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1972 Johnson 65hp.

Ok, I replaced the water pump and am now attempting to put the L/U back on. Any advice on this?

I tied a string to the wires before I dropped the L/U. I have used dish soap to lube the wire casing knobs (the flared out portions that are supposed to lock the wire in place). I'm pulling the wires through, but it keeps getting stuck. I don't want to break anything.
 
I used a liberal amount of soap all over it. I think I had too much tape holding the two leads together and in line with the string. Now I'm just angry and want to attack the boat with a hammer.

I broke the string and now I can't get a new piece to feed through. I'm at a loss and getting frustrated. The hole is just barely big enough it seems for the wires. I'm seriously considering to just cut the connectors of the motor and use them on some wire to pull the wire through and then just replace the connectors with blade connectors. I can't see up into where it's feeding through. It's raining and I'm just getting more and more pissed off by the moment.
 
I'll give it a whirl. I'm taking a break and respooling one of my fishing rods to calm down. I can't do anything productive or think straight when I get too angry.
 
Instead of string, I used a piece of wire to fish my wires back up through the hole. Tied the wire to the shift solenoid wires, and carefully fished them through the hole. Something I found with these motors is that they don't like running on muffs! I have a 1972 50 hp, that was running great, all was good, then when I was storing it at the end of the season I had it on muffs to spray some stuff in the carb. It started overheating, I thought the impeller was gone. I tore the lower unit off, changed the pump, tried it again, and it was still overheating.

To make a long story short, I had the powerhead off, pretty much the whole motor apart more than once. If you can, once it is all back together, run it in a barrel of water to try it. It might save you from my experience.
 
Sir, with daylight and no anger, I was able to get it done. I tied small nylon strings (550 cord guts) directly to the terminals and pulled them through that way. I've got it all back together now. Need to do some new wiring for the FF and put a small electrical bar under the dash so I'm not running so many wires to the battery. Then I need to put her in the water and get the trim tab adjusted so it doesn't pull to the right and she'll be good to hook.
 
That's a lot nicer than the board I put in it. Yeah, all the hots are fused.

Boat at is still revving funny. Wants to putter out when I give it throttle. Worried I may have chewed up that new head gasket when it overheated before I realized the thermostat was junk. Once I get it home, I'll check it out. Need to flush this fresh dose of saltwater out anyways.

Ill run compression on it again. Could be a carb issue as well. It's done this pretty much the whole time I've had it here in Washington. Thought maybe it was an altitude issue, but it didn't do this on the Chesapeake bay.
 
I just cleaned them. I called it a rebuild, but It was just a thorough cleaning. I'll give the seafoam a shot if I'm still having issues. I don't want to mess with it anymore tonight. It's running better than it was.

As for altitude, I did have this issue at close to sea level on the Potomac river in DC. Then it was just too much oil in the fuel. The boat has spent most of it's life at about 500 ft above sea level in southern Ohio. I don't think it's an altitude thing. I'll get it figured out tomorrow.
 
Yes I do. It showed up on Saturday I think. I'll run some tests tomorrow to make sure I'm not getting water in any of the cylinders again and comp, then move on from there.

Thanks for your help though. You've point me in the right direction a good bit.
 
I'm going to pull the boat to work with me today so I can play with it during downtime. You can pull the jets without pulling the carbs? I hate to admit it, but as diesel mechanic, I never have to worry about carbs. All diesels are fuel injected as the nature of the beast. I do have my new handy dandy service manual to walk me through it though.

Another issue I'd like to tackle in the very near future is my reverse gear. It seems as though the soleniods aren't holding it in gear hard enough. When I shift into reverse, you can hear it clicking as they engage until they can get a good hold. once they do, I can't give it too much throttle or it will slip out again. I will have to take it apart and pay the parts guy again soon I fear. I'll live with until after this weekend's Sturgeon trip though.
 
The 2 solenoids only control 2 valves in the oil pump body.----Oil pressure against a spring holds it in reverse.----------It is quite common for folks to shift into reverse to use reverse as a brake.--That can lead to damaged edges on reverse gear and clutch dog.----You might have low oil pressure or damage in the bore of the shift piston as well.-----
 
The low speed needles are supposed be linked and adjustable. On my engine though, the linkage and the adjustment arms are missing on the low speed needles. I brought my comp gauge and some tools to work so I could tinker with it during down time. Like an idiot though, I forgot my spark plug socket so I can't run compression. I'm really worried that I blew out the brand new head gasket when I overheated the engine. It's not starting or revving like it did in that video right after I replaced the head gasket when I didn't realize that thermostat wasn't working.
 
racerone said:
The 2 solenoids only control 2 valves in the oil pump body.----Oil pressure against a spring holds it in reverse.----------It is quite common for folks to shift into reverse to use reverse as a brake.--That can lead to damaged edges on reverse gear and clutch dog.----You might have low oil pressure or damage in the bore of the shift piston as well.-----
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Is this easy to inspect? I am guilty of using reverse as a brake. This is my first boat and I did a LOT of dumb things through ignorance when I first got it. Are any special tools needed besides common shop tools?
 
