mturner125
New member
I'm struggling to achieve a steady/strong idle on a new to me Evinrude 50 HP. I purchased the boat about a month ago and it was very clear that the prior owner took excellent care of the boat. He was meticulous in the restoration. The motor was purchased new by the prior owner in the late 90s and currently has about 140 hours on it - It got almost no use in the last 5 years (owner reported he started it periodically w/ muffs on).
My first day on the water with it I found that it would not rev past about 3000. I eventually determined that the fuel lines coming off the fuel manifold had perished and were causing debris to collect in the carburetors. I did a thorough clean of the carburetors and ran new lines from the water separator all the way to the carburetors. I also decided to remove the VRO and go with a simple fuel pump and premix. At this point, the boat would idle with the lever fully down (low rpms and not very well) and I'd say I got a 60% success rate in getting the motor into gear without stalling.
I noticed that the rollers (both) within the linkage had fully deteriorated and that some of the linkage measurements were off per the Evinrude Service Manual. This week I replaced the rollers and I attempted to do a link and sync, returning the maximum spark advance to the factory setting and going through the process to set the idle stop screw. I got the motor up to temperature while working on the idle stop. I noticed that the idle adjustment screw required a lot of adjustment to achieve the 800 RPMs required by the process. After getting the motor to approximately 800 RPMs my idle light was showing a reading of approximately 3 degrees before TDC - The manual suggests that the motor should be at 1 degree (+or-1) after TDC.
Question to forum members - should I back off that idle stop screw which would reduce RPMs and also retard the timing to get it in spec? Any other ideas on how to improve the strength of idle? I've been through the carbs more than once with rebuild kits - they are perfect with the floats adjusted correctly and the fuel is new.
Couple other observations:
Our local Johnson/Evinrude dealer is backed up about 4 weeks right now. I'm on the list and I think I'll have an opportunity to get it in there in the next week. In the meantime, anything else you all would consider doing/testing? I'm considering backing off the idle stop to get back to spec (at/around 1 degree ATDC) and then running a can of seafoam through the engine.
My first day on the water with it I found that it would not rev past about 3000. I eventually determined that the fuel lines coming off the fuel manifold had perished and were causing debris to collect in the carburetors. I did a thorough clean of the carburetors and ran new lines from the water separator all the way to the carburetors. I also decided to remove the VRO and go with a simple fuel pump and premix. At this point, the boat would idle with the lever fully down (low rpms and not very well) and I'd say I got a 60% success rate in getting the motor into gear without stalling.
I noticed that the rollers (both) within the linkage had fully deteriorated and that some of the linkage measurements were off per the Evinrude Service Manual. This week I replaced the rollers and I attempted to do a link and sync, returning the maximum spark advance to the factory setting and going through the process to set the idle stop screw. I got the motor up to temperature while working on the idle stop. I noticed that the idle adjustment screw required a lot of adjustment to achieve the 800 RPMs required by the process. After getting the motor to approximately 800 RPMs my idle light was showing a reading of approximately 3 degrees before TDC - The manual suggests that the motor should be at 1 degree (+or-1) after TDC.
Question to forum members - should I back off that idle stop screw which would reduce RPMs and also retard the timing to get it in spec? Any other ideas on how to improve the strength of idle? I've been through the carbs more than once with rebuild kits - they are perfect with the floats adjusted correctly and the fuel is new.
Couple other observations:
- When doing the link and sync I left the air silencer off because the new gasket I bought last week was falling apart. I noticed that there was some pooling of fuel in the upper carburetor. It didn't appear to be spiting fuel out, just a few drops pooling.
- Reeds appear to be perfect, I don't see any flaws in them. Frankly, I'm not all that experienced in working on these so I'm not really sure what to look for. I didn't see any pitting, cracks, or any gaps in the reeds.
- Spark plugs are new as of 2 weeks ago. They're gaped to spec at 030
- When I measured timing on the number 1 cylinder I noticed that the timing gun did not pick up a signal when connected to the spark plug wire - I needed to move the inductive pickup up near the spark plug to get it to fire.
- I used a spark plug gap tester - I verified a strong blue spark firing over about a 7/16 gap on both cylinders
Our local Johnson/Evinrude dealer is backed up about 4 weeks right now. I'm on the list and I think I'll have an opportunity to get it in there in the next week. In the meantime, anything else you all would consider doing/testing? I'm considering backing off the idle stop to get back to spec (at/around 1 degree ATDC) and then running a can of seafoam through the engine.