100 MPH Mculloch for sale

[Skoontz]

For sale at Lake Powell. Rotary valve. Looks like a Konig lower unit.

$12,000

[Mark 72@E]

Sam, Where Are You?

I'm waiting for Sam to check in. McCullouch made racing outboards with racing gearcases that Sam and I have talked about but I don't have a clue how to identify one.

[mac19f]

McCullough race engines

They made two engines a 590 and a 630. Both similar in appearance. 3 cylinder, rotary valve basically built off of the 75hp fishing engine powerhead. The gearcase had an upper set of gears that allowed different selections of ratios.

[sam]

That's a real McCulloch racer, but 100 mph would be doubtful.

$12,000 would be even more doubtful. A serious asking price would be less than half that. Not even the more desirable and more rare Mercs have ever gone for that much. Someone will buy it from his estate for scrap metal price.

That is the original multi gear ratio McCulloch racing case.

I'm not at home and can't see the pic clearly, most of it looks right, but the spray sheilds on the carbs look wrong from here. It also appears to be the last version - 1964/65

[Leeann]

If you upload the actual .jpg file instead of placing into a Word .doc first, it'd be easier to see and we wouldn't have to download it to view it.

Word automatically reduces the resolution of any picture you place into it.

[Skoontz]

I'll see if I can put it into a btter file to read...Was doing a quickie and did not have time to dial in this yuppie device, for I am just a simple cave man landscaper

[sam]

even here at home I still can't see it clearly in the original version, but I can give these criticisms:

There is extra paint on it that did not come from the factory; the lower unit was originally white like the rest of the motor below the powerhead, the white has some kind of funky pin-striping that does not belong.

The carbs are not factory original; there is some kind of extension on the fronts and the original spray shields are missing.


The Merc OPC type steering bar is funky, too. McCullochs usually had their steering connected at the front like a pleasure motor; when the used a steering bar it was a much simpler bar that just attached to a boss at the back of the motor.

A $12,000 or even $6,000, a McCulloch 630 or 590 would have to have all 5 or 10 sets of quick change gears and several original Litton props along with the original bill of sale. If it has all these, it sure would be nice to see them, but it is far from "mint" or "restored".

Actually, I'd settle for learning the serial number to help verify how many were built. No one seems to know for sure, but everyone who was directly involved says they are certain hundreds were made; at least 300 and possibly as many as 600.

It seems odd that they seem to have just disappeared

[Skoontz]

Check the link and see the ad

That's what I should have done in the first place! I thought the 12K sounded steep

http://knoxville.craigslist.org/boa/982320312.html

[T Chance]

everyone who was directly involved says they are certain hundreds were made; at least 300 and possibly as many as 600.

It seems odd that they seem to have just disappeared

Hundreds? Seems odd to me too as I have only seen three. Ever.

[sam]

Hundreds? Seems odd to me too as I have only seen three. Ever.

I've only seen one and pieces of 3 or 4 more in person, but there is a set of pictures of a boat with 5, and if you look closely at some of the old pics of races at Havasu and Salton Sea, you can see several boats with pairs. The factory race team guys say a few racers ran 3 and 4 of them per boat.

Like I said, both the factory race team in Los Angeles and the assembly line workers in Minneapolis both say hundreds were made.

The reason I'd like to know the serial number is because the highest serial number I've seen is around 00130. If we could find a serial number 00300 or 00450 it would tell the tail for sure. If the number turns out to be 00054, its still a mystery.

There are also at least 2 different serial number styles listed in the literature, possibly 3, but I've only seen one style of serial number on a tag. If we eventually find serial numbers that start at 0001 3 times, it would really confuse things, but would point to a greater number of produced motors.

[Skoontz]

Turns out the guy who owns it asked his daughter to post it for sale because he too is a simple caveman type like myself and knows little about computers....So, I have a call in to her, to get the serial numbers and also asked about the gear sets and the water deflectors so so fourth.

Being it is at Lake Powell, it's the area where these things were pretty plentiful. Hopefully, I'll get some answers and post back.

[RogerH]

McCullouch Pictures

This McCullouch is located in TN. The motor is in very good shape. Not sure how many of these are around, so can't speak to the asking price. The owner has had it for a long time, and it hasn't been "messed with". - Roger

[Mark 72@E]

Is It Just Me?

Is it just me or does the engine stand in the newest photos look identical to the engine stand in the craigslist ad?

[sam]

It is the same motor on the same stand.

Thanks for the pics Roger. I have seen some of the pics before, but not all of them. Apparently I did not save them. Do you have a picture of the back of the motor? There is something of interest there as well ... the 630 used a special cylinder head. I think it is the special one, just not visible from these angles.

