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1994 Johnson 50 No Spark VOODOO

S

steamin53

Member
I'm trying out a virtually unused 94 Johnson 50 (owners Dad died the day after he bought it). No spark on either cylinder.

I separated the cannon plug for the external harness to isolate the external wiring harness and kill circuit and jumped the engine to crank the starter; still no spark but I did prove the kill circuit to be correct.

Then we undertook to troubleshoot per the CDI instructions for the armature and power pack and in the process removed the connectors to all only to find them good (at least as good as could be determined without a DVA meter).

Then just out of curiosity, I tried it again and the danged thing worked with nice blue spark that almost blew my finger off. Many restarts and extended running on the muffs with no problem. That was in October and I had to chalk it up to Halloween - I HATE voodoo problems that solve themselves.

I finally got around to taking the boat to the water today and once again no spark. I'm baffled. VOODOO HAS RETURNED. :mad:

I read on one CDI troubleshooting guides that if the rectifier had been disconnected then reconnected and the system worked that the problem would likely be the rectifier. That of course is what occured during the first troubleshooting done. I wonder if the rectifier could be the problem:confused:

Also, having heard that powerpacks often exhibit intermittend failure modes, I'm looking for a pack for the engine just in case but I'm having trouble identifying the right part number for a power pack for this engine.

The BRP site lists two possibles... I surmise one is for engines with SLOW the other for those not having SLOW.

Under my model number J50TLERE is one listed for the Electric Start 40 - 50 EL and TL models as part number 0175316.

Under model number J50TLERE is one listed for the Electric Start and TL models only as part number 0585074.

Anyone know which one is correct or how one determines the correct part number?:confused:

Steve
 
Re: 94 Johnson 50 No Spark VOODOO

CDI website www.cdielectronics.com shows only one pack. I trust this website more than shop.evinrude.com when it comes to the electronics of the engine. Evinrude seems to make things a bit more difficult than they need to be.

The CDI part is 113-5316.
 
Re: 94 Johnson 50 No Spark VOODOO

Thanks for the info Racerone. You are correct it turns Alternator AC into D/C for battery voltage but also if If I'm not mistaken it provides the D/C input to the power pack and coil.

Steve
 
Re: 94 Johnson 50 No Spark VOODOO

The stator under the flywheel is a two part component setup. The two do not intertwine.

One series of coils provides AC voltage to the rectifier which converts it to DC voltage which is fed to a terminal that connects directly to the battery positive lead. This is the battery charging circuit and has nothing to do with the ignition system.

There are also within that stator two other coils (sometimes three). These coils provide approximately 300 AC volts to the powerpack (keeping it simple) in order to energize the ignition.

Your problem...... The engine must crank over at least 300 rpms in order to engage the ignition system. Does it? A slow cranking engine = no ignition! Carefully inspect "all" of the rubber connection plugs that contain electrical pins and sockets. Those pins/sockets have a habit of backing out, resulting in poor intermitent connections. Also the wires that attach to those pins/sockets have been known to break off from the pins/sockets BUT will still stay in the rubber plugs giving the illusion that the wire(s) are attached when they are not.
 
A seperate system / stator coils provides input to ignition electronics-------The rectifier has to do with charging the battery only,
 
Thanks for the input men. It's all good and logical. I definately need a sanity check!

Thanks for the guidance on the rectifier and stator input to the ignition. I clearly misunderstood the intent of the CDI troubleshooting guidance for the power pack/ignition components. What is said was that if the ignition functioned with the rectifier disconnected but not with it connected (paraphrasing) then the rectifier was the cause of the ignition failure. DUH!

Cranking RPM is fine... new battery and we're dealing with an equivalently new engine as it's hardly been run at all in it's history. Remember just a couple of weeks ago I had it running in the driveway on the muffs and yesterday was the first attempt to start it again since that time.

A pushed pin or broken wire is certainly possible but I'm having difficulty understanding how any pins could have moved after I initially had the engine running at home only having trailered 7 miles to the water a few weeks later. When I removed all connectors in the initial troubleshooting which got it to start I checked the condition of all the pins. One female pin was slightly pushed into the connector and I pushed it back to the level of the others in that connector using the wire to move it. Please note, after reassembly it began to run ok so I feel it must have been making contact. All electrical connections were clean and free of any corrosion or carbon. Ground connections have been checked and are also clean and 0 to 2 ohms resistance to the crankcase ground.

