Down Cylinder on Evinrude 200 Ocean Pro

I just purchased a boat for next to nothing and the guy told me he took it to a shop and was told there was no compression in one of the 6 cylinders. Well I bought it anyway and have been trying to get in touch with repair shops which are not returning my calls. So I am turning to you all for help. My question is what could be the reason it has no compression? I have been told I will have to change the power head, or my head gasket is bad ,and it could be my rings are bad. Either way I dont know. The motor runs fine at idle for a while then will sputter but when I throttle it up it doesnt sputter and runs fine. I was told at an idle fuel was building inside the down cylinder and when it ignites it sputters and when I throttled it up it was burning the excess fuel off so thats why it wasnt sputtering at high throttle. I dont know if thats the case or not it could just be bad fuel. Anyway let me know what you all think so when I do get in touch with some repair shop I dont sound like a complete idiot and they charge me for something that I dont need.

Re: Down Cylinder on Evinrude 200 Ocean Pro

if there is NO compression in that cylinder it should not fire at ALL. If there is NO compression my guess would be more of a bad piston or rings more then a bad head gasket. If the carbs were fouled up and ran lean it possibly could have melted a hole in the piston. I had a motor that did that, with a compression guage i got 0 compression. You could aways pull that head off and check it out.

Re: Down Cylinder on Evinrude 200 Ocean Pro

have you done a compression check, spark check yourself. order a manual so when the shop tells you something, you have an idea what they are talking about. or are you taking the word of the seller, who took the word of the shop, that wanted to make money. the uninformed are the ones that get taken advange of.

Re: Down Cylinder on Evinrude 200 Ocean Pro

If you aren't will to pay, you have to be willing to do it yourself....get some tools, compression gauge, pull the plugs, etc. and then start from what you find...can't just start wondering what to do....