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Old 01-18-2018, 06:01 PM
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Launchpad McQ Launchpad McQ is offline
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Launchpad McQ's Catalina 30 Atomic 4 Saga

Hello fellow A-4ians! It’s finally time to give back to the community for all of the wisdom, advice, and encouragement I’ve gleaned from this forum. This thread has been years in the making, literally. For the past 3 years, I’ve been lurking in the shadows, reading dozens of threads while learning, fixing, tinkering, tweaking, tuning, and sometimes cussing at my Atomic 4. My original intent was to document the rebuilding process and then “thread dump” the entire entertaining narrative with pictures so that it could be read chronologically without interruption from humble beginning to victorious end, and all would be the wiser. It hasn’t worked out as planned.

If you’re reading this thread you probably fall into 1 of 2 camps: Camp 1 is the number of experienced, helpful, friendly, and frequent contributors to this site reading for entertainment. To this group I want to say thank you. Without you all, this engine and possibly the entire boat would be in a San Francisco scrap yard. However this thread is really written for those in Camp 2. Those considering fixing up an old boat with an Atomic-4 and looking at that block of rusting metal wondering, “what did I get myself into?”

If you’re in Camp 2 and reading this thread for perspective, or maybe even motivation (like I usually did) let me assure you that when armed with the combined wisdom of this forum and a little resolve, anyone is capable of rebuilding, maintaining, or improving an Atomic-4 powered boat. Seemingly all of the common “problems” you could ever encounter with this engine have already been thoroughly identified and the necessary repair techniques well documented (valve sticking, overheating, poor performance, etc) on this forum by the collective braintrust of frequent contributors People often say, “If I can do it anyone can do it.” Believe me when I say my IQ pales in comparison to most of the chimpanzees at the zoo so there’s no excuse to be intimidated by the tasks. Without further ado, grab a beer and some popcorn because this is going to take a while. Here’s my saga:

***Late 2019 Update*** If you'd like to skip the backstory of all my clueless ill-fated attempts to fix the engine that ultimately led to a full-rebuild, skip to the bottom of page 3 to see the motor getting pulled out of the bilge.
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Jonathan
1979 Catalina 30 #1497
An old Airline Pilot proverb: "If we don't help each other nobody else will."

Last edited by Launchpad McQ; 09-24-2019 at 12:51 AM. Reason: Updated
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