When I bought my boat, the paint on the outboard was bubbling up and this caused it to flake off in places.  My uncle works in a body shop and is taking care of it for me this winter while I have it put away for a while, but I am going to loose my deals because the whole motor cover will be stripped down and repainted.  Does anyone know of a dealership or place on the net where you can order new decals?  I have only been able to find old and antique motors and decals on the net.  I know you can have them made but I'm sure it would be cheaper to just have order them.  I would like to keep everything as original as possible.  Anyone else ever run into this problem?

You might have some luck searching on ebay. If you don't find exactly your motor you can try contacting some of the sellers that are listing outboard decals. Ebay has certainly helped me track down alot of hard to find stuff over the past few years.

Finding decals for a Johnson motor that's more than a few years old is going to be tough. Many times, if the decals are still in good shape, you can heat them (just being careful not to use too much heat) with a hairdryer and use a sharpened putty knife to remove, save and reuse them. It works best with two people doing it, one lifting the decals without streching them and one working the putty knife and hair dryer. Stick them on a piece of release paper until ready to put them back on.   Sometimes though, no matter how hard you try, you just can't get them off without destroying them.

If that's not an option, before removing them, take the cover by a grahics shop (that has the capabilty to make them) and let them get the font, size, colors etc, before you remove them and get a price. Unless it's something like the Stripes around a Venom, it may not be as high as you might think. Probably even cheaper than what a dealer would want for a set if he could get them.

If it's the raised letters, they can be removed rather easily, just heat the cover from underneath rather than on the decal, I've removed and reused those on several covers

Check out this site for several links to vendors of decals and other older motor parts:

http://www.vintageoutboard.com/OtherLinks/Links.html