1990 Johnson 15hp rough starting and dieing

[samo_ott]

OK, this motor is out of my scope. From those of you that have read my posts before I work on 50's and 60's (the easy access motors). But a neighbour who's a senior is having problaems and asked me to take a look at this motor. Model - J15RELESR Serial - C 8489056.

He has it on a small pontoon boat. Since last fall it has been dying on him and hard starting and occasionally leaving him stranded. Not good when you're in your 80's! This season he's gone thru 3 tanks and then it hit a no start condition the other day when they called me. There was spark so I sprayed some pre mix in the carb and it fired right up. So obviously a carb issue. But I look at that carb and I see no way to get it out. It's damn tight in there and no way to reach the nuts that hold it on. Can anyone shed some light on this issue for me please. Does the power head have to come off to do carb work? EEuuiieee... it looks like a nightmare to get it off. It's electric start also and it's all crammed in there. Can it be anything else other than the carb? Is there any new high tech things they did on the '90's models?

Also, my Seloc manual only goes to '89. Is the '90 the same or similar to the '89 model? Can I use the Seloc as a rough guide?

Any help will be appreciated. thx, Steve

[tashasdaddy]

Steve you know better than to double post, hand slap.

[samo_ott]

It certainly wasn't intentional! I have no idea what happened! Wish I could delete one of them! If anyone can, please do so!