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1982 Evinrude 60HP 2 Stroke STRANGELY DYING!!??

MittyB

Member
Hey all,

So after fixing up this outboard by myself and youtube help, i finally got it running after 2 years. Have been on the water for around 7 weekends now and finally after trusting the motor decided it was time to go out further to the islands and just getting off the boat ramp (extremely slow moving) it died, sat there on anchor for around an 1 hr got it to start on many occasions and went to max revs but would last for a second and die instantly and completely stop. Went home after that and took off carburettors thinking it was a fuel problem, they were immaculate for its age not a bit of gunk in there anyway cleaned them all out and whacked them back on there then went at the fuel pump, was good condition but ordered a replacement gasket and whatnot kit so fixed that today and put it back on and still got it running, but more shaky, smokey and just out of wack then usual, went to high ish revs on neutral and died but could sit at idle for around 1 min then put it in forward and went to max throttle but couldn't handle it and slowly quieted down and stopped. Not sure what this could be as its getting perfect fuel up to carbs i believe. Please all information is requested, thanks in advance all, Cheers.
 
Years ago I had a similar problem and it turned out to be nothing more than fuel that the oil didn't mix with properly the engine got such a slug of oil it wouldn't run for sour apples. Try another tank of fuel and see what it does.
 
Years ago I had a similar problem and it turned out to be nothing more than fuel that the oil didn't mix with properly the engine got such a slug of oil it wouldn't run for sour apples. Try another tank of fuel and see what it does.

seems promising because when this happened that morning when filling up tank I mixed a half full tank of oil and high grade fuel with the medium grade fuel as it was cheaper

do you think mixing fuels same sort just 91 and 95 is a bad thing to do ?
 
There should be no problem with mixing various octane fuel as long as thè result isn't too low. Personally I will use fuel with alcohol as well but i can see where folks would prefer to burn just gas and don't worry about any problems the alcohol might cause.
 
I'm curious, what did you find?

the thing is nothing , all in immaculate condition and no faults only thing I can see is on the throttle part where the is a spring so as you increase throttle the spring carry’s the timing that is connected to the stator along, this has two scenarios one where you increase throttle and the timing stays in position and then at a certain amount of throttle it jumps over or catches up as such or scenario two it is as such connected to or follows the throttle in sync so as increasing throttle it slowly increases with it until at max the thing is I’m not sure which one is correct so I don’t know how to fix it if anyone knows which one it should be doing would be great.
 
Can you work rhe lever that the spring pulls by hand? I would expect a smooth travel all the way or a catch or detent in the middle depending on which one is correct. If it is hard to move it might be due some lubrication. While that might be a cause of poor performance I wouldn't expect it to cause the engine to die while running across the lake. Can you check to see if the plugs are getting spark after it quits?
 
Can you work rhe lever that the spring pulls by hand? I would expect a smooth travel all the way or a catch or detent in the middle depending on which one is correct. If it is hard to move it might be due some lubrication. While that might be a cause of poor performance I wouldn't expect it to cause the engine to die while running across the lake. Can you check to see if the plugs are getting spark after it quits?

My guess is at this point I need to do a full synchronisation of the ignition and fuel and timing systems as it has never beee done by me while I have had it and I suspect previous owner, I have checked plugs and they are sparking but not sure top cylinder might not be getting as much fuel or is that just a common occurrence as it is at the top and not laying in excess fuel like The bottom one , I also bought new spark plugs to test them but not really liking them it has started with them but only when the engine was really hot I think it just doesn’t like new plugs but I looked online and the plugs that were in there weren’t the recommended ones by the Manuel if it is running on them though should I still change them or just stick with it
 
You would expect that the recommended plugs would work properly, it could be that the plugs in there are trying to make up for a problem if they are a hotter plug or if they are rim fire they may just be optional. An engine needs five things:
F- fuel
I- ignition including timing
V- vacuum, no air leaks
E- electrical, not much on a simple outboard w/o efi
I guess I should add mechanical also as a hole in a piston or broken reeds would be a problem.
Anyways start at the beginning with a compression test and work up from there..
 
You would expect that the recommended plugs would work properly, it could be that the plugs in there are trying to make up for a problem if they are a hotter plug or if they are rim fire they may just be optional. An engine needs five things:
F- fuel
I- ignition including timing
V- vacuum, no air leaks
E- electrical, not much on a simple outboard w/o efi
I guess I should add mechanical also as a hole in a piston or broken reeds would be a problem.
Anyways start at the beginning with a compression test and work up from there..

Yep did a compression test also both cylinders were 140 so really happy with that especially for it’s age but this just adds to the mystery
 
True but it also adds to the data, now we don't have that in the back of our minds to distract us. Will the engine run any better if you pump the fuel bulb while you are trying to start it or after it started? I know that you shouldn't have to do that but what happens if you do? Also make sure that the mechanical timing system is back at its idle position when you do that.
 
