- Joined
- Feb 3, 2023
- Messages
- 880
- Reaction score
- 837
- LOCATION
- Mead Washington
So the 97’ Evinrude 115 2 stroke on my Crestliner has been giving me fits. It starts missing real bad at about 1/4 to 1/3 throttle. This all happened, possibly coincidental, after the boat was partially swamped in a storm.
I first thought that it had water in the fuel so I completely drained the tank, replaced the water separator, replaced the fuel line/priming bulb from the separator to the outboard and replaced the fuel filter on the outboard. They were probably all due for maintenance anyway so nothing lost.
The problem persisted and I turned towards the ignition system. The spark plugs did’t have many hours on them but, I tried a different set with no change. The potting on the ignition coils was cracked quite bad so I replaced them. Figured if they weren’t failing already they probably would fail soon. At this point the problem went away so I hung some for-sale signs on it. Took it out to lake for some fishing (and advertisement) and it started missing again. Took off the signs and took it back out again with a timing light to see if I could detect a miss on one cylinder. Visually, they all seemed to be firing fine but, it was still missing with a bit of throttle. I ordered a couple of carb kits with the intent of rebuilding them this winter.
I have not gone through the carbs yet. The boat was run all season on electric, only using the OB at low speeds mostly to launch and load.
So after fishing last Sunday I fired it up to idle back to dock and it sounded a bit smoother so I accelerated and it ran fine. Did a couple laps around one end of the lake and no problem. Maybe the max rpm’s were down 400 or so but, I was cold at this point and headed in.
There are really only two things I can think of that changed since it last ran Ok.
I first thought that it had water in the fuel so I completely drained the tank, replaced the water separator, replaced the fuel line/priming bulb from the separator to the outboard and replaced the fuel filter on the outboard. They were probably all due for maintenance anyway so nothing lost.
The problem persisted and I turned towards the ignition system. The spark plugs did’t have many hours on them but, I tried a different set with no change. The potting on the ignition coils was cracked quite bad so I replaced them. Figured if they weren’t failing already they probably would fail soon. At this point the problem went away so I hung some for-sale signs on it. Took it out to lake for some fishing (and advertisement) and it started missing again. Took off the signs and took it back out again with a timing light to see if I could detect a miss on one cylinder. Visually, they all seemed to be firing fine but, it was still missing with a bit of throttle. I ordered a couple of carb kits with the intent of rebuilding them this winter.
I have not gone through the carbs yet. The boat was run all season on electric, only using the OB at low speeds mostly to launch and load.
So after fishing last Sunday I fired it up to idle back to dock and it sounded a bit smoother so I accelerated and it ran fine. Did a couple laps around one end of the lake and no problem. Maybe the max rpm’s were down 400 or so but, I was cold at this point and headed in.
There are really only two things I can think of that changed since it last ran Ok.
- The air temp was 40 degrees as apposed to 60 and higher.
- I had a pretty good dose of STA-BIL fuel stabiliser in the fuel tank.