Today I did find that the battery ground cable connection at the crankcase was loose apparently after the local shop removed the starter to disconnect the trim motor wiring to R&R the power trim to reseal the cylinder but the starter cranked ok that way. After tightening it appropriately I still didn't get any ignition spark.

I should note that when replacing the ground cable after tightening the nut holding the mounting stud I noted that there was a very very slight sparking when raking the lug over the threads on the stud; that with the key off which would indicate to me that there may be some stray current in the system. A check of the pins in the disconnected external harness connector indicated no voltage but it's coming from somewhere! Logic says it's got to be in the starter circuit as that's all that's connected to power in that state.

Tommorrow I'll again remove the external harness and jump the starter to see if I get spark to eliminate the control box/ignition switch and that part of the kill circuit. Also will remove all connectors from the ignition components and again check pins and perform the resistance and voltage tests shown in the CDI troubleshooting guidance below.

Troubleshooting
No Fire Either Cylinder
1. Disconnect the Black/Yellow kill wire AT THE POWER PACK and retest. If you now have spark, the kill circuit has a
fault, possibly the harness, stop switch or key switch.
2. Remove the spark plugs and retest. If you now have spark, check the cranking RPM (the engine will not fire correctly
below 250 RPM). If the cranking RPM is OK, recheck the stator and timer base.
3. Check the stator and timer base as follows:
Test from to OHMS DVA
Brown Brown/Yellow 450-850 150V or more connected*
Blue White 25-30 0.6 V or more connected
Green White 25-30 0.6 V or more connected
* If low, disconnect the brown and brown/yellow wires from the pack and retest. If the voltage jumps to over 225V –
the pack is likely bad. A reading that remains below 175V usually indicates a bad stator.
4. Disconnect the rectifier and retest. If the spark comes back, replace the rectifier.​


Not having a DVA, I'll have to be content with analogous voltage readings.

Wish me luck. Whew! Sorry to be so wordy.

I'll post the results of tomorrow's work.
 
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Well today I took it all apart again as in the original troubleshooting. I verified the kill circuit to be good to the power pack; inspected, reconnected, and back probed all connectors to ensure at least that no pins were "pushed"; did the resistance checks on the Stator and the trigger base with all indicating acceptable ranges except the trigger base tests of the blue and green wires to ground. The CDI troubleshooting guide showed to trigger base wires should be short for the white and 25 to 30 ohms for the blue and green. The white was short but the blue and green were open to ground. White to blue and white to green passed the resistance tests of 15-50 ohms.

I put it back together and the danged thing has a strong spark and runs.

I can only conclude that maby a pin was pushed or not making good contact but was corrected unwittingly during the process or worst case there is a positional open in a wire somewhere.

GOD I HATE VOODOO PROBLEMS!

I'll test it afloat tomorrow and report the result.

Thanks again to all the respondents.

Steve
 
icon1.png
Rectifier-regulator causing ignition failure... HOW COME?
Johnson J50TLERE (94 50 hp). Intermittent total ignition failure again. Things were fine when I put it to bed nothing disturbed over a couple of months and now the Vodoo problem is back.

Today I finally got back to troubleshooting the engine now having a DVA Adapter and using the CDI troubleshooting information.

The Stator Checks perfectly as does the trigger and charge coil. Since the stator checked correctly I followed the process outlined and removed the Regulator-rectifier from the circuit (yellow and yellow-grey wires). Spark to both cylinders restored. Hooked it back up and it still worked. (This has happened before during previous troubleshooting as I mentioned above but I didn't have good test data on the stator and was guessing that it was because of the regulator-rectifier being removed and replaced.) Now I can confirm the test data for the other components.

The first question is WHY did that work? I was told by some learned souls that the regulator-rectifier was not part of the ignition system and couldn't cause this problem.