These close up views show more alterations. The ignition coil is not original, nor mounted in the original position. As I thought earlier, the spray shields are missing and something weird is attached to the front of the carbs. The 630's had trouble with the distributor drive belt coming off, so there were little guides tack welded to the pulley. Only the bottom belt guide seems to be present (they are frail and break off easily if abused, this guy may have never noticed). If I was "restoring" an old motor I would certainly use hose clamps where hose clamps belong and not wire ties ... plastic wire ties are not period correct (they did not become common until about 7 or 8 years after the 630 went out of production).

The thing at the far bottom left of the top pic and middle far right of the second picture is the sawhorse queen ignition switch. It is mounted in one of the front steering connections. Convenient, but distracting. The home made barn door hinged steering bar is also distracting. It appears to extend too far forward to work correctly anyway. It should be removed.

That looks like an original Litton prop on it ... lots of "S" shape on the trailing edge. The grey part of the lower unit has 1 tooth off ratio gears with a reduced diameter for the tooth size & pitch, making them heavy duty. The white section above it is where the quick change ratio gears are.

[sam]

Two stories about development & production of the 630 McCulloch racer. Both Jack Oxley and Bob Kies volunteered these stories with no prompting when I interviewed them about the McCulloch racing program.

They had some ideas about what they wanted to do differently from the Merc Quicksilver and Speedmaster racing lower units. The gear ratios mentioned earlier as well as the reduced diameter gears and leaving the "S" area above the bullet fat. If you are running your prop high, the "S" area above the bullet is not a hydrodynamic load, it is out of the water ... its diameter is not critical. There is also a thrust block meeting boss cast into the front of the quick change housing.

So they made a few prototypes and took them to McCulloch's "Site Six" testing facility in Arizona. Mounted 2 up on the back of a Stylecraft catamaran, it ran almost 80 mph with no blow out or other handling problems at all. The next test would be endurance. They decided they would just run them wide open until one or both failed and change what failed and test again until an acceptable design was achieved. At the same time, Merc's Speedmaster racing lower units were good for 8 or 10 hours at most at full speed. After a full 40 hour work week of testing at 75 to 80 mph ... both lower units were still fully functional. The units were disassembled and inspected ... worn but not trashed. The design was sent to Minneapolis for production without any changes.

The original 1962 versions were not called 630's but instead just went by the numeric model designation. I'd have to dig it up if anyone really cares to know. The '62 version varied a little from its later sisters by having a rubber mounted yoke to connect the steering like the 60 and 75 hp fishing versions. (There were some other minor differences, but nothing as obviously visible as the big yoke.) Again, testing at Site Six was being performed ... Oxley now had a pair of Macs on a Stylecraft going better than 80 mph and something broke causing a very scary crash. After the crash, it was determined that the vulcanized rubber to metal joint had given up, causing the the steering to come completely off one motor. Inspection of other motors at Site Six revealed that many of them had flaws in the rubber joints that were going to fail. These worked fine on the fishing motors, but couldn't take it on the racers for some reason.

With the failure identified, the team redesigned the steering connection to the solid piece you see on the motor in this thread. Again, the design was sent to Minneapolis. Shipments of new motors continued to arrive in California without the update, for weeks, then months. Oxley and Kies called Minneapolis over and over asking when the change would be implemented. After while they got permission to go to Minneapolis and confront Brewster Atwater who still ran the plant. (Old timers will recall that the McCulloch name was new to outboards, the previous name was Scott-Atwater.) When they arrived at the plant they were stunned to see racing motors on the production line still being made with the rubber isolated steering yoke.

Back in those days there actually were safety mechanisms activated by chains hanging down in factories that stopped the assembly line in case of emergency. "Pulling the chain" physically stopped the conveyor lines if someone got stuck in the works or hurt. For safety this was good. For payroll this was bad, because some lines took a day or more to get back up to speed after stopping for just an instant and everyone would be paid just the same even though nothing was being produced.

Seeing the racing motors on the production line without the update made Oxley so mad he threatened to pull the chain and stop all production in the factory if Atwater did not pull the racers from the line and implement the change immediately. Atwater thought Oxley was bluffing and told Oxley he was sure Bob McCullough would fire Oxley and Kies if the chain was pulled, that they did not have the authority to take such drastic action. Oxley gave Atwater the option to call McCullough in Los Angeles before he pulled the chain. A confident Atwater strutted off to his office ... and returned a few minutes later red faced and as mad as a wet hen. The racing motors were removed from the line and the change was implemented. McCullough had told Atwater that Kies and Oxley were his representatives there that day and acted with his full authority. Relations between the racing team and Minneapolis had never been sweet, but from then on they were definitely sour.

On boatracingfacts.com there are a couple pictures of a DeSilva dual engine drag boat that they made for the McCulloch team.