1971 Evinrude 18 HP longshaft

[Rat]

Well, after waiting patiently and trolling craiglist for a couple of weeks I finally found my motor. I wanted a 15-20 HP long shaft tiller drive. They guy I bought it from said he had replaced the impeller and sparkplugs and it was running fine. Then it sat for over a year and he can't get it to start now, he bought a new motor and sold this one to me for $175. I figured I would need to rebuild the carb and fuel pump and maybe the ignition system. Since I have never worked on an outboard before I thought I would ask a few questions here.

1) I have picked up a Seloco manual for it at my local West Marine store, it looks pretty thorough, but is there a better manual out there?
2) Where is the best place to buy the parts (carb and fuel pump rebuild kits) from? I looked on iboats and they have the stuff in stock but I have never dealt with them. Is there a better place?
3) I will need to re-prop when I get her running and it looks like I have 4 options when looking at pitch for this motor. Where is a good place to start? 10" seems to mid-range, I need to check and see what she has on her now.
4) I figure I have about 3-4 weeks to get her all ready, is this a good time frame or do I need to allow more time?
5) Do I need any specialty tools (how do you get the flywheel off?), and if so where can I get them?

 

[Loggerhead Mike]

heres a simple start to diaging your motor

take a plug out one at a time and ground to the motor. turn the motor over. both plugs should have a nice blue spark. if not somthing is weak or bad

take 1 plug out and put your finger over the cylinder while turning the motor over. there should be a light coat of gas on your finger. if not you have a fuel related problem

this should get you heading in the general direction of what you need to replace

for the flywheel if you dont have a puller stick 2 prybars under it on opp. ends. with some pressure on them tap the shaft w/ the nut on it so you dont mess up the threads. Dont use a hardface hammer. it'll pop off

hope this helps ya get'r goin sorry i cant help w/ the rest of your ?'s

btw: if the motor has sat for over a year the point contacts are more than likely corroded. lightly file the contacts and re-set the gap and i bet it fires up

 

[bassboy1]

If you have spark on those, you have a fuel related problem. If the fuel pump was bad, you could still start it for a little bit, and it would run on whatever you pumped through with the primer bulb. Since it won't do that, your carb is pretty much the only culprit. I might be tempted to not work on the fuel pump unless I felt it needed it.

You can pretty much count on the points needing a little cleaning, and regapping. Real simple to do so. File them with a fine grit sandpaper, and regap. I would NOT recommend pulling the flywheel with the method loggerhead Mike described, no offense to him of course. While it is a better option than hitting all the way around the flywheel to remove it, flywheels still will crack under that method. If all you risked was damaging the part, it might be worth it to try and save the money for a puller. However, you are also risking your life in the case of an outboard, as the flywheel, spinning at 5000 RPM or so, is right at neck or chest level, and if it does let go due to cracking caused by improper removal, don't count on a fiberglass motor hood to slow shrapnel that much. Never seemed much like a worthwhile risk to me.

Aside from the puller, you shouldn't need any specialty tools. However, I have found that sometimes certain bolts (ie carb studs) are in awkward places, and cutting a wrench in half sometimes yields a better result. So, save for the occasional cheapo wrench to grind down, the only special tool you need is a puller. Now, were it a Merc of that vintage, or slightly older, it would be a totally different story, but we aren't going to go there.