Johnson outboard troubles.

[sbsbw]

A friend of mine is a complete boating novice, but just aquired a used pontoon boat. I was asked to go with them to pick it up, and when I arrived I groaned loudly, the boat was equiped with a Johnson outboard, from that time period where all johnson and evinrude products were known to be compleate headaches. ( you know, mostly white, with the flying horse emblem... yeah) anyways the owner being a novice deems me the offical "captain" of the boat. so i take them out this past weekend on sunday and monday.

sunday the motor died at an idle and didn't have enough juice to restart itself, we got a tow back to the launch.

Sunday night i charged the battery. monday we went out and it started fine and ran mostly fine. untill i had it opened all the way up and it was going great... then it decided to die. compleatly. we paddled back in. The starter turned the motor over, but we could not get it started. i reset the kill switch to no avial. i tried pumping the primer ball... but that was fine, still had gas in the tank (from last year of course, however it ran fine with that gas before, so...).

I haven't looked at it yet, but i'm thinking checking the spark first, then the fuel system.

what would ya'll suggest my plan of action be.

I am sure that i'm going to go out and try to start it and it will turn right over, but what can i do to prevent this from happening again?

thanks very much.

BEN

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Check fuel first. Old gas in a tank can quickly kill an outboard... and you have no idea how much crap could be in an old tank either. If there is a fuel filter change it and make sure that gas is getting to the carburetor. If you are trying to start it and pumping the ball, you should smell gas, or at least the plugs will be wet if there's no spark. Take a spark plug wire off and see if there's spark...

[Mrleft8]

Sounds like gunk in the carb jets, or a leaky float valve.

[Skiff Junkie]

My Johnson outboard quit on me one day last summer. Turns out that my portside fuel tank had water in it. I drained the carbs and switched to the starboard tank and it ran fine from then on. I highly recommend a fuel/water separator.