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1999 Submerged Johnson 50hp

S

sbhicks99

New member
Hello all,

A few weeks ago, we submerged our 1999 50hp, 2 stroke Johnson in salt water while the engine was running. I'm pretty sure we were successful in our triage and got the engine cleared of water in the first few hours. Within 12 hours or so, we had the engine running at least for 20 seconds at a time. Right now, it starts fairly easily and then quits. I've pulled both carbs off and pulled them apart twice to clean them (however, I did not adjust anything in the carbs - just sprayed them out with cleaner and compressed air).

I'm getting good fuel line pressure in the bulb and the engine still dies when I pump the bulb and when I remove the cap from the fuel tank.

Where are the likely troubleshooting start points to resolve this? My gut is telling me it's still the carbs; however could it be the fuel pump? How can I best troubleshoot and rule out the fuel pump as the cause?

I have the service manual and I'm about to pull the carbs off for the third time and methodically clean them...but these are shots in the dark at the moment.

Thoughts???

Thanks for any help!
 
First thing I would do is check the flywheel key.----How did the motor run before this incident ?-----Checked all wiring connections ?-----Cleaned salt water out of the starter ?
 
Yes, I've tried to flush everything the best I can. It was running fine before the incident.

Now it is starting reasonably fine...it just won't stay running for more than 15 or 20 seconds.
 
sbhicks99 said:
I'm not sure I follow what you mean...
Click to expand...

What I mean is if you read through the posts on this if any other outboard forum you will see countless people saying they tore into the carburetors, no matter what the real problem was. Outboard carburetors are simple devices and rarely give trouble, except possibly old rotten gas, I am merely suggesting you are looking up the wrong tree and need to do further troubleshooting. BTW, hat's off to you for recovering from that salt water swim.
 
Obviously you've got some kind of compression and spark... BUT... before going any further, check both with all spark plugs removed. Compression should be in the 100+ area and the spark should jump a 7/16" gap. Let us know what you find here!

If indeed you can start and have the engine run for 20 seconds at a time... it is running on what is in the carburetors, but the fuel supply is not being replenished... OR... the carburetors are flooding<-- (not likely)

Hopefully you're using pre-mix for test purposes at the present. If not, do so!

If you're using a VRO setup (or were)... be sure to check the oil container and flush the line out, to rid the system of air & water.

Remove the drain screws from the carburetor(s)... pump the fuel primer bulb to see if fuel flows out the carburetor(s).

Remove the fuel line from the fuel pump that leads to the carburetors... attach a longer fuel line to the fuel pump so as to have fuel flow from the fuel pump to a glass container so that you can inspect the fuel for water or whatever.

If no water is present and you have compression and spark, the engine should run. Even if the fuel pump has failed, pumping the fuel primer bulb (acting as a manual fuel pump) would force fuel to flow thru the pump to the carburetors.

Obviously the test fuel supply should be pre-mix and absolutely free of contamination.

Normally the engine must be returned to running condition immediately after being removed from the water as rusting begins immediately. Hopefully you are an exception.

Let us know if you get the engine to run... and to a point where it stays running until you decide to shut it down. That's the point where as you need to:

1 - Dismantle the electric starter, clean, spray with WD40 or CRC, use pressurized air, grease as needed.

2 - Double check your carburetor work

3 - Remove the flywheel, clean everything, spray with WD40 or CRC. pressurized air.

4 - Electrical system... check & double check everything, especially if sunk in salt water as that will blow the back portion off the ignition switch, corrode electrical terminals instantly, etc etc.

No doubt I have overlooked something... other members will hopefully jump in here with that info. Keep us updated.
 
I don't have a compression tester so that will have to wait and I haven't checked the spark. But, I removed the carb bowl screw and it is getting fuel when pumping the bulb.

Pumping the bulb seems to have no effect on how the engine runs or for how long it runs for.

I should qualify my statements about how the engine runs. It will run for 20 or 30 seconds if I pump the throttle. Otherwise, it will idle out and die. I cannot keep an idle at the moment, so it does not run particularly well (but it does fire). While pumping the throttle to keep it running, the engine tends to surge to a higher than normal (from my experience with this engine) RPM and then dies out (unless I continue pumping the throttle to keep it running). I'm not sure if this helps point me in any particular direction.

I'm going to pull the fuel line and check the fuel for water shortly.








joereeves said:
Obviously you've got some kind of compression and spark... BUT... before going any further, check both with all spark plugs removed. Compression should be in the 100+ area and the spark should jump a 7/16" gap. Let us know what you find here!

If indeed you can start and have the engine run for 20 seconds at a time... it is running on what is in the carburetors, but the fuel supply is not being replenished... OR... the carburetors are flooding<-- (not likely)

Hopefully you're using pre-mix for test purposes at the present. If not, do so!

If you're using a VRO setup (or were)... be sure to check the oil container and flush the line out, to rid the system of air & water.

Remove the drain screws from the carburetor(s)... pump the fuel primer bulb to see if fuel flows out the carburetor(s).

Remove the fuel line from the fuel pump that leads to the carburetors... attach a longer fuel line to the fuel pump so as to have fuel flow from the fuel pump to a glass container so that you can inspect the fuel for water or whatever.

If no water is present and you have compression and spark, the engine should run. Even if the fuel pump has failed, pumping the fuel primer bulb (acting as a manual fuel pump) would force fuel to flow thru the pump to the carburetors.

Obviously the test fuel supply should be pre-mix and absolutely free of contamination.

Normally the engine must be returned to running condition immediately after being removed from the water as rusting begins immediately. Hopefully you are an exception.

Let us know if you get the engine to run... and to a point where it stays running until you decide to shut it down. That's the point where as you need to:

1 - Dismantle the electric starter, clean, spray with WD40 or CRC, use pressurized air, grease as needed.

