I just purchased a "barely used" Carolina skiff that came with a "barely used" 15 HP 1994 Gamefisher O/B. Seller threw the O/B into the deal because he had had problems with poor performance over several seasons and his mechanic friend got it to run great in the test tank but when he got back on the water it always began to run poorly after being run for a while. When I tried to pull start the motor it wouldn't budge! I removed the pull starter unit and tried to hand rotate the flywheel with great resistance - Took the plugs out - no sign of water fouling and poured some mystery oil into the heads. It became easier to rotate but still has way too much resistance. Prop rotates if put in gear - shift lever is real hard to move back and forth but this is probably a linkage adjustment and not related to the rotational resistance (?). About every forth hand rotation it will start to bind (but not totally) - Sometimes when it begins to bind there is a faint metal-to-metal scratchy sound. Seller says it ran last season and he ran it briefly this spring. Also- this may be unrelated - when I logged the model number onto Sears.com there is some message about "unsafe flywheel notification". Any ideas would be appreciated.
