As I recall, they were offered from the 1960s into the 1980s – I’ve had dozens of motors with them over the years. Today’s clip-on pvc ones are junk compared to them. Be sure to lubricate the button periodically, water can get behind it and rust out the spring.

When I was a kid in the 1970s, my boat Messenger with its trusty QD-14 had one. One day I lost the tiller (brown part) overboard, it sank like a stone. Being perpetually short on spending cash to buy a replacement, I somehow figured out that the yellow O-Cedar kitchen mop handle was the same diameter. Quick cut with the hack-saw, hole drilled for the button and a little paint – good to go! Mom sure was perplexed at its loss, I think she blamed my dad for misplacing the mop since neither of us kids would ever have touched it without being forced to…. 🙄

Messenger circa 1978

I replaced the ball thingy on one of mine. I got a replacement from McMaster-Carr and drilled the old one out and epoxied the new one in. FYI, the replacement comes in two different spring tensions and the stiffer one is too stiff.

If the push button is seized up, you can drill a SMALL hole on the opposite side to clean all of the corrosion and stuff out to free it up. Just be careful with the spring inside. The new hole also makes a good place to apply penetrating fluid or WD 40 or whatever to.

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