Zak on maintaining your (alky) crankshaft.

[Smitty]

Found a letter I needed a year ago, when several of were arguing about WD-40. That doesn't matter now, but Zak's suggestions may help someone. This quote, with unaltered punctuation, is from a letter to a 4-cyl Konig owner for whom Zak had rebuilt a crank, around 1975 or so:

"When done running and the engine has cooled, fire it up on the bank and <let it cool down> (underlined in the letter) again. With the long spout on WD-40, LPS-1, or Sherwin-Williams 711 sprayon reach through the carbs and saturate the rods through the rod-slots (see note below). Rotate the crank several times and saturate again and rotate the crank several more times. Then put several drops of straight <Blenzol> in each rod. Preferrably do this with the engine on its side with carbs pointing up. Reason for letting the engine cool before using the demoisturant is that it has a sulfur content and will mark up <hot> metal. Faithfully do this and use Blenzol for your fuel mix and I'm sure I'll not hear from you for a long time on crank problems."

Note-- One of Zak's services was slotting the big ends of con-rods (although he said slots were more important in gas-burners, to dissipate heat. If your rods aren't slotted, you'd still use the demoisturant spray to flush the bearing area as best you can.

We have some synthetic oils now which might be good for post-race running the engine on the beach, even if you preferred to use Blenzol/castor for racing. Comments?

[T Chance]

Alky crankshafts

Back around that time (the '70's) Dieter Konig told me to "whoosh it". "Whoosh it?" I said. He showed me. We cranked up the engine and Dieter kind of half choked both carbs with the palms of his hands and then choked it fully until the engine quit. It made a whooshing sound. And Dieter said "See, whoosh it. Castor oil!". So I whooshed for awhile until I started fogging with Marvel Mystery Oil.

[jrome]

good story

Tim,deiter Always Had Tricks Like That. I Guess Every Body In The World Wanted To Show Him A Trick Because He Had So Many. Thanks For The Story Tim.

[bill van steenwyk]

Crankshaft Care

A year or so before Harry Zak passed away we attended two races a week apart in New York state.We used the method described in the first post just as we had been doing for a number of years. When we raced the 2nd weekend I ran both cranks in both engines out in less than two laps. What had happened was the mfgr. of the fogging oil we had been using had changed the formula slightly and it would now react with alky in a very negative way, completely rusting both cranks while they were sitting in the trailer the week between races. Harry then did a lot of research and one of the people he talked to was an engineer from OMC who suggested the following: "run the engine on gasoline after through racing, mixed twice as much with whatever lubricant you are using". The reason given was that even if you run the engine on the bank after racing, you are still running it on the same alky fuel you were using all the time, and alky draws water like honey draws flies. Water plus steel equals RUST, pitting of the crank bearing journal and ultimate failure. We went to this method and I used it until I quit racing and never had another problem. The same method is used by many these days, and gasoline plus lube equals no water absorbing residue left in the engine. I saw Denny Henderson using this method at DePue last weekend. There are many good lubes today including Blendzall which if the same formula as it used to be is simply degummed castor. We did mix it double strength with the gas and you might have to put a smaller jet in the carb to run it that way as it tends to flood out very easily with the alky jet running gas thru it. The smaller jet makes it easier to start on the double lube mix.

[Smitty]

Well, I like the idea of getting the alcohol out as well, but it also seemed to me that Blendzal was still a gooier substance that I wanted to leave in the engine. About the time I last put a boat in the water, Richard Koch in Reg. 10 was dealing a Union Carbide polyglycol synthetic lube that was compatible with both gasoline and alcohol. I got a can of this and made up a 2-gallon can of pre-mix using the highest octane av-gas I could get (115/145 in those days!!), and an extra dose of the oil. After running around the lake on methanol and Blenzal, I drained the lines and changed tanks to the gasoline premix, and ran the engine a couple of times on the beach. The objection one could make to this proceedure is that the purple av-gas had a lot of lead in it, which can cause its own corrosion problems, so a low-lead or no-lead gas would be better. Despite the high compression, I really didn't need a high-octane gasoline just to run the engine on the beach. But I wasn't real bright in those days.

[Smitty]

Dang, I missed a typo!! I meant to say, Blenzal was a gooier substance THAN I wanted to leave in the engine . . . .

[bill van steenwyk]

gooey engines

Smitty:

The blendzoll is de-gummed and we never had any real problem. I guess it is a matter like the advertisement for something a few years ago said "pay me now, or pay me later". I would rather wash some lubricant out of the engine if it has sat for a few months than spend whaterver hard earned cash it takes these days to rebuild a Konig crank. Boatracers always seem to have more time than money anyway so maybe it is a good way to keep busy between races, or you could just roll the engine over by hand occasionally. I don't think you would have to ABSOLUTELY mix double oil if you didn't want to for the procedure to work and be viable, we were just trying to be double safe. Harry was a great one for taking good care of engines off the race course as well as on. He always told me that my engines really belonged to him, and he was just loaning them to me to run, and I got my rear chewed several times when he didn't think I was taking care of "HIS" engines good enough.

[alky6]

We run the engines on the beach (pipes off to keep from loading up with oil) and use a gas/Marvel Mystery Oil mix (50%/50%) runs no problem with the alky jets. Bonus- kills any bugs in the immediate area...

[pro350hydro]

We run the engines on the beach (pipes off to keep from loading up with oil) and use a gas/Marvel Mystery Oil mix (50%/50%) runs no problem with the alky jets. Bonus- kills any bugs in the immediate area...

Ditto,

Some people hate it at first, then they like it after they realize the skeeters are gone

[YankeeRacing]

Zak Knowledge

An interesting note about Zak Knowledge:

A year ago we met one of our neighbors who runs a motorcycle/snowmobile engine specialty shop. We had heard good things about his work so stopped in to talk about boat racing engines.
Come to find out Dan (owner), had been a previous Protoge' of Zaks and worked under him, and then as a partner doing the motorcycle/snowmobile end of it. They worked together for many years.
Dan has many of the Zak secrets and equipment.
We started using Dan of RPC, inc this year and it has worked for Yankee Racing, as Brian is doing very well.
Dan wants to expand to the boat racing side of it. This is a great chance for you to get in on the ground floor with Dan. He will be advertising soon in Propeller and hopefully on Hydroracer, so get him booked early!
If anyone would like his phone number, email me at YankeeRacing@aol.com.
Isn't it great to know that Zak's knowledge is still in use?!
Connie Payn