Worked on the '74 Chrysler 45hp over the weekend. The idea is to run it on the Pearly Miss without it's midsection cowls (like the 50s West Bends and Elgins) plus a 13 pitch prop from the 50 & 55hp version. So, I etch primed it up with some proper looking non EU stuff and painted it such that it looks cared for now rather than a concours motor.

Nice job it looks great........ but not as pretty as the Merc

Thanks, not to your standard though - is a curiosity mostly. We'll see how we'll it goes on my Pearly Miss; the boat is only 180lbs bare, so top speed will be in the mid 30s I guess.

Alacrity and Petrolhead have the same motors, they're a bit of an oddball Mercury with underflywheel distributer and only produced in 70 and 71. This one is very pretty, the only marks on it are those I've made it came with a tilt RideGuide system and a sealed container of quicksilver oil from the 70s!

Finished the Chrysler 45hp project today, put the shrouds on in the interim and fitted new C8 cables to the remote controller. Now I need another Pearly Miss to try it on..

It's been an interesting and fun amateur project; 43 cu in and 45hp at the powerhead - is a simple late 50s West Bend design, Chrysler finish means the paint a bit poor...some foibles and parts quite pricey (but still available) - factory service manual is very clear and the photocopied owners manual filled with the normal dos and don'ts. Will it hold up and be reliable enough for a few years of hard use? Who knows..the experiment continues though.

Got this seriously smelly & scabby looking 1968 Chrysler 55hp electric start with alternator (?) last night. Why, oh why, you ask? Well, it was cheapish at £70 (about right for a Chrysler in this condition), unseized, freshwater and is a source of parts for the 45hp if nasty + it's a rare short shaft and it's light for a 45cu.in. (55hp @ 5200rpm at flywheel) motor. Oh, and it came with fuel line, loom and cables. That's about all it has going for it..

Some before pics...

Battery cables u/s, choke actuation fine, starter motor runs, solenoid dead though. Compression 160 top, 165 bottom. Fogging oil in bores for the interim.

The weather has meant the 55hp hasn't been touched for awhile. In the interim, I cleaned the carb of the old dried droppings, cleaned up the solenoid connections and pulled the starter motor off.

It struggled to turn over with the high compression, so I decided to investigate the starter motor - which got cleaned out and put back together and improved the situation somewhat.

Looking for a fuel pump as this has 2 broken studs, a cross-threaded filter bowl fastener and a cracked bowl, hoping our Chrysler stock will yield one, or is an ebay job. Is mounted on the most stupid bracket possible (pic 011) - I was able to bend it to access the mounting bolts behind - later pumps were OMC style mounted on the block & driven directly with crank pressure (rather than through hoses).

Starte motor cleaned and working properly now. A clear up of the garage found 2 decent starter cables for the load, so turned it over - no spark, so pulled the flwheel and found both points closed up, dirty & serious amount of old residue and grease on the stator plate. Cleaned it up, set the points and tried again, but still no spark, went back to Fluke, the factory manual and my coil spares - don't much like the odd condensers and need to do the diagnostics, so all for another day I guess.

This is a battery ignition system, the points and the coils (priced new at $125 a pot) are known problems, but I've read of a fix involving 2 12V Lucas coils with ballast resisters, which gives reliability and good starting, so even if my spare coils are u/s this is a good way to go.

Ordered parts from American Marine yesterday and got very sound advice from them re the Chrysler, without much asking. They were very helpful indeed. The intervening years since the '74 45hp was finished and now; mean many parts are NLA and / or very expensive - water pump kit (housing, impeller, wear plate, pvc water tube grommets and new bolts) now around £170 & points and condensers around £112 inc VAT. Not much difference in US pricing either. Am hoping the pump housing isn't corroded

On the plus side, they have parts for Mercury, OMC, Force/Chrysler/West Bend going back to the sixties.

I have some Chrysler 45 i breaking for parts let me know what you want