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1994 Johnson 175 Ocean Runner Intermittent spark

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bigjohnson47

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It has very low hours. Winterized it 3 falls ago and all was fine. Went to start it in the spring and found no spark. Did nothing with until now. I put a spark tester on it and no spark. Went through the CDI companies diagnostic procedure and eliminated all the stop circuits and continued to where it said the power pack needs at least 11 volts to operate. It said to check voltage on the yellow/red wire between the starter solenoid and the power pack. Found 8.4 volts. They said to clean all the battery, starter and ground connections. Did this and I had spark !! Whoo hoo!!
Put everything back together and the engine started but wouldn't run long or well. In the spring, it always pops right off and runs fine. I couldn't start it again and found no spark again. I put a battery charger on the 2 year old unused Interstate marine battery, which was kept charged, for awhile and the spark came back. But then the spark failed again without starting again.
I'm aware that CDI has an upgraded power pack, plug wires and plugs, but I'm not sure if it's the problem although I will probably install these new parts anyway.
Just a battery issue?
 
faztbullet said:
What the voltage on the power coil(org wires) when it runs???
Click to expand...

It will start and I can rev it one time and it dies like it's running out of gas, so I can't get a running reading. Most of the diagnostic procedures are done while cranking. I'll get some help today. I don't have enough hands to do everything that needs to be done at the same time.
 
watch out for missing magnets or cores. on my johnson, this caused horrible running. pulled it apart and found after receiving new parts a little bit of metal was missing. also your symptoms sound like a blown capacitor or something
 
So, the spark is back. I think it has been an issue with the battery.
Now, as for the dying issue after running for a few seconds. It acted just like it was running out of gas. Then it was missing badly. I drained the carb bowels on the top four carbs and found an extremely heavy oil mixture. There was so much oil it was coming out of various places and running down the lower unit. I clamped the oil line and tried to start it. It was difficult but did finally start and ran great. Revved up pretty high and it smoked like crazy, but soon the smoke cleared and I shut it off. Big gobs of black slim shot out the exhaust it was so loaded with oil. I noticed the last 2 years I used it that black slim would drip out of the prop hub while in the garage. Never happened previously. For years it has smoked excessively and so does my snowmobile so I thought it could be the Amsoil.
In the past I read an article that has been in several magazines from a guy that really knows the VRO and says it has been badly maligned for problems outside of the VRO. I found it again.
Here it is. I consider it required reading for any VRO owner.
http://continuouswave.com/whaler/reference/VRO.html
 
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