats last week near Rexton NB. Perhaps some of the elder statesmen of this site may remember racing there in the 1980s.



After a great day on the water with half a dozen hydros in attendance and a few runabouts I was taken out behind “the shop” and shown a boat. It looked as though it had been stores outside for a decade and sadly it was.

Fortunately removal of some of the decking showed that internally it was in decent shape. The resident experts informed me it was a Bezoats and that when built it was a top of the line machine. Unfortunately for me while I’m a passable welder my experience with woodwork is non existent. But a deal was stuck hands were not shaken, libations may have been had and the next morning we picked up the boat with a trailer. Tag along as we keep digging and find out if this boat is really worth saving.

[Albert]

I’m going to gloss over a lot here but obviously step one was to strip the boat down.

[Albert]

Decks were removed and many staples pulled to have a better look.

[Albert]

Yes those are leaves. The boat was left outside for about a decade In the Canadian winter.

[Albert]

So while Adam Carruthers was doing wood work I went back to work on the blown up motor.
This was apparently a strong running 80 until the rod bearing let go, as you can see by the photo above some bearing material or possibly a piece of ring made it over the piston and played pinball. When I bought the motor it came with a 18mm replacement head. The 18mm head also had some pitting in the chamber, although no where near as bad, but it also looked like it had been decked quite a bit. Either way I decided to try and clean up the combustion chamber on the 14mm head.
The pictures speak for themselves, will this cylinder be down a little power...likely. But with no sharp spots to cause knock it should be safe to run. I'm about 80 percent done polishing. Need to level off a few high spots, but I'm pleased with how its come out considering the moonlike cratered surface I started with.

[Albert]

More staple pulling, more sanding and the boat was ready to go off to the pro for major surgery.

[Albert]

So off the boat went to Adam Carruthers garage. He immediately made a decision that replacing decks and fixing air traps wasn’t going to cut it. So he sent me this picture and I was in shock.

[DeanFHobart]

So off the boat went to Adam Carruthers garage. He immediately made a decision that replacing decks and fixing air traps wasn’t going to cut it. So he sent me this picture and I was in shock.

Keep up the good work… There will be lots of pride when it is completed.

[Albert]

Mr Carruthers wasted no time and has a new bottom on this thing within days. Unfortunately that was only part of the work required to bring this one back.

[Albert]

Next step was to find a few clamps.