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1995 Evinrude 115 has Water on Spark Plug

R

ReelCat

Contributing Member
Hello folks, I have a 1995 Evinrude 115 that has run well for me all these years, it has about 700 hours on it. The last time I was out it was missing out at low speed but would still get up and plane. I assumed it was time for a new set of spark plugs. When I pulled the plugs at home I noticed one of them was way more crusty than the rest and there were water droplets all over the end of the plug, not gas but water!
I replaced the plugs anyway and fired it up. Same rough idle. Pulled the plugs and once again that same plug had water on it. I checked the spark with a spark test tool and it was good.
Any idea what may be going on with the water on the spark plug?
 
Very good, I'll see if I can borrow a compression test gauge from the local parts store.
I've never done a compression test before....do I just screw it into a plug hole, crank it over for a few seconds and then see what the pressure is?
Any idea wht the pressure should be for this ol Evinrude?
I suppose that each cylinder should have roughly the same compression reading?
 
yeah if they are within 10% of each other they should be good and i am not sure what the reading should be but if they are all around the same reading then you should be good and make sure you pull your lanyard if you have one to kill the ignition switch so the motor does not start and if you don't have a lanyard disconnect the ignition coils and here is a link for a youtube video showing the test being done http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15nH4kXrCw0
 
Great, that helps.
I see that the guy in the video has all of the plugs removed while doing the test, I was thinking that you only removed one at a time but I guess it wouldn't matter.
I'll try to lay my hands on a compression tester this evening.
 
Hi Reelcat.

You do want to remove all the plugs before the compression test and then only insert the compression tester into one plug a time. Leave the other plugs open

This allows the motor turns fast enough to give a good reading per cylinder. With the other plugs still in they are essentially compressing and slowing the motor down.

I also place my motor in a drum filled with water or make sure the muffs/bunny ears are supplying enough water to the impellor during the test. I read a few weeks ago, how a guy burnt up his impellor by not supplying water to the motor while doing the compression test. Extreme I know, but hey what's the harm....
 
Very good idea, I'll hook up water to it while doing the test.....I probably would not have thought about that until I was done :mad:
 
Alright, I got the compression tester and did the test with the water hose hooked up and running.
Here are the results:

Top Left Cylinger 100 psig
Bottom Left Cylinder 97 psig
Top Right Cylinder 118 psig This is the one that is wet with water and had the dirtiest plug.
Bottom Right Cylinder 98 psig

I did 3 tests of each cylinder to be sure I was getting an accurate reading.

When I cranked the engine over with nothing in the top right cylinder I had water droplets spitting out.
 
Hi Reelcat. You now know two things for certain. 1) The compression on three of the cylinders are pretty even, which is good and 2) There is definitely something wrong in the top right cylinder.

I'm not sure what your intentions regarding fixing this and your mechanical abilities are. If you can wield a socket set without too much injury to yourself.... I would suggest removing that head to see what's going on. There are a few ways water can enter the cylinder. it could be something as simple as damage/wear to the headgasket, which is allowing water to leak into the cylinder.

If this is the case the repair is fairly simple and the costs can be pretty low. A new head gasket, socket set, torque wrench and piece of sand paper fitted to a flat surface are all you should need to complete a repair of this nature.

A word of caution though. Sometimes the head bolts can seize in the block. If this happens and they snap it can prove costly to repair and may require removal of the power head. I have an 81 and mine were fine to get out, but my motor has never seen salt and was well treated before I got it. Not sure about a motor with 700 hours on it.

Either way that heads going to have to come off to proceed with any kind of fix. If you get the head off and headgasket is fine, we can move onto other things.

If anyone has any other suggestions or thoughts please let Reelcat know.
 
I am fairly mechanically inclined and I really enjoy tinkering with engines when they don't run right such as cleaning and rebuilding carburetors, replacing the water pump etc. I just don't have any experience diagnosing and repairing the internal workings of outboards but I may give it a try.
I was thinking about the head bolts last night and how hard they would be to get out. This motor has been used in saltwater its' whole life but has been well taken care of. I've had pretty good luck removing most bolts by tapping them with a hammer to jar them some then using a hand held impact driver to get them out. At any rate I would be VERY careful not to snap one of them off if possible. However, I may be better off just having a real mechanic fix this one.
 
