Mr. Breeze
New member
Hi all,
My boat has twin '73 Evinrude 50 hp model no. 50373R. Both ran great but at the start of the season I seem to have lost? spark on my port side motor. The starboard side has a cooling issue so I only ever run it for a minute or two just to keep it healthy until I have time to fix that.
I've had the boat three years and it was only seaworthy last season. It had been sitting at least 8 years prior to my ownership. All I've done so far is replace the water pumps and spark plugs. The port side motor hadn't skipped a beat until my first time out this year. After shutting the motor off, I could not get it to restart. Would not fire at all. Definitely acted like no spark. I'm finally starting to dig into it and it seems I have intermittent weak spark on both cylinders. I did check the small fuse on the wire up and to the right of the power pack and it had continuity. What I also think is important information is that I have never been able to shut this motor off with the key. I've always had to choke it off. My guess is this is probably part of the problem but I'm not yet familiar enough with my motors to know where to start.
Any suggestions on how to proceed and which parts are worth swapping around would be great. I'd like to know how to isolate the key switch circuit in case something there is either broken or is grounding out. My assumption is that it's not the coils as I'd be surprised if both failed the same way at the same time. I'm considering swapping the power packs and seeing if the problem follows them, but without being able to isolate the ignition circuit I'm not sure if that will tell me anything.
Thanks!
My boat has twin '73 Evinrude 50 hp model no. 50373R. Both ran great but at the start of the season I seem to have lost? spark on my port side motor. The starboard side has a cooling issue so I only ever run it for a minute or two just to keep it healthy until I have time to fix that.
I've had the boat three years and it was only seaworthy last season. It had been sitting at least 8 years prior to my ownership. All I've done so far is replace the water pumps and spark plugs. The port side motor hadn't skipped a beat until my first time out this year. After shutting the motor off, I could not get it to restart. Would not fire at all. Definitely acted like no spark. I'm finally starting to dig into it and it seems I have intermittent weak spark on both cylinders. I did check the small fuse on the wire up and to the right of the power pack and it had continuity. What I also think is important information is that I have never been able to shut this motor off with the key. I've always had to choke it off. My guess is this is probably part of the problem but I'm not yet familiar enough with my motors to know where to start.
Any suggestions on how to proceed and which parts are worth swapping around would be great. I'd like to know how to isolate the key switch circuit in case something there is either broken or is grounding out. My assumption is that it's not the coils as I'd be surprised if both failed the same way at the same time. I'm considering swapping the power packs and seeing if the problem follows them, but without being able to isolate the ignition circuit I'm not sure if that will tell me anything.
Thanks!