K&B 7.5 OB parts or replacement

[arzee2]

Hey guys. I know nothing of boats. I helped a friend out and he gave me an old boat. The hull looks good but the engine bottom case is broken. I was wondering if you guys would know where to get parts or what an equivalent engine would be for my boat.

[Ron Olson]

www.mecoa.com is the K&B web site. I used to get my K&B parts from Gary Preusse at 630-279-2451, he's not online.
K&B made at least 3 cases for the 7.5/.45 engine so you'll need to find out somehow which one that you have.

[arzee2]

Thanks for the help. Will this be a strong motor. I've done cars and planes and my cars were all RB Mods. Will this be on par with that kind of performance?

[Ron Olson]

They're good running and dependable engines, more so with the older versions. The last ones out of the original K&B shop were low on quality and the cases weren't machines squarely resulting in a lot of broken con-rods.
The 3 blocks that I'm thinking of were a one-piece with the bearings in the front of the case whil the other two had separate nose pieces. The cases for those had two different designs, one with a groove in it for the con-rod and the other didn't. The last case has the carb with a disc on the side for the low-speed needle instead of the needle inside the throttle arm.
Don't forget to run it with a quality fuel made for boats as it will have a higher oil content. The K&B's love nitro but 45-50% will make it fast but easy to tune.
Props from Octura for it would be the X-447, 448, 450 in 2 or 3-blades and the X-646/3. A Prather 235 is a nice one also.
I threw in the last part about the props as that question seems to come up somewhere along the way.