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1996 johnson 115 leaking fuel from air intake on one carburetor. Help!

H

Happyboatin

New member
My engine model J115ELEDR has been idling rough and has very little power (not drivable) . I was troubleshooting problems but now think it may have more to do with the carbs then I originally thought. If I prime the primer ball to much it will start pouring out of one carb. Today I noticed it was worse. I had the front air cover off exposing the carburetors, while the engine started fine and ran for about 1 minute it suddenly started idling rough and the rpm went down to about 500 and fuel started running out of one carb... could that leak be the source of my problems? I am desperately trying to get this engine fixed so I can head out on the water. Thanks.
 
So after taking apart the carb I decided to take a 2nd one off to compare it to and the one that was leaking fuel had a very bad gasket. I replaced it and the primer ball gets hard much faster and idles much better without stalling. Now when I tested it out this evening I figured the problem was solved but still no power under load and cant get it up on plane. It wont go over 3000 rpm and engine was shaking a lot. I idled back to the dock and noticed milky fuel coming from all 4 carbs. Not enough to drip out but figured it was worth mentioning. Any suggestions?
 
I did a compression test already. I was getting 122 psi on both cylinders on the right side and 121 and 122 psi on the 2 cylinders on the left side. The way it was acting I thought it could be a bad cylinder but it checks out. I think its the power pack but it was already changed shortly before I purchased the engine. Is there any way to check the pack? The VRO2 has been bypassed and unplugged and am running gas oil mix 50:1. It seems like something is triggering or activating SLOW mode. Could it be anything but the power pack? When I first put it in the water this spring It was running rough but when I tried to accelerate there was a lot of hesitation and then finally rpm's slowly went to 5000 rpm it ran strong and smooth for about 4 seconds then started surging up and down wildly I was able to achieve plane once more and same thing happened besides that for the most part its in slow mode and runs rough and wont go over 25000 to 3000 rpm. I appreciate any hep I can get on this forum as I do not have access to a mechanic. Thanks.
 
So I purchased a spark plug tester to see what was going on with the engine and found a weak intermittent spark on all plugs. Surprised the engine even runs. I did not think it was this bad. Could this still be a SLOW condition? Also where the engine had a lot of work done to it before I purchased it could it be something set incorrectly like timing or timing base?
 
No the solenoid problem I refer to is internal..the contacts corrode/wear, this reduces amps to starter..also makes starter/cable to get warm. Then motor wont turn fast enough to make voltage off charge winding on stator to capacitor in pack. Weak input =weak output.
The rect/reg can go bad and cause stator winding to overheat and damage stator, this will also cause low voltage into pack..thus again weak in =weak out.
This is why we suggest a factory manual so servicer can understand ignition principles and use of testers
 
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Thanks fazbullet. I am not very good at troubleshooting electrical yet but will definitely get somebody to check the stator req/rect. On a different note I decided to take a look at the carbs. Even though they were just done before I purchased the motor and I discovered in the bowls the high speed jets were missing. When they put the new bowls on they must have forgotten to take the jets from the old bowls and put them in the new ones. So rather then a small passageway there are big holes. Could this be my problem when trying to get any speed at all it just bog down and shakes and wont go over 2500 to 3000rpm? Thanks for all the help so far.
 
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