This is not the original rectifier that was in the engine when I first began experiencing this problem. After the troubleshooting mentioned above in my original post I have replaced the original regulator-rectifier with a used part because in the charge back circuit there was a 900 ma short to ground which was draining the battery. After replacement the drain was eliminated and is not back at this time. Of course it's possible that there may be two bad regulator-rectifiers but it would appear that both regulator-rectifiers caused the same ignition problem which resolved once the two regulator leads were removed and replaced. Bizarre!

I just don't see how this can logically be causing ignition failure. If it's not really the rectifier I would waste my money replacing it. I really can't have much confidence in this engine if it's going to be this tempermental.

HELP!​
 
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i had similar problems with a 91 60 hp johnson. intermitant starting problems. timer base, stator, cdi box all new as they crapped out one at a time in 3 mionths or so. as cdi states unhook r/r and see if problem goes away. i did that and never looked back, it still runs without, prefectly. now i do know that the r/r is to charge the battery and nothing to do with ignition. always spins over fast and always fires right up (r/r disconnected). the old stator was melting its varnish out and the flywheel was alwys hot. my guess (a very way off and wild one) is somehow magnetic feilds arent lining up when the r/r decides its on the blink and screwing the coils up for ignition. i know this sounds way out there but this johnson could only run better if the gas and oil were free.
 
gkull said:
i had similar problems with a 91 60 hp johnson. intermitant starting problems. timer base, stator, cdi box all new as they crapped out one at a time in 3 mionths or so. as cdi states unhook r/r and see if problem goes away. i did that and never looked back, it still runs without, prefectly. now i do know that the r/r is to charge the battery and nothing to do with ignition. always spins over fast and always fires right up (r/r disconnected). the old stator was melting its varnish out and the flywheel was alwys hot. my guess (a very way off and wild one) is somehow magnetic feilds arent lining up when the r/r decides its on the blink and screwing the coils up for ignition. i know this sounds way out there but this johnson could only run better if the gas and oil were free.
Click to expand...

gkull I've considered that if only to gain some reliability but I think I read somewhere that the power pack would be damaged if I did so... sort of leads one to believe that there may be some interrelationship between the r/r and the pack. The engine battery also runs the bilge and areator pumps too so it might not work out.

Steve
 
steve, 10-4 on all your accessories. our 60 is on a pontoon the only 12volt we use is trim, and start. we can go many trips out without even a trickle charge but have it hooked to the 7 way on the truck for charge while in route to and from the ramp. the onlt thing the rr and cdi share in common is where they are getting juice from (the stator and flywheel magnets). the cdi box needs no juice from the batt or rr, in fact you short it out to shut it down (also a brain teaser if you let it). the cdi box however does need 2 different voltages from the stator which is 2 different coils wound on the stator. our little learning curve has been hit and miss and over 6 months of sometimes good and sometimes not (even being towed in more than once). with the help of cdi and a few others we finally got desired results. we haul it 45 miles to drop it and dont even need to see if it will go before we leave any more. it may run 20 hrs a month or 2 or not at all, but its a darn good feeling when you get it ironed out and dont have to worry about it any more. i will have to say that the connectors to the box have skunked us twice and the next time will be soldered and heat shrunk. good luck and happy boating
 
the motor is not temperamental..you just have a good intermittent....first of all forget the rectifer...it is not causing your problem......i assume the fire problem was on the motor before you messed with it and you wired it in correctly...is that correct?..(a shorted or miswired rectifier could cause excessive current from the stator causing overheating and will eventually damage it) ..i would disconnect the kill wire to the power pack and leave it disconnected til i fixed the problem in case i had two problems...i would inspect the stator to make sure there has been no overheating and no melt there...the decision is whether you have a component failure or a defective connector connection or a wire problem..(when the problem goes away it goes away good from what you said about spark),,it sounds like a wire problem or possibly a stator problem to me...i would put the power pack on low priority....a dva meter may show a bad reading that would make the problem solid for trouble shooting purposes but you dont have one...get an inductive timing light and hang it on a plug wire.....while watching the light move the wires around while watching the timing light...have the gas disconnected and be careful as the engine may fire...stress the wires by trying to pull them in and out of the plugs...especially the wires coming off the timer base.. that timer base plug is tight to push in...make sure that the pins are pushed in all the way....if not i have had them make tip to tip contact and give exactly the problem you have....the other problem there is the wires will not be making good contact within the pins..evinrude has been notorious on connectors...
 
