Craig Lam

Hi. My name is Craig and I live in Long Beach, California. I am a Vietnam veteran, and a semi-retired cabinet maker. Since construction is down and full retirement is just around the corner, I've decided to build my own boat. I've worked on boats, homes, castles, trade show displays, and all types of furniture. I think it's time to do something for me and my family. Needless to say, I love to fish. Shortly after I made this decision I started to look around for a motor. I saw a motor called a Bearcat 55. I did alot of research on this motor and was really impressed. I was a mechanic in the service, so as a sideline I worked on cars and trucks. I bought this motor about two weeks ago and have started tearing into it. This week I'm doing a compression check to see where I'm at. If I need to take the power head off, I know where to get the parts. I do have lots of pictures, so if your interested, I'll post them for you. I also want to take this time to thank Tim for helping me to register. I'm not very computer literate. I'll see everybody at the forum.

[Helmar]

Hi Craig and welcome to our forum.

I think you will find that is a good little motor, just not a hot rod motor is all.
It will idle and you can troll fish it all day, punch the throttle and off you will go.

We have several people that sell parts and a few that knows the engines from top to bottom.
Super Sportster is one of those fellows that knows them inside and out and fishes with one, Often.

I have two of them with one being on my Uniflite 17 which preforms just fine for me. It will do about 25 loaded, no mixing the oil and no smoke.

parts

I have foud two places that sell parts. Bearcat Bill and Ed Ewing. One in Washington and the other in Redding, Cal. Ed seems to be better on his prices, but, I was wondering if there was a place closer to Long Beach,Cal. that sold Bearcat parts. I've already syarted to tear into this motor. It's in pretty good shape. I'm gonna post some pictures that I took. It was sitting in big bear lake for a couple of years. ? I'll post the pictures in the regular forum.

[Super Sportster]

Hi Craig and welcome. Another one who sells parts is: http://www.adventurebearcatmarine.com/ the only person I have bought from has been Bill and I have spoken with Ed once.

I own several of these engines and so far have ran 5 of them on the water, one of these being the rare 85hp. I have no complaints. My son and too love to fish, the Bearcat works out really well for this. We do lots of trolling and it will troll along at 1.5 mph all day long. As Joe said I use it often, yesterday we were out trolling for 5.5hrs and it never missed a beat. Uses very little fuel trolling. It's been the perfect engine for me and my only regret is not buying one thirty yrs ago!

[Helmar]

Shopping around

I like most people I too have been programmed to Shop around.
I found that Ed has the best prices as its all the same stuff.
He seems to be as knowledgeable as the others on the bearcats.

There is someone back East that has complete carb kits too, just don't remember who it was now...

And, Dick, I told you so