2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

[stratosrookie]

I have a 2001 Johnson 200 hp motor. The motor will run fine most of the time, but sometimes I get intermittent firing on the #3 cylinder. I have replace the power pack, the wires, plugs, and the coil pack, but it still intermittently fires on #3. I can understand an entire bank not firing, but I can't seem to identify the cause of this problem. It seems to do it after the engine warms up. When it starts to intermittently fire, I can turn the engine off and restart it several times and it always eventually begins to work again. Sometimes it takes two or three times of doing this and sometimes it may take a dozen or more. When I am at home trying to test the engine everything works fine.

 

[Faztbullet]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

Check the plug for water intrusion into cylinder....

 

[Big Fish Billy]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

Have you tried switching a plug, pack, and wire on that cylinder with another, try that first and see if the problem stays or moves. If you've soaked up that plug a few times, even if new, it may foul out once you put a load on it.

 

[boobie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

Recheck ALL the electrical connections and grounds in the ignition system. You could also have a bad timer base. Again check ALL the connections.

 

[stratosrookie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

I have moved coil packs around and wires to see if it moves. It is isolated to the #3 bank. If I take the plug wire off while running there is no spark when it is happening. Here are a couple more questions. I had a friend tell me he thought the coil pack on the #2 or #1 cylinder might feed the spark to the #3 and could be bad. Could this be right. Also I thought the timer base could be bad also. My question is does the timer base feed directly to one cylinder. I thought it just fired and the power pack routed the spark to the cylinders. I thought about just ordering all new parts and replacing them, but then thought it might be a good idea to just take it to the shop so they can identify which part is bad.

 

[daselbee]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

No, coil packs from other cylinders do not feed around the motor to different cyls. No.

Your timerbase controls when the spark occurs. There are two bundles of wires, 4 wires each side (left and right), that go from the timerbase and attach to the powerpack. If #3 is misfiring, then the wire indicated is on the right side, and it is purple in color. All this wiring exists under the pack. Check that there are no pins pushed back in the rubber boots.

You could have a bad timerbase or a bad pack. Those are the two most likely candidates.

 

[stratosrookie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

I really appreciate you all taking the time to help me out. I will pull the power pack and check out the wires coming from the timer base

 

[stratosrookie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

I ordered a timer base and am going to swap it out I will let you know if that works.

 

[stratosrookie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

OK, I really appreciate your help. I swapped out the timer base. I have been to the lake twice now and the motor is running great. I have had this problem acting up since 2010. I appreciate everybody's help. The flywheel was not as hard as I thought and everything else just bolted back up. Was a little difficult to get it torqued back down, but managed it using a beach towel to hold the flywheel.

 

[stratosrookie]

Re: 2001 200Hp johnson intermittent firing

The boat is running great. I suppose it was the timer base. I removed the flywheel with a 38mm socket from sears and an impact wrench using a harmonic balance puller. The bolts were 5/16" fine thread bolts for the harmonic balance puller. I torqued it back down to 160 pounds and everything is working great. The timer base cost me about $290 with shipping.