Jack Craib's Rowboat Motor Information Site

Wisconsin,
Major Model J Restoration

Here's the story - Jack wrote:

My new friend, Dave Bono, turned up a Wisconsin model J recently and we decided to do a joint restoration of it. Well, to be honest he’d do the real work and I’d document it.
I happen to have a model J in my collection that is in pretty good original condition so we plan to use it as a reference motor.
Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Dave's complete motor before work started.

Dave Bono wrote:

I came across a Wisconsin J a few months ago and a sorrier example of any rowboat motor would be hard to find. This baby has the following faults:

1. crank..... bad threads, brazing, 2 keyways (the original was filled in with braze) and roughness at the lower bearing area
2. Timer .... broken handle, broken flap part, gobs of brazing
3. Cylinder ...... stuck piston, mixer stuck in place
4. Tank ..... lots of bondo and solder, fittings look ok
5. Exhaust ..... on the manifold there has been added a plate screwed to the underside and twisted around to replace the missing lower ear, the can and can bottom are replacements
6. Flywheel ..... hub broken out and welded back together, very rough taper and keyway, wrong knob
7. Lower Unit ..... gears look ok, torque tube was apparently broken off and brazed back out of plumb in two directions, prop shaft will have to be replaced, prop nut missing

That is as far as the guys got in their documenting!

This restoration is by Dave Bono.
Dave's other project was to recreate the first
American.
There appears to be no original of the early Americans extant.