True but it also adds to the data, now we don't have that in the back of our minds to distract us. Will the engine run any better if you pump the fuel bulb while you are trying to start it or after it started? I know that you shouldn't have to do that but what happens if you do? Also make sure that the mechanical timing system is back at its idle position when you do that.

yep will do but only thing is how do I know where the idle position is this is the thing that’s bugging me is I’m not sure what the factory or service settings are as such like when I purchased the boat I’m sure it had many issues and would be nice to just reset all of the problems
 
Since its pulled by a spring push it back against the spring to where it is not being pulled and feel if it is moving smoothly. I think we can assume that would be a reasonable place to start, we'll figure out exactly what it needs later first it needs to run.
 
yep will do but only thing is how do I know where the idle position is this is the thing that’s bugging me is I’m not sure what the factory or service settings are as such like when I purchased the boat I’m sure it had many issues and would be nice to just reset all of the problems


That is why I usually buy a service manual for whatever I buy, otherwise I'm guessing and that can be the long way around the block.
 
If you are using automotive pump gas, make sure it doesn't even have even a hint of ethanol in it...

Ethanol in the gas won't make the engine suddenly stop running. If you let gas with ethanol sit long enough it will attack rubber parts and grow these hard little crystal like things particularly in the small fuel passages. Adding Sea-Bil or another fuel preservative really slows this down if it doesn't stop it all together. I have found to mighty hard to find gas without ethanol here in SE CT.
 
I've been thinking of how to describe what we are faced with; engines can be temperamental but pretty tough and can physically run even though one or more things are not exactly right. Of course it won't run as well but it will run so we need to give it as much as we know of what it will like to run with. Engines start best with limited timing and as the engine speed increases some engines benefit from more advance because while the fuel burn is very fast it's not instantaneous but that will work against starting since lighting the fire too soon has the bang putting pressure on the piston before it even gets to the top of the cylinder. So we have compression, I think we have spark (remember what I said about verified data?) we seem to have fuel so we need to stack the deck in our favor as much as possible. Push the advance lever against the spring to retard the timing, we don't know where it is exactly but we know we don't need advance to start. Make sure that the plugs aren't gas fouled and see if we can light a fire in the beast, then we get to tweak on it to make it as good as we can.
If anyone has any specs for the engine don't be afraid to sound off.
 
Oh, one other thing, while this a lousy idea for running, I have squirted a little straight gas in the carbs JUST TO GET IT STARTED. Reason being is that oil doesn't burn as well as the gas so if il have one that is giving me a real problem starting I try to make it easier to fire up.
 
Oh, one other thing, while this a lousy idea for running, I have squirted a little straight gas in the carbs JUST TO GET IT STARTED. Reason being is that oil doesn't burn as well as the gas so if il have one that is giving me a real problem starting I try to make it easier to fire up.

ok but if an update, she starts, not loving it violently shaking and sneezing and what not but starts I have tested plugs and swapped plugs leads so I can tell you that plugs and plug leads are fine however if I pull one off while running top cylinder can run maybe even better then both of them together but when you try with the bottom one it dies immediately so what could this be?
 
Shaking sounds like running on only one cyl, sneezing though, is it blowing back out of the bottom carb?

By sneezing I meant it has the underlying normal old engine sound but then has another sound similar kind of like a clicking or something instead of when I give it some throttle just not a smooth sound lots of inconsistency not blowing back out bottom carb don’t think
 
Also try holding the lower plug wire about 3/8 to a 1/2 in away from the plug and see if it runs any better we want a real hot spark.
 
Also try holding the lower plug wire about 3/8 to a 1/2 in away from the plug and see if it runs any better we want a real hot spark.

Yep I will try that but do you think that grease could be the problem my son greased the living daylight out of it basically just applied it everywhere and possibly under the flywheel could it of gotten somewhere it shoudldbt have because the strange thing is the boat was working fine the 2 weeks of sitting and suddenly this strange problem occurred
 
Since I'm not real familiar with that engine I can't say for sure but I don't think it would cause a problem. If you have spark, compression and fuel the only thing left is the reed plates.
 
Since I'm not real familiar with that engine I can't say for sure but I don't think it would cause a problem. If you have spark, compression and fuel the only thing left is the reed plates.

I put brand new spark plugs in it but wouldn’t work on them anyway so using the old ones but when doing that I noticed the top spark plug was almost still clean little bit of fuel mixture on it but the bottom one was completely covered which is strange as the top cylinder could work independently but the bottom one couldn’t
 
If pulling the plug wire and holding a little ways away from the plug doesn't change how the cylinder fires pull the lower carb and look in to see if the reeds look ok. Might pull the top one to compare.
 
If pulling the plug wire and holding a little ways away from the plug doesn't change how the cylinder fires pull the lower carb and look in to see if the reeds look ok. Might pull the top one to compare.
 
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