I am very new to these outboard engines and am learning quite a lot by reading all your posts and threads.
I have a 507x8d 50hp motor that I bought a few months ago. The owner turned it over for us to verify it was running. Not too long because it was out of the water. (Didn't know that was important at the time). The boat sat for a week or so in the rain and got about 8 inches of water in the bottom, covering the marine battery (fully charged) and the wiring. After drying out, we tried starting it but the electrical connection to the starter was hit and miss. If you hopped up and down on the deck, the radio would come on and we could turn the key and the starter would function.
After starting from scratch, I replaced the cables from the battery to the motor and the positive and negative wires from the battery to the front console and ignition. I found that the negative wire to the ignition switch had totally rotted off the battery terminal. This fixed the intermittent power to the starter.
During this water fiasco, we dumped the water-logged fuel, cleared the fuel filter of bad gas, removed and cleaned the carburetor and checked all fuel lines. Finally, this time, the motor turned over but just for a second or two. I checked each blue coil pack for spark by pulling the spark plug and resting it to ground to check for a blue arc. Both my coil packs are left and right on a metal frame with my cdi below them. The terminal block sits vertically to the right. The left coil had no spark while the right coil did. Both my spark plug wires had electrical tape on them from the previous owner but I can't replace them by themselves because they're built in to the packs. I removed the left pack and quick-disconnected the positive side and the ground. I was starting to test for ohms when my multi-meter died. While check for lose wires, I also found a blue wire had broke off it's connector near the 2nd or 3rd terminal of the vertical block. I re-terminated it and put it back with the other blue wires. After re-installing the left pack, I tested for spark again. This time, I got the opposite: I got spark on the left pack but nothing on the right. I did find that my spark plug wire coming from the left pack must have a crack in it because while testing the spark plug to ground, I kept hearing a tick-tick-tick and then saw that I was getting an arc from the spark plug as it was going into the sealed pack. It was arcing against the mounting bolt of the right pack. When we tried starting up again, there was a huge backfire immediately. When I pulled the spark plugs, there was a mist of smoke coming from the bottom cylinder. So in a nutshell, here is my embarrassing question... After removing the spark plug wires several times, removing both coil packs and both spark plugs, I don't remember which spark plug wire coming from the coil packs was on which spark plug. I am pretty sure that I re-attached the coil packs to the correct connector that I removed them from as well but can't be 100% certain. I'm also pretty sure I found a schematic that shows which color combination goes to which coil pack but I can't find anything that tells me if these coils are specific to the cylinders (which are top and bottom). I just don't know why the right coil would spark and not the left. And now it's opposite. I'm sure I need to replace both coils due to the taped up spark plug wires. I'm just not sure if I'm plugging them into the right connectors and spark plugs. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
I have a 507x8d 50hp motor that I bought a few months ago. The owner turned it over for us to verify it was running. Not too long because it was out of the water. (Didn't know that was important at the time). The boat sat for a week or so in the rain and got about 8 inches of water in the bottom, covering the marine battery (fully charged) and the wiring. After drying out, we tried starting it but the electrical connection to the starter was hit and miss. If you hopped up and down on the deck, the radio would come on and we could turn the key and the starter would function.
After starting from scratch, I replaced the cables from the battery to the motor and the positive and negative wires from the battery to the front console and ignition. I found that the negative wire to the ignition switch had totally rotted off the battery terminal. This fixed the intermittent power to the starter.
During this water fiasco, we dumped the water-logged fuel, cleared the fuel filter of bad gas, removed and cleaned the carburetor and checked all fuel lines. Finally, this time, the motor turned over but just for a second or two. I checked each blue coil pack for spark by pulling the spark plug and resting it to ground to check for a blue arc. Both my coil packs are left and right on a metal frame with my cdi below them. The terminal block sits vertically to the right. The left coil had no spark while the right coil did. Both my spark plug wires had electrical tape on them from the previous owner but I can't replace them by themselves because they're built in to the packs. I removed the left pack and quick-disconnected the positive side and the ground. I was starting to test for ohms when my multi-meter died. While check for lose wires, I also found a blue wire had broke off it's connector near the 2nd or 3rd terminal of the vertical block. I re-terminated it and put it back with the other blue wires. After re-installing the left pack, I tested for spark again. This time, I got the opposite: I got spark on the left pack but nothing on the right. I did find that my spark plug wire coming from the left pack must have a crack in it because while testing the spark plug to ground, I kept hearing a tick-tick-tick and then saw that I was getting an arc from the spark plug as it was going into the sealed pack. It was arcing against the mounting bolt of the right pack. When we tried starting up again, there was a huge backfire immediately. When I pulled the spark plugs, there was a mist of smoke coming from the bottom cylinder. So in a nutshell, here is my embarrassing question... After removing the spark plug wires several times, removing both coil packs and both spark plugs, I don't remember which spark plug wire coming from the coil packs was on which spark plug. I am pretty sure that I re-attached the coil packs to the correct connector that I removed them from as well but can't be 100% certain. I'm also pretty sure I found a schematic that shows which color combination goes to which coil pack but I can't find anything that tells me if these coils are specific to the cylinders (which are top and bottom). I just don't know why the right coil would spark and not the left. And now it's opposite. I'm sure I need to replace both coils due to the taped up spark plug wires. I'm just not sure if I'm plugging them into the right connectors and spark plugs. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.