Not knowing who “Monkey Wards” were made me feel ancient. I am ancient.

Montgomery Ward was the Amazon of its day

Montgomery Ward was a catalog sales store back in the day, similar to Sears. They didn't get quite as big as Sears, and start selling things like houses. But the did sell just about anything else a person would need in their home, from clothing to appliances to tools, just like Sears did. They probably also sold the boat that would have gone with this motor. They also had some retail stores in towns, but again, not as many as Sears. They later just changed their name to Wards to try to survive. But eventually fell into bankruptcy. What remains of the company was bought out by Colony Brands in Monroe, Wisconsin (home of The Swiss Colony shops of cheese, sausage, swiss candies and pastries). And you can still find remnants of Montgomery Ward there. Back in their catalog days, Wards would sell products from many other companies. Which would sometimes be rebranded with their name. But they also designed and made many products of their own. You would have to do some research to find out if this motor was a Wards original, or if it was made buy someone else.

Need to lower it deeper in the bucket!

Time for part two!!

The down side to using carb cleaner on painted parts is it could eat the paint off of it.

This same make, model,  and year is what got me started in tinkering with old outboards.  $25 garage sale find and in really decent shape for as old ss it is.  I'm guessing the spark plugs were original because they were worn badly and had knurled nuts for the wires.  Tech tip for you old outboard nuts:  Carburetor floats made from cork were originally sealed with shellac to keep them from soaking up the gasoline and sinking.  I've had good success fixing that with an epoxy dip.

Oh man!  Brings back such memories!  I bought a 16' steel V bottom boat with this motor.  The motor was seized and I spent a week or so soaking down the cylinders and tapping the pistons with a wooden dowel until they freed up.  I (like you) cleaned the carb, checked for spark got this bad boy to fire.  I had a lot of fun fishing out of that boat and the little Sea King did a great job.  The first run was in January and the lake was about to ice over.  Me and two buddies were young (and dumb) and we launched in 28 degree weather.  The motor ran great and we spent about 20 minutes on the shake down cruise.  The bow was iced up at the end of the run.  All of this happened in '76.  About 5 years later I traded the boat and motor for a KZ-400...what a mistake.  Too bad YouTube wasn't around back then.  I would have made a vid like you've done.  Good job, brother!  PS...get yourself a brass brazing rod the same diameter as the prop shear pin.  I cut myself a bunch of pins because the first time the prop sheared I had to use a fish hook as a temporary shear pin.

awsome.love seeing the old ones come back.enjoyed this

When things were built tough.

I used to have a mid 50s Montgomery Ward 5HP Sea King. I believe they were made for them by Johnson. I changed the coils and impeller and used Johnson parts.

I like the old wood handle on the screwdriver 👍🏻

My favorite is my  1907 Evinrude 1 1/2 hp. I restored. Can start by hand spinning flywheel. Still runs perfect. Only issue was . . . I used a rum bottle cork for carb float 😁

Wow,  what a great find.  Manufactured when durability mattered. A sad reflect 31:41 ion on our throw away culture today.  Thank you for preserving

There's a possibility that the lower unit is not submerged deep enough and that's why it isn't pumping any water. You want the cavitation plate another 6 inches under water. Certainly it needs a new impeller though.

1949 Montgomery Ward Sea King 5hp outboard motor

It's your engine and protect, had I been there I would have talked you into using 2 stroke oil, still did a great job getting it going

It’s so cute.

Funny, I was at a vintage Outboard motor meet couple of weeks ago in Tacoma and someone won that same motor out of the raffle. After cleaning the points we had that thing running in about 40 minutes.

Amazing and a pleasure to watch....