Sears Craftsman 5HP

scottmitten

Recruit
Joined
Aug 21, 2004
Messages
4
Thanx to some great postings and sound advice from other folks my $30. yard sale investment is running great! I bought a 71' Sears (Eska/Tecumseh) outboard for $30. It ran but very sluggish and would not hold an idle. I tore the carb apart. Made some mistakes by loosing the needle valve and spring. That was easily replaced at a True Value hardware store. They carry a line of Tecumseh carb repair kits and it worked great. I purchased a generic Tecumseh tune up kit that included a condenser, points, and spark plug. I installed a Briggs and Stratton fuel filter and some new 1/4" fuel line. Picked up a Chiltons small engines manual and followed the simple instructions in the manual and the back of the package of tune up parts. I removed the fuel tank and negotiated the tough screws by placing a wide slotted screwdriver bit in a socket and used it instead of a traditional screwdriver. This gave me the needed leverage to easily pop the screws and not damage them. I removed the cup on top of the flw wheel with a socket and ratchet. I used a ppular Mechanics brand reversible pully puller and the fly wheel came off very easily. I carefully replaced the old condenser and points with the new ones and reversed the above procedures to reassemble the unit. She started on the first pull!! I tuned the carb as per the easy instructions in the small engines manual and this little motor is screaming!!!!! No smoke, idles great at low speed, and easily runs up and down the scale of throttle. I am very very pleased. The complete set of parts (including the manual) cost $35 and about 2 hours of work. Tuning the carb took about 5 minutes. I can't wait to get it in the water this weekend. Thanks go out to everyone who posted anything on sears, eska, tecumsah issues. They really helped. I am not a mechanic and had little confidence in doing this but it turned out great.<br />Scott M
 

TamDan99

Cadet
Joined
May 22, 2004
Messages
7
Re: Sears Craftsman 5HP

Hello, I too have a gamefisher motor, 84-ish 217-586611. Sound identical to the way mine has run for me. I got it given to me, so not much loss if I dont fix it but it always sounded like a fuel or air problem. Looks like I should take the same course of action tho. Thankx<br />Dan
 
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