papyson you my friend have big b*lls. our johnny started on 2 and pickedup #3 sometimes. timerbase weak on top cylinder Blue wire for those who dont know. kill wire was disconnected (blk/yellow tracer). when the total shootng match went dead took it back to the johnny dealer to find dead cdi box. for those of you who dont know you can check everything but the box with a dvm using and comparing resistance and or peak voltage. to measure peak voltage you do one of 2 things. you can buy a dva adaptor or rig a fast acting diode (emf chopper) and a condensor to make your own. i hope "IM NOT THE ONE THAT DONT HAVE ONE" after replacing the stator as it was falling short on my one of two voltages needed to run (only sometimes during start) the 190+ volts if you need to know, was still having problems. now CDI says disconnect the RECTIFER as you call it, dont" forget it "disconnect it. i did my problems went away and never came back, still unhooked. i dont have one is correct i have two . the only reason i spent the $70.00 was to ensure i was getting peak volts. good luck with your bad day
 
Peace gentlemen, you both have good input that I can use.

As I stated in the initial post I do now have a DVA and checked the stator coils and they all check out correctly. For clarity understanding the overall sequence of events here's how it went:

1. New to me outboard. No ignition.
2. R&R and ohm/continuity check of Pack, Regulator, Coils, tested kill circuit. Not having a DVA at that time resistance/continuity checks were all that was possible. Put it all back on and ignition functioned. Big Surprise! Assumed I had corrected a pushed pin on one of the Amphenol Connectors.
3. Ignition failed again on first trip out - no start at the ramp.
4. Repeat step 2 with same results.
5. Discovered 900 ma drain on battery and isolated it to the Regulator charge circuit.
6. Replaced regulator with used part. Drain gone.
7. Ignition failed again after 2 or 3 trips out.
8. Checked kill circuit still AOK. Bought DVA and checked the stator outputs, resistance...AOK.
9. Removed Yellow - Yellow- gray wires from terminal block to isolate Regulator from Stator. Ignition Functioned.
10. Reconnected Regulator to terminal block. Ignition still functions.

I think it's time to do a physical inspection of Stator. Or just leave well enough alone and see if it fails again. If I had any confidence that it was indeed the regulator I'd get a new one and install it. It's just a little too ambiguous right now to spend the money in a foolish way.

(PS I'm no dummy.... I was a Missile Maintenance Chief and Master Air Defense Missile System Mechanic in the Army for many years... more than I'd like to admit.)

Steve
 
i apologize to everyone concerned if i pissed someone off....lets assume i am a dummy....do you have a boat voltmeter and tach on the boat?....running with everything hooked up what are the readings? any unusual variations in either?..what else is hooked to the ignition battery besides the motor?...i am curious to see if you have a working regulator pulling normal current from the charging area in the stator.....it has been my experience that most stators will give some warnings such as yours that they are about to crap out.....it may be just a hard start after running and stopping boat for a few minutes....
 
papyson said:
i apologize to everyone concerned if i pissed someone off....lets assume i am a dummy....do you have a boat voltmeter and tach on the boat?....running with everything hooked up what are the readings? any unusual variations in either?..what else is hooked to the ignition battery besides the motor?...i am curious to see if you have a working regulator pulling normal current from the charging area in the stator.....it has been my experience that most stators will give some warnings such as yours that they are about to crap out.....it may be just a hard start after running and stopping boat for a few minutes....
Click to expand...

Papyson I don't take any offense at anyone's opinion.

Regulator seems to function fine with rising charge back voltage to the battery consistent with increasing rpm to a max gauge indicated 14 - 15 VDC, no apparent tach errors, but there have been some restart after high speed run issues which may or may not be ignition related however I suspect it may be a carb issue as it seems to be an overly rich condition when it does start in that circumstance. All I can say is that when cranking the engine ashore the stator Pack and Regulator/Rectifier outputs to a DVA adapted meter are strong and within specs.

As I wrote earlier I think it may be time for a physical inspection of the stator to rule out problems there. I think however I'll first run it a while and see if it holds up as it's working at this time. I'm reluctant to pull the flywheel myself not haveing done that before on an outboard.