2 - Double check your carburetor work

3 - Remove the flywheel, clean everything, spray with WD40 or CRC. pressurized air.

4 - Electrical system... check & double check everything, especially if sunk in salt water as that will blow the back portion off the ignition switch, corrode electrical terminals instantly, etc etc.

No doubt I have overlooked something... other members will hopefully jump in here with that info. Keep us updated.
Click to expand...
 
Am I missing something here? Has any focus been put on potential spark loss? How long does it take before you can restart it? Gas burns, gas with water burns like crap......but both forms of combustion need spark. Salt water conducts electricity, fresh water is a different animal. Your ignition system may be the problem. See Joe above....TEST SPARK!
 
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Will do.

FYI - generally it starts right away, but then runs like crap.



timguy said:
Am I missing something here? Has any focus been put on potential spark loss? How long does it take before you can restart it? Gas burns, gas with water burns like crap......but both forms of combustion need spark. Salt water conducts electricity, fresh water is a different animal. Your ignition system may be the problem. See Joe above....TEST SPARK!
Click to expand...
 
Okay, good, lets fix it. Nice job so far. I have done several water recoveries but none in saltwater. I assume it has a 6 gallon gas tank which has been checked out good? Remember, water will be suspended (to a certain concentration) with ethanol but it won't run very good. You may not know that water even got in until phase separation takes place. Avoid ethanol anyway.
 
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Well, I checked the spark on both wires. It is jumping 7/16" with blue spark. So I'm thinking it is not spark, right?

Haven't gotten my hands on a compression tester but will work on that if y'all think that is the right troubleshooting track...

Scott






timguy said:
Okay, good, lets fix it. Nice job so far. I have done several water recoveries but none in saltwater. I assume it has a 6 gallon gas
tank which has been checked out good? Remember, water will be suspended (to a certain concentration) with ethanol but it won't run very good. You may not know that water even got in until phase separation takes place. Avoid ethanol anyway.
Click to expand...
 
Joe, did you notice that the engine was "RUNNING", when it went for a swim? Could be cylinder damage, piston, or rod. Water doesn't "compress" very well, does it? I never took note of that until I revisited the original post. Yes, COMPRESSION TEST MUST BE DONE, Mr. Hicks!
 
timguy said:
Joe, did you notice that the engine was "RUNNING", when it went for a swim? Could be cylinder damage, piston, or rod. Water doesn't "compress" very well, does it? I never took note of that until I revisited the original post. Yes, COMPRESSION TEST MUST BE DONE, Mr. Hicks!
Click to expand...

Yow! Apparently I glanced right over that also Tim... missed it completely. And you are so right is stating that water does not compress (it'll cause bent c/rods before it'll do that!)

Brings to mind a sort of humorous happening to a friend of mine many years back (Early 1970's I'm thinking), a commercial fisherman named Bill Bailey (Port Elizabeth, NJ) of the Delaware Bay area. One of his smaller boats... a three cylinder Evinrude (1973+) somehow broke free of his craft while running, severing electrical cables, fuel lines, etc. Bill said that the engine laid on its side (carbs full of fuel), in gear, and just laid there on the surface of the water, spinning in a circle until it finally ran out of gas. Bill said it then just went glub glub glub... and disappeared. He said at the time that it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

How it came off the boat in the first place... I never asked... BUT... with four 1/2" bolts retaining it... impossible unless it took the transom with it. Bill never said.

He did retrieve the engine... complete tear down and cleaning of course, after which it served him for many years.
 
Post # 4 says to check the flywheel key due to the " running " when it went for a shwimm.----Did they use aluminum bolts at one time to hold motors onto boats ??
 
I seem to recall some in the early 70's with aluminum bolts.----Might even have some of those in the cluttered parts shed.
 
racerone said:
I seem to recall some in the early 70's with aluminum bolts.----Might even have some of those in the cluttered parts shed.
Click to expand...

Agreed, always possible. Left overs? I changed service locations in 1968 and was no longer associated with rigging so it's possible i lost track at that point. The part number would change though... I'll look for that clue.
 
Racer, your place sounds like my mess. I am ashamed of it, need to do a house cleaning.....firesale.....move to Florida, like Joe did. It's nice to have parts around, but not practical when you can't find em or get to them. My cluttered "parts shed" is a 56 by 90 foot pole barn. That doesn't include all the other smaller sheds and pickup trucks with toppers back in my boneyard, along with two semi trailers, a school bus, and an old moving van. What can I say? I like old outboard motors! For me it's been an infectious disease since I was 10 years old.
 
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joereeves said:
Knowing the compression psi of the individual cylinders is a must!
Click to expand...


Well, I finally got to spend a bit more time with the motor. First off, I did a compression test and I get 121-122 psi in the top cylinder and 135 in the bottom cylinder. That's pushing the 10% maximum difference between the cylinders, but is it too much?

As an update - I pulled the carbs off (for the third time) but this time made sure to pull out and clean the float needles and idle speed screw needles for both of the carbs. I reinstalled the idle needle screw to 3.5 turns as per the service. I then reinstalled the carbs and tried to start and it fired pretty much right away but then ran at a very high idle (approx 3000 rpm) with the no throttle and the carb plates completely closed (I checked). manual. Interestingly, it seems to be running fairly well at that RPM - doesn't appear to be skipping and I don't need to pump the throttle to keep it running. However, I can't get the idle down to something reasonable.

Another interesting note is that on one of these occasions when I had started the motor, it ran for maybe 20 seconds before I tried to shut it down (not wanting to do damage to it by running at an such a high idle for very long). I turned off the key and it kept on running at a continued high RPM as if I hadn't turned the key at all. It only quit when I give it a little bit more throttle. That had never happened to me before.
 
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