Use an impact wrench on the LOWEST setting and turn the socket by hand. If the bolt is stubborn spray it w/PB Blaster or other pentrating oil and let it work a few hrs. and try again on the LOWEST setting. The hammering will break loose any corrosion.
 
a few thing of input with that flat surface that keithm18 was talking about a good piece of glass works well and make sure its the finest grit you can find if you use sand paper or also emery cloth, and with seized bolts pb blaster works well use compressed air and blow the bolt soaked in the pb blaster it helps work it into the treads and if that doesn't work heat is the next step

p.s. watch where u get the pb blaster it will swell rubber
 
if the impact wrench doesn't free the seized bolt i have had luck with these they are call a hand help impact wrench and you would just put the socket on the bolt and hit the end of the wrench with a hammer i prefer these over the air impact for seized bolts you can send more of a shock straight threw the bolt
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Well, so far so good. I got all of the head bolts out after tapping them all with a punch then using the hand held impact wrench to break them loose. I could have never gotten them out without it. got the head off and sure enough there was a milky goo in the one cylinder where the water had mixed with the gas and oil. Looks like there are O-rings around each cylinder.....maybe that is what leaked. I'll take the head to my local Evinrude dealer tomorrow and see if he has the gaskets.
I took some pictures but they won't upload, the file size is too big.
 
Great progress. There a number of 115 deriatives for 1995. Some use head gaskets and some use the o rings you describe. I hope the o ring is the cause, making this a simple fix.

As a matter of intertest what do the bores look like? Are they perfectly smooth all the way round. I'm particularly interested in the one that had water in it.

I would also suggest rotating the crank so that the piston on this cylinder is all the way at the bottom of the stroke and then using a powerfull torch to have a good look at the bore for minute cracks or chips along the length of the bore and at the ports.
 
I could be wrong about the year model but hopefully this info will clear that up:

Evinrude Ocean Pro 115
M/N E115SLEDR
S/N G 04039028

I would also like to know what the torque specs are for the bolts. I borrowed an in/lb and a ft./lb torque wrench from our tool room at work.
 
and thank you for the update always like hearing everything went well and i would definitely look at the cylinder that had the problem like keith said

also try to download the image to your desk top first then click the picture frame image 1.jpgon the tool bar for the Quick reply then the insert image box will come up then click the from computer button not the url then click insert file (insert the image you want) then click upload file
 
i found something online about the torque specs 20-22 ft lbs you can use this if you want to but cant verify that it is correct and also make sure you half torque from the center out in a star pattern the fully torque same way
 
Alright, I got everything cleaned up and inspected the bore as well as I could. The 3 cylinders without the water looked great. The cylinder with the water had a light film of some sort on the very bottom....possibly where water sat a little but looked more like a gooey oil residue. I scrubbed it a little with a Scotch Brite pad and that helped some. I looked and looked and saw no crack or chip anywhere along the bore or at the ports.
Got the parts and put it all back together and torqued down to 20 ft. lbs. The dealer looked it up in his manual and that is what it said. The outside of the head was numbered from the middle out so that made following the torque sequence easier.
Some of the had had to have RTV applied so I'll let that dry a day or two before doing a test.
Thanks to all for all the help.
 
Thanks for the update. Sounds like the o-ring was the primary cause. Please let us know all is well once you test her out. Happy boating.
 
thank you for the update and for the next time you clean a cylinder always clean with hot soapy water and a sponge after so that you clean out the cross hatches in the cylinder the cross hatches are important on two strokes because it holds a little bit of the oil in the gas to lube the cylinders it sounds like everything should be okay with your cylinder
 
I didn't know that about the cross hatches. I'll try to file that in my memory for next time.

When I was torquing the head bolts the #13 bolt just never felt like the others....it just didn't want to get tight. So today before I went any further I decided to go ahead and check it again....still didn't feel right, like it was about to give way, so I backed it out and about fell over when I saw it. The bolt had stretched to almost breaking. I am really concerned about all the other bolts, I think I will replace all of them and re-torque the head.
 
Well, I was able to finally run the motor for a few hours. I pulled each of the spark plugs once I got home and all of them were dry....no water droplets as before, so hopefully the head gasket solved that problem.
The motor ran good above idle but it seemed to idle rougher than in the past. I am now wondering if I've got partial pluggage in one of the carb jets?? I always treat and preserve my fuel with Sea Foam.
How would I troubleshoot a rough idle?
 
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