A factory manual dedicates a few pages at the start of each section for teaching.------It explains how things work in detail.---That makes inspection repair a lot easier.----You will need a special pair of circlip pliers to take out big snap rings.------Possibly a special socket to retork the nut on the bottom of the driveshaft.
 
Alrighty, Just got back from second test float. It's running like a top. I had to fatten up low speed needle. Still needs adjusted just a bit. I should've done that while I was out there, but I was too busy trying to catch a flounder and the a whale stuck it's nose up about 20' from my boat and scared me a bit. Reverse is still acting up a bit, but it's not dying at all when I shift it into gear and it's not overheating.

New head gasket has no issues. It's starting a LOT easier this way too.
 
I haven't seen any killer whales on the sound yet. I don't know what kind of whale this was. I thought it was a crab pot buoy at first. Was just about two feet of its mouth that came out of the water. I was anchored in about 20' of water and where it was at about 20' away was about 50-60' deep. It wasn't a killer whale as it's mouth was gray colored. The last whale I saw out there was a monster humpback but it was at least 100 yards away at a nice comfy distance. Granted, it came up right next to a small (12'ish) fiberglass dinghy.

I do need to retorque the head bolts. I still need to fine tune carbs as I've got a little bit of hesitation after idling for awhile in mid range throttle. The good thing is that it's not bogging down when I give it throttle. I'm also really glad I figured this out BEFORE I destroyed the #1 cylinder/piston.

I'm also looking at the parts to replace the missing low speed adjustment lever. The low speed needle in the middle carb has been replaced with a needle that isn't correct for the carb and the entire lever and arms for each carb are missing. I'll have to piece it all together off the parts manual unless there's a kit I can find that has all of the pieces in it already. Looks like a good deal over $100 right now.
 
Put her on the muffs, gave her a good steady drink of water and she fired right up cold. Yeah. She wants some water under her bow.

Thanks again to everyone that helped me! Especially kimcrwbr1. Your banter has been helpful to keep me from getting too worked up when I got frustrated. I'm taking her down to nisqually reach right now to get some hours on this head gasket before Saturday.
 
No action on this thread since 2014. I just bought a "project" boat with this engine. I have NO history on the engine but it appears to be complete and in decent condition. No rust or crud, no bad wires etc. but no spark. Before I spend to much time detailing what I've done so far I'll wait to see if anyone is watching this thread. If not I'll start a new one. I did see where there was a post about the manual for this engine. I haven't been able to find one so if anyone has a suggestion. Thanks Bob Ritter Pensacola FL
 
Best to start a new thread.-----Post pictures and all the information you can.-----Nobody here can see / hear / touch your motor.
 
zmany2k said:
Mainly just wanting to say hello as of right now. Found this forum through Google. I've got '72 Starcraft Jupiter with a '72 Johnson 65hp outboard. Just got done doing a little maintenance to it as it's been in the salt a good bit this year.

Yanked all three carbs and pulled the bowls. Squeaky clean and no debris. Checked the floats and needle and seats. All seems well. Also pulled the screen filter and sprayed it out with carb cleaner. Just a very small amount of debris.

Also drained the lower unit. Got a good bit of discolored oil. Couldn't tell for sure if it was metal or water I was seeing. I need to eventually take the L/U apart as I've had some issues with my reverse gear. Think I broke something in there as it will occasionally slip if I give it too much reverse throttle. I'm hesitant to take it apart as I've never done that before. I do have a repair manual that covers it, though it covers a LOT of Johnson engines. I refilled it with type C oil pumped in from the bottom until it flowed out the top.

Put it mostly back together so I could give it a test fire. (It's been hard to start recently) It wouldn't turn over. I thought that maybe it was neutral safety issue, but again, I'm in pretty unfamiliar territory here (I'm a heavy diesel mechanic). Not running, it's locked in forward which I believe is normal. I have not done a compression test yet as I don't have a compression tester at the house and I have to get it to crank to test compression anyways. Once it failed to crank, I just closed everything up and called it a night. It's sitting on the trickle charger overnight. I do have the throttle cable removed. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not.

I love this boat and look forward to learning more and more about how to maintain it from the folks here at this forum. From some of the posts I've read, there's a LOT of experienced marine mechanics on here. I welcome all advice. Keep in mind that I do understand the basics of a two stroke with reeds instead of ports, but I am a bit out of my element and may need you to break it down Barney style from time to time.

That's it for now.
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Zmany2k
You still online?
 
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