1988 Evinrude 110 Running on 2 Cylinders

[bc_ashley]

A couple of months ago I had a person check the compression in my motor. I figured he knew what he was doing because he had worked on motors before. The next time I took it out it was misfiring like crazy. It would run a few seconds and then shutdown. I figured the carbs were gummed up so I took them off and cleaned them. When I started the motor it did the same thing. I took a little closer look at the motor and noticed that the person had switched two of the spark plug wires (top and bottom on the left side of the motor). I put them back the way they were supposed to go and now the engine sounds like it is only running on two cylinders. I had another power pack in my garage and put that on. It did not fix the problem. I also switched the coils (left to right and right to left) and the engine ran the same. I put an ohmeter on the wires and there is no resistance. At this point I am stumped at what the problem was. By the way the compression in each cylinder is 100 psi. My thought is that when the wires were swithced something electrically happened. Thanks for any help......

 

[OBJ]

Re: 1988 Evinrude 110 Running on 2 Cylinders

Hi ya' BC....welcome to tha' forum.<br /><br />Let me axe ya' a question here. Did the engine backfire real hard with the wires swaped?<br /><br />OMC had a simple code....Blue sky, Green grass.<br /><br />Meaning, the wire with the blue stripe goes on the top cylinder and the green stripe goes to the bottom.<br /><br />What ya' need to do is check for spark. Rig a way to see the spark. A spark tester is really nice to have around. You can set it for various width gaps. Your engine should jump a a 7/16 gap with a hot blue spark.<br /><br />If the engine did backfire and you have spark, take compression readings. We are looking for a blown head gasket from the backfire. <br /><br />What happens is, when the engine backfires and blows the head gasket, water gets into the cylinder and screws up everything. I know. I did this dumb thing not long ago. Got in a hurry and wird the port power pack up backwards. Big backfire and blown head gaskets.<br /><br />Keeps us posted as to your progress. Thanks.

 

[bc_ashley]

Re: 1988 Evinrude 110 Running on 2 Cylinders

Outboard Jim, Thanks for the reply. The backfire was not that big. I will check the compression since it has not been checked since before the problem occured. There is spark because when it is running and I pull the wire off the spark plug I can hear a difference in the motor.

 

[OBJ]

Re: 1988 Evinrude 110 Running on 2 Cylinders

BC...please note that it don't take a huge backfire to blow a head gasket.

 

[bc_ashley]

Re: 1988 Evinrude 110 Running on 2 Cylinders

Outboard Jim,<br />I did what you said about checking the compression and according to the gauges I used each cylinder is at approximately 110 psi. So it looks like I did not blow the head gasket. I am convinced that it is something electrical. When the engine is under load will the coils have a tendency to not work properly. Like I stated previously, I changed the powerpack. What other electrical problem could have occured? Thanks for all of your help.....