driv'n me crazy

I have a 72 evinrude 18hp I've rebuilt the carb made adjustments twice the motor starts with the flick of the switch at idle, runs but has an intermittent cough also no throttle I give it the juice she dies, I've also replaced the the fuel lines, cleaned the gas tank,put ion a new fuel pump, adjusted the throttle linkage and put in new plugs any suggestions

Maybe it is not a carburetor problem.-------------------Check compression.---------------Check that you have spark at each cylinder that will jump a gap of 5/16" or more !!----------Throttle should NOT open before the roller touches at the scribe line on the cam.

thanx I'll give it look see and let you know

Hi racerone Ok this is where I'm at I checked the spark the top cylinder looked real good the bottom not quite as strong also there seems to be some intermittecy in the spark , meaning it would skip while cranking the motor over, also the compression check seemed good top cylinder was 130, bottom 125, the motor was cold meaning I didn't run it previously, so at this point I've pulled the fly wheel to do a visual inspection on the coils ,condensers, and points looks pretty clean in there, next I turned the crankshaft clockwise to open the points and found the point gap to be about 0.36 + - on both sets the manual suggest 0.20, so before I start screwing with anything again I ask any suggestions...also I want to thank you for your time and trouble helping me out, what kind of sucks is I can look out my kitchen window and see a boat repair place just down from me to whom I took the boat to awhile a go. He told me the motor was shot I didn't believe him and let it sit so I could ponder the situation Now I'm back at it. thanx chan
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0.36 or 0.036" ----------Set them at 0.020" and try again.------Compression is OK----------Any cracks in the coils.

no they look good & wires look good I will give it a try and up date again later on thanx

Hi racerone Sorry if I sounds like I'm whining but between the heat and that damn motor, anyway I set the points put it all back together filled my barrel with water and started cranking it over it coughed and sputtered the first 10 or 20 try's then out of the blue it starts up running as smooth as ever it had great throttle from idle to high rpm's that son of a #$@%&%$ ran for 5 minutes straight I'm refilling my barrel go back to the throttle doin the thing stood there watching it and it stalls tried to restart..nothing it like it's not getting any spark at all no fire nothing.

Is it pumping water? Sounds a little like it's overheating?