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89 evinrude E150STLCEM 150hp intermittent spark

M

Mike1982

New member
These are the tests I have done below, they were done with the master tech Bill Kelly's site http://www.maxrules.com/trouble.html
The motor has intermittent spark issues which moves all over usually when trying to start it only sparks on one piston then after awhile will start to fire more and sometimes even starts but drops spark on pistons intermittently. The tests I have done below make it look like the power pack or the timer base is bad. I just want to make sure I did them right. Any words of wisdom would awsome at this point.

Power Pack

cyl 1 166 ohms Orange/Blue to Blue (in male 4 pin connector)
cyl 2 136 ohms Orange/Blue to Blue (in Female 4 pin connector)
cyl 3 110 ohms Orange to Purple (in male 4 pin connector)
cyl 4 158 ohms Orange to Purple (in female 4 pin connector)
cyl 5 145 ohms Orange/Green to Green (in male 4 pin connector)
cyl 6 135 ohms Orange/Green to Green (in female 4 pin connector)

The above readings according to the guide should be 110Ohms but also says should be a comparison reading and typical range is 90 to 150 Ohms.

note: The guide says the male 4 pin connector should have the White wire and the female 4 pin connector should have the Black/White but they are opposite. Keep in mind this is a new power pack from last year.

Brown, Brown/Yellow to Ground: Starts high meg ohm then goes Open
Brown/White, Brown/Black to Ground: Starts high meg Ohm then goes Open
Orange, Orange/Black to Groiund: 9.95KOhms this one I am concerned about should be Open or high Meg Ohm

All three reading above should be high Meg Ohms or Open

Note: The above 3 readings were taken by jumping the 2 wires together and reading them to ground. Please correct me if I am wrong but to me thats how it read.

White to ground: .3 ohms shorted Should be Open

Stator

933 Ohms Brown to Brown/Yellow Should be 900 to 1100 Ohms
932 Ohms Brown/White to Brown Black Should be 900 to 1100 Ohms
95 Ohms Orange to Orange/Black Should be 93 to 103 Ohms

Time Base

(4 pin male connector with white wire)
White to Purple 284 KOhms
White to Blue 7.5 MegOhms Second Time 2.8 to 3.3 MegOhms jumps around
White to Green 271 KOhms

(4 pin female connector with Black/White wire)
White to Purple Jumps around from 20 to 25 MegOhms Second Time13 to 16 MegOhms
White to Blue 314 KOhms
White to Green 6 MegOhms a little jumpy

Note: The White to Blue in male connector and White to Purple in female connector give me different reading each time I take them the 3rd time was also different for the 1st or 2nd.

All six reading above should be a comparison test bewteen them and should fall in a typical range of 1M to 5M Ohms. It also says temperature will effect the reading these reading were taken on a cold engine about 60 degrees outside. I checked them again after running it and they are all different again.

White to Black/White 6.5MegOhms a little jumpy Should be 215 to 225 Ohms

I took all 7 reading above from the White wire on the male 4 pin connector that is how it read to me but correct me if I am wrong please.

After testing the motor fired right up without the annoying sparking on only one piston. Yesterday when it ran piston 3 did not spark today it was piston 1 the other day was piston 2. Also noticed the tach was working right away when it started then stopped a few minutes into running. I also just did a J. Reeves Tach test which indicates the tach itself is faulty.

After doing these tests I am not sure what to point at time base or power pack is it possiable that if the time base was bad could it take out the power pack?

Also does anyone know how to test the rectifier?​
 
A little update i have been playing around with the motor today and found a few things. Once the motor is started it will fire right up again once I shut it off if I try again within a couple hours. Also starting it always starts with no spark then usually once piston then if I keep at it ill get it to start.

My question is with this ignition system does that make sense that after I crank on it for a couple minutes it starts to get spark?
 
What is the condition of the starter motor ????----------------------A slow cranking starter means spark trouble !!!!!
 
The starter seems to be in good condition my tach dont work so I cant say exactly what the cranking RPMs are. But the spark problem follows it after the motor is started too not all the time but most of the time you can hear pistons dropping in and out.
 
I struggled with the same problem with my motor. It ended up being the rectifier. Try removing the two yellow wires from the stator to the terminal block. If you now get fire it is probably the rectifier. I realize the rectifier should have nothing to do with the motor firing up because it coverts the AC voltage to DC for charging, and runs the tach but it worked for me. I tried this approach afetr reading about it on the CDI website.
 
I actually did remove the 2 yellow wires goingto the rectifier which seemed to make a difference in starting and idleing. But last night i took it on the lake and started fine ideled finebut when I went to kick it down it sounded like all the pistons were not firing like thery were cutting in and out. Any ideas?
 
put a timing light on all cylinders ( one at a time ) and see what that tells you.------------Find which cylinders are acting up and go from there.
 
I would like to confirm that the rectifier was not the problem with my motor. This morning, it was acting up again. It does the same thing as yours, except once i finally get it started it runs great all day, doesn't miss a beat. i can tell you what i have replaced over the last year. Rectifier (was bad, no tach or charging ), power pack, ignition switch, kill switch and new battery. Hopefully, you will know what to exclude based on what i have already done.
 
I'm having the Same problem with my 1977 25hp evinrude.first thing in the morning,no spark. I crank the motor over for 1min 2mins .....then boom instead spark and she starts right up AWSOME for the rest of the day ....this problem is driving me nuts .....so far unplugged the ignition harness and jumped the starter and still not spark.....I have a replaced positive and negative battery wire ...inspected all wires for bad insolation... Power pack is in the mail ....can someone please help??????whats next again once I get spark......the motor runs great the whole day not a hickup
 
Just a quick update to my problem ...ITS fixed and it WAS the power pack so I just wanna put it out there so people know MY symptoms of a bad power pack in case you are wondering
Symptom one : no spark ONLY ON cold starts or if the boat was put away for the week (like first in the morning thing) once started ran great all day BUT it took a lot of cranking in the morning
Symptom two: if you get a spark tester and crank it over and your getting no spark I could stop cranking, walk over and LIGHTY tap the power pack with like a handle of a screwdriver and BAM I would get one trigger spark that was telling me that the power pack was getting a signal to fire but it was just not sending it to the coils......
so just to let everyone know that a power pack is NOT just good or bad ....it can be intermittent
 
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