1983 Evinrude getting bogged down

[jsylvester08]

Hey Everyone,
So it's finally getting nice here in NY. I put my Osprey 200 in on Saturday and not I'm having trouble with the engine. When I started the engine up it was having trouble idling. I thought it might be just because it sat over the winter. So I took it out and when I throttled down it only came up to maybe 1/3 speed and will not rev up anymore. When it's in neutral it will rev up all the way without a problem. It only has trouble in drive. I tried to take a video of it. In the video I have it in neutral to start and rev it up but then I put it in drive and I throttle all the way down. 
The engine is a 1983 Evinrude 115. I winterized it in October and it was running great at that point. Do you guys have any suggestions or things I should try. Any help would be great.

[fitz73222]

Hi J,
Reving up in neutral doesn't tell you anything. It will rev up on 2 cylinders and you'll barely notice a problem. It's what it does under load that matters. Determine whether this is a fuel delivery problem or an engine ignition problem. Try running the engine on a remote 6 gallon tank, fresh fuel and oil with a different fuel line and primer bulb. If it runs fine, you have a fueling issue that is boat related. Plugged filter, fuel lines, water in the fuel or plugged vent. If it still runs poorly on the 6 gallon tank, you have an engine problem. Plugged carb jets or an ignition problem. If you are using ethanol based fuel, the entire fuel system is in question. Your engines rubber fuel components were not designed for ethanol and can easily degrade to the point of failure sitting from October until now.

What can happen is when the fuel system dries out, when it sits there can be a substantial amount of plaque in the walls of the fuel lines that becomes dislodged when the system is re-primed and jambs in the fuel connector, fuel filter, and carb jets. Try the 6 gallon tank method before you do anything and that will get us pointed in a direction to look further at the problem.

[czizza]

Go get a bottle of STP Dry Gas or Chevron Dry Gas; I suspect you have water in your fuel which happens over the winter.

[jsylvester08]

Thanks for your responses. I tried to run off an external tank today. New gas and new lines and everything. It ran about the same. It will idle and when I throttle down it only comes up to about half speed and still will not even come close to getting up on plane. Unfortunately I don't have a working Tach so I can't tell the RPMs that it's running at. Do you guys have any other suggestions? Should I run a bottle of seafoam through it and see if will clean out the carbs or should I test anything else? Thanks for helping.

[fitz73222]

Ok j,
We've eliminated the boat's fuel system for now. Now on to the engine. When the engine was winterized what exactly was performed? Was it run out of fuel and fogged? Fogging oil is pretty heavy oil designed to coat the interior of the engine and protect it corrosion while it sits. This may just be a couple of fouled plugs so let's start there. Take them out and look to see if they're oil fouled from the fogging oil or does one or more of them look dry from lack of fuel? Should be L77JC4 gapped to .040 I believe. Tell me what you see. It's important to know which cylinders each plug came from so note the orientation. The cylinders are numbered. Does the engine spit or sneeze at idle?

[jsylvester08]

Fitz,

When I winterized it last season I used fogging oil which I sprayed directly into the carbs until it died as the directions on the can explain. I then sprayed the fogging oil into each cylinder and placed the spark plug back in and turned the engine over once to coat the inside of the positions. This spring I started her up and let it run for about 10 min. I then replaced the spark plugs with the new ones I'm using now.

Took her for a little easy cruise and took a picture of the spark plugs when I came in and I noticed 2 things. First thing is that both the top and bottom plug on the starboard side of the engine were very clean and almost looked like that haven't had any fuel. The second thing I noticed was after about a 10 min ride they were also cool. The port side looked like it was covered in oil but they were warm. Does this give you any ideas about what's going on? It seems strange to me that one side would be so clean and the other side looks pretty normal (atleast for what I've seen 2 stroke plugs looking like)

I couldn't attach the pictures because they were too big it kept telling me but I uploaded them in my gallery.

One from port and the other from the starboard.

[Capt. Bob]

Here's both for comparison:

[fitz73222]

Ok j,
Now we're getting somewhere. Do you have a pair of plastic fuse pulling pliers or at least insulated pliers? Fire the engine up on a flush attachment and pull each spark plug wire off on the clean plug side and see if there is any fire arching to the plug when you hold the wire boot a 1/2 inch or so away from the plug. If no, unplug and detach the CD pack (little blue or black plastic rectangular box) adjacent to the cylinder head and switch it with the one on the other side that supplies the other cylinder bank and see if the fire comes back to that side. Your engine has two CD boxes, one for each pair of cylinders. If the fire comes back to the dry plug side, replace the other box (since you switched them) and you have fixed the problem. If not, we'll keep looking into this.

[jsylvester08]

Thanks Bob for helping me to post that. I also put the other picture of the spark plug that seems to be working. I'm away for the next few days but I'll test the plugs at the end of the weekend.

[jsylvester08]

After my week of traveling for work I had a little time to work on the boat today. I did like you said and pulled the plug wires  to see if I could see a spark arching. I didn't see any spark but I did it on both sides. When the side with the clean plugs was pulled there was no change in the way the engine was running.  When I pulled the wires on the port side where the plugs look dirty the engine started to stutter so it seems like that side is working. I will switch the CD from one side to the other to see if i can get it to respond the same tomorrow. If this is the issue what is the name of this piece? Should I bring it to the marine store for a replacement or is this something that will be cheaper online. How much does it usually run for?
Below is the link to a picture I took of the little blue box that I think we are talking about.

[fitz73222]

http://www.marineengine.com/newparts/part_details.php?pnum=OMC0582125

[jsylvester08]

Sorry for the delay.
I just wanted to let you guys know that you were spot on. The power pack was bad. I replaced it and now she runs like a top. Thanks for all of your help.

[fitz73222]

Good to hear, thanks for updating us. Often times we never hear if the diagnosis was correct so other members can learn from this.

[floridamisser52]

The smart guys rule. We're all lucky to have them on this site. They're directly responsible for a lot of kids goin fishing. Thanks!