DVMcPherson
Recruit
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2021
- Messages
- 1
New-to-me boat & Evinrude 60hp 1985 motor. Took it out a few times (~2 hours cumulative) worked fine except seemed to oscillate between surging and lagging at anything more than 3/4 throttle. Also a little hard to start, but not bad.
Last time out, fuel line started leaking at the junction with the engine, causing presumably loss of fuel pressure; limped to shore and docked, accidentally leaving the cabin light on and draining the battery.
So: Replaced the fuel line, no problem. Jumped the battery. But starter pinion spun up to the flywheel, barely touched it, and dropped back down. Checked the wiring, no resistance reading, battery jumper reads 12.9 V. Researched and saw that it could be a lubrication issue. Took out the starter, on the bench same behaviour: bendix rides up, drops back down. Took off the bendix, cleaned it out, lubed it up, put it back on the bench, this time the bendix rode up and stayed up. Great.
Put it back on the boat and now it's doing the same thing.
There seemed to be a bit of pitting inside the pinion, so wondering if I simply need a new starter. Before I just go and buy one though, I want to know if there's anything else I should be checking. The flywheel seems to grind when I turn it by hand, not sure if that's normal. Previous owner said that the motor takes 50:1 gas, but I read the manual and it said 100:1 so I put that in, maybe I need to go back to 50:1? Could I have wrecked anything by putting in the wrong gas ratio and/or using old gas when I first took it out?
Note: there are also new spark plugs. I also checked the twin carburetors and they're clean as new.
So if I put in a new starter, am I good? Or is there anything else I need to do? And how do I check if I wrecked anything with bad fuel?
Last time out, fuel line started leaking at the junction with the engine, causing presumably loss of fuel pressure; limped to shore and docked, accidentally leaving the cabin light on and draining the battery.
So: Replaced the fuel line, no problem. Jumped the battery. But starter pinion spun up to the flywheel, barely touched it, and dropped back down. Checked the wiring, no resistance reading, battery jumper reads 12.9 V. Researched and saw that it could be a lubrication issue. Took out the starter, on the bench same behaviour: bendix rides up, drops back down. Took off the bendix, cleaned it out, lubed it up, put it back on the bench, this time the bendix rode up and stayed up. Great.
Put it back on the boat and now it's doing the same thing.
There seemed to be a bit of pitting inside the pinion, so wondering if I simply need a new starter. Before I just go and buy one though, I want to know if there's anything else I should be checking. The flywheel seems to grind when I turn it by hand, not sure if that's normal. Previous owner said that the motor takes 50:1 gas, but I read the manual and it said 100:1 so I put that in, maybe I need to go back to 50:1? Could I have wrecked anything by putting in the wrong gas ratio and/or using old gas when I first took it out?
Note: there are also new spark plugs. I also checked the twin carburetors and they're clean as new.
So if I put in a new starter, am I good? Or is there anything else I need to do? And how do I check if I wrecked anything with bad fuel?