1957 Evinrude Fleetwin Dies After 15 Seconds

[exodave]

Hi again guys. My next project is this lovely old Fleetwin, going to put it on the dinghy. When I first started it up, it seemed to run well and would have kept going, but there was no water pumping out so I popped the powerhead off, dropped the LU and replaced the impeller. Next, ran great for about 15 seconds with water flowing out the telltale, but promptly died. So, I rebuilt the carb, installed new coils, points, condensers, plugs, and head gasket. Now, same thing. Dies after 15 seconds as if running out of fuel then needs a whole lot of yanks to get even a pop, almost as if flooded. Compression remained at around 70-80 even after new head gasket. Also, I now see that when I do have it running, there is some fuel dripping out along the vertical seam in the powerhead where the driveshaft is. See picture, right in the center:



Then, I there seems to be fuel pooling in the next pic. I'm guessing it's the fuel that is dripping down from the previous photo, but can't be sure yet.



So, there seems to be a good spark as far as I can tell with the indicator light I have that plugs into the spark plugs. The carb is adjusted properly as per the manual after the rebuild, and I don't see or hear any air leaks. Is this leak the problem? If so, I don't see a gasket in the manual for it.

 

[HighTrim]

I cannot see your pics. If you have a crankcase leak, that will need to be resolved.

 

[exodave]

sorry they were tagged private on flickr. not sure why that matters since they appear to have uploaded but let me try again:

 

[exodave]

No Title

Ok, I managed to get the crankcase open and discovered this:

I'm not sure if maybe the piston there was repaired at some point because I don't see any corresponding damage on those screws which appear to have struck the inside of the crankcase. Anyways, assuming this is alright as-is, I cleaned up the edges of the halves of the powerhead, put a bead of permetex black down and sealed it back up. Forgot to also just open the inspection plates on the side of the cylinder to see if there's anything off there, so I'll do that next.

 

[HighTrim]

This site was "improved" this year, and now you cannot do anything on it. It is not your fault, everyone is having issues with it now.

I can see 1 picture, of the damage to the crankcase. Maybe it threw a rod at one time in its life. If it is ok now, hopefully the reseal will cure your issue. Sorry I cannot see enough to help more.

 

[exodave]

No Title

Ok, I'll just upload those like the last one:

^ this one is the leak. The next ones are where fuel seemed to be pooling

I'll try her again tomorrow after the sealant has cured properly and report back. Thanks!

 

[exodave]

Wow, I give up on the photos.

 

[exodave]

Alright, I put the motor all back together and started it. Same thing. It almost wants to idle for about 30 seconds, then suddenly it revs way up and then dies. It seems like I can keep it idling if I feather the choke, but as soon as I let it rev up, it dies immediately. So, does this just sound like a compression problem?

Edit: I also pulled the plugs after the first time it died. They looked a little wet but not soaked. I simply could tell there was gasoline on them.

 

[HighTrim]

Sounds like you are running out of fuel, or way lean. Set at 1.5 turns out from seated?

Are you on a pressure tank? Is it leaking air pressure? After running, and you open cap, does it hissss? If you continually pump button on tank, will it continue to run? How was the float? Did you check that it floated? Float stuck on carb gasket? Junk in seat?

 

[exodave]

So, another one of these motors, in better cosmetic shape, became available on Craigslist. I picked it up and it did run alright but didn't want to idle. I swapped the carb on this motor for the one I already rebuilt and bingo! I did discover there was an air leak in the tank, but the second motor would run with it, so not sure if that was the problem. Plus, the tank that came with the second motor had a slightly different design on the line connector that made it way easier to rebuild. I had new o-rings, but wasn't able to get the other one apart to install them. Anyways, I'll just pick apart the other motor for parts to keep and sell the rest of the parts.

Then, at some point over the winter, I might go ahead and do the fuel pump mod and say goodbye to the pressure tank.