Steve
 
steamin53 said:
I suspect it may be a carb issue as it seems to be an overly rich condition when it does start in that circumstance..........As I wrote earlier I think it may be time for a physical inspection of the stator to rule out problems there. I'm reluctant to pull the flywheel myself not having done that before on an outboard. Steve
Click to expand...

Steve.... I'm going to jump back in here for a moment but note that I haven't read over everything that's been said since my last reply so I may be repeating something that's already been said.

The stator is a two fold component. It is the beginning of both the charging and also the ignition system.

There are a series of coils (usually on both sides of the stator) that pertain to the charging system which are in no way connected to anything other than the charging system.

There are also two larger coils (usually) which are located normally at the front and rear portion of the stator which supply approximately 300 AC volts to the powerpack in order to engage the ignition properly. These are the coils that are affected should the stator overheat, crack, and/or start leaking a sticky substance down on the powerhead area.

This results in a faulty stator of course BUT ONLY in one of the two areas within the stator. The charging circuit in most cases will remain in perfect condition and only the igniiton system is effected.

In many cases, actually in most cases, when one gets around to testing the various components, especially the stator, it has cooled down somewhat and the instruments show that the component is either in specifications or very close to it. The ignition portion of the stator when it starts to fail will act up when hot, resulting in erratic and weak ignition (spark) BUT as it cools, the igniiton/spark return to normal. This scenario repeats itself until eventually the ignition portion of the stator fails completely.

In trouble shooting, to some (no offense intended), the person is fooled in to thinking that the problem is fuel related due to the fact that excess fuel is found in the cylinders, BUT this condition actually is due to the very weak or non existent spark that is the result of the failing intermitent stator.

The above may or may not be related to your engine but I though it would be worth mentioning.

Pertaining to pulling the flywheel... with the proper puller, that shouldn't be a problem. The mistake that is normally made is not to torque the flywheel nut to its proper specifications. This is a must!

Okay... for what it's worth. there it is, I can't think of anything else to say. Just had to put my last two cents worth in.
 
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joereeves said:
Steve.... I'm going to jump back in here for a moment but note that I haven't read over everything that's been said since my last reply so I may be repeating something that's already been said.

The stator is a two fold component. It is the beginning of both the charging and also the ignition system.

There are a series of coils (usually on both sides of the stator) that pertain to the charging system which are in no way connected to anything other than the charging system.

There are also two larger coils (usually) which are located normally at the front and rear portion of the stator which supply approximately 300 AC volts to the powerpack in order to engage the ignition properly. These are the coils that are affected should the stator overheat, crack, and/or start leaking a sticky substance down on the powerhead area.

This results in a faulty stator of course BUT ONLY in one of the two areas within the stator. The charging circuit in most cases will remain in perfect condition and only the igniiton system is effected.

In many cases, actually in most cases, when one gets around to testing the various components, especially the stator, it has cooled down somewhat and the instruments show that the component is either in specifications or very close to it. The ignition portion of the stator when it starts to fail will act up when hot, resulting in erratic and weak ignition (spark) BUT as it cools, the igniiton/spark return to normal. This scenario repeats itself until eventually the ignition portion of the stator fails completely.

In trouble shooting, to some (no offense intended), the person is fooled in to thinking that the problem is fuel related due to the fact that excess fuel is found in the cylinders, BUT this condition actually is due to the very weak or non existent spark that is the result of the failing intermitent stator.

The above may or may not be related to your engine but I though it would be worth mentioning.

Pertaining to pulling the flywheel... with the proper puller, that shouldn't be a problem. The mistake that is normally made is not to torque the flywheel nut to its proper specifications. This is a must!

Okay... for what it's worth. there it is, I can't think of anything else to say. Just had to put my last two cents worth in.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the good information Joe. I absolutely (almost) agree with everthing you've said. What is still a puzzle to me is why with a cold engine (as you proposed in your scenario) with a dead ignition system removal of the two regulator/rectifier wires from the terminal block produced a fuctioning ignition system both while disconnected and once reconnected.


That just baffles me.

Steve
 
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