1969 55HP Evinrude trouble after carb rebuild

Just got my boat back from a guy who works on boat motors at a marina and works on them at home on his spare time. I have heard he does a good work. So I took it to him to do a Carb kit install and clean out the high speed jets. When I took it out of the water it idled fine, started fine. but I couldn't get WOT cause it would bog down. Now the mystery begins. He called me and said I have a problem with the motor. He said it is electrical because he couldn't get it to idle. I went over there to listen to it and it wouldn't start and when it did it ran rough and sometimes sputtered and ran backwards and smoked like a chimney. Now, this didn't do this when I pulled it out of the water. WHAT GIVES !!!!!!!!

Re: 1969 55HP Evinrude trouble after carb rebuild

Rule Number One ANYTIME I work on a Johnnyrude with amplified battery ignition: Assume that it needs a new $300 ignition amplifier cuz 99% of the time they do. You took it to him and had him do a specific repair that might or might not have been the problem, or might have been one of multiple problems. Next time, tell him what it does, not what you want done.

Customer once brought in a Merc and wanted the carbs rebuilt. OK, I can do that. But first I always check compression and spark. He had no spark on one cylinder. He needed a switchbox, not carbs rebuilt. Service Manager calls him "Do you want us to rebuild the carbs or fix the problem?" Nuff said.

When J/E ignition amps start to fail, weather conditions vastly affect their functions. Specifically temperature and humidity.

Re: 1969 55HP Evinrude trouble after carb rebuild

It was runnng fine at 15-20 mph just couldn't get on plane. When I posted my first thread on here I mentioned all of that and someone in this forum told me I needed a carb cleaning and that the high speed jets need cleaning too, so thats what I told him to do. Now it smokes and runs like sh_t. I do have another 55hp rude sitting in my shed with all new electrical components. Im thinking of changing motors cause now since he installed new carb kits and the motor running backwards, I have oil seepage coming out around the spark plugs.

Re: 1969 55HP Evinrude trouble after carb rebuild

So it's his fault the motor is running backwards? Carbs have nothing to do with that. Ignition has everything to do with that. There's a clip around the crankshaft that kills the ignition if the motor even tries to run backwards. It ain't there or it's slipped out of alignment. It's under the flywheel, nowhere near the carbs. There are two sets of points and a greased wick that lubricates the cam. The wick dried out, the rubbing blocks on the points wore down, the points gaps closed to next to nothing, the timing was thrown out of wack. Now it's quite possible that those carbs needed cleaning, I wouldn't be at all suprised. But cleaning them made the motor run which caused the points to wear which threw the timing off which made the motor run backwards which shouldn't have happened because there's a third thing wrong with it. These outboards in particular are downright peculiar and few understand them. Nothing familiarizes a mechanic more than owning