What we do more then triking, diving.

[jeswinehart]

The weather is getting much better for diving here in south west Michigan so we have been back to the Sunday morning dives since the cool down.
We have known about a boat motor that was lost many years ago in the general area we went diving today and low and behold my dive buddy Amy (who rides a 85 Bigred and met many of you folks that attend Trikefest meets and sandpuppys rides) mucked it up today.
It was in about 35 foot of water completly silted over. It is a Evinrude of about 15 horse and about a 1947 near as we can figure.
This is her 2nd. motor from this lake and the 4th. one i have seen pulled from it.
We started diving this area of Fisher Lake, Three rivers, Michigan 10 plus years ago and we heard the old old story from a old time who has since passed on.
I give it about a 99.9 % chance of running w/o putting any parts into it (except it will need new spark plugs).

[dcreel]

Awesome, John.. How did you bring the motor up and back to shore? Just drag it along?

[jeswinehart]

That yellow bag in picture is a 50 lb. lift bag that we carry along in the inner tube float.
Amy stayed top side to keep slack in float rope that Marty preliminary tied the float rope off too. Marty and I went back down to tie off and inflate.
I have never seen a lift bag break surface ( I have always been involved with tie off's) but I asked her about when it broke surface and she said it come all the way out of the water by a couple of inches and then settled down much like a bobber used for fishing.
Marty, who was line tendering the bag gave enough slack in the hand held portion of the float rope and some where between surface and bottom said it went by him like a STREAK leaving a silt trail all the way to the surface.

[dcreel]

Looks like fun. Is it possible to use some type of metal detector from the surface to look for lost items on the bottom? Or do you use a depth finder (fish finder type of thing) to look for irregularities on the bottom? I would think that there would be a lot of treasures to be found in the murky depths.

How cold is the water? Makes me cold just thinking about it.

[harryredtrike]

cool find,there is so much good stuff on the bottom of all our great lakes,and inland lakes.cars,whole boats and ships,orv's sleds,you name it

[cattle-dog]

very cool john my uncle sonny used to dive lake ontario and some lakes in the adirondaks, even the erie canal, the canal gave up some cool finds.

[3wheelmecca]

Very cool, My friend found a complete Ford smallblock underwater, going to rebuild it soon.

[hang&rattle]

That is too cool! On the T3 tread you mentioned the diving. I guess in Canyon Ferry Reservoir on old cowboy would not leave his ranch. Moved nothing out. Had to be removed and had all of the possessions left behind. And alot of pickups and snowmobiles lost through the ice. A plane landed on the Middle Thompson and fell through the ice. Man, John, that is to much fun to think about. When exploring old mines in the 80's back in the mountains on our 4-wheelers and dirt bikes there was allot of neat stuff, but not like what you are finding. Hey, I need a new pole and a gas motor for my jon boat, heck, a new boat would work, think ya can hook me up? lol!

[atc110riders]

ok awsome now try to find a 85 185 at the bottom haha

[jeswinehart]

i don't have any pictures left of the Honda Amy + I pulled from the Kalamazoo river that had been down for sevral years but it run with minioum effort. Yay Honda ! It is posted in my post from long ago, not sure if a search would show it up ?
yeah, between Amy and I we have some really useful stuff. Underwater metal detectors, towable camars, boats of all kinds for surface support, lift bags of different size ratings. Not to mention some really good cold weather dive gear.
But like Amy says, our best tools are our hands.
The owner of the property we went off is a triker, of sorts too. He come in riding this while we was suiting up.

[atc110riders]

what u did pull a trike out of a river who would kill a honda?????

[200xman]

Nice find guys! I had an Evinrude like that a while back. I believe it's a 7.5. The knob sticking up on the right side is the gear shift and the end of the tiller handle should unscrew and reveal a screwdriver. I ended up selling mine to my boss at the time who collected vintage motors. It did run sweet though.

[jeswinehart]

Right you are Xman ! That is what Amy e-mailed me, that she found it was either a 53 or 54 seven point Five.
I did unscrew the end of the tiller handle because it was loose to see it was a screw driver ~ very useful.

ATC110riders, well no the Honda was a boat motor. I took a pic of a pic. The youg fella with Amy and I is the fella that lost his dads motor upstream some years ealier.
The trike I do have in the dive room collection is ???
What really trips my trigger is old fishing reels. Pre 1930, before level wind. Some of the ones pictures are one off mail order type you sent away for in kit form to build, some are "store" bought, some are simply gratuities from companies with their name on them with absolutely nothing to do with the company that made them.
The few,more valuable ones, I have the Mrs. puts in her "what-not" curio cabinet because she has a idea as to the worth of them.
I have a "dive room" collection and so do Amy. It is a step back into time to see either one of our collections and gives both her and I great satisfaction of the stuff we have retrieved, not to mention the value of some of the pieces ranging from civil war era ball + shackle, reels, jewelery,and of course boat motors.
yeah, it is a good fit for a hobby for me and my friends. Made many a good life long friends.
I might add that Marty, who was with us today has a 1985 350X and still uses it as a stress reliever. He bought it new off the show room floor and said if he was ever to decide to sell it for some reason, I would be first in line but something tells me I will be checked out and a memory before he ever sells it.

[Thorpe]

Thats super cool... I think I would get closterphobic diving though!

[Eric250R]

Very cool John. Diving is something I've always wanted to do. I"m a huge history buff so finding anything old is always a thrill. Of all the things you've found, what would be your single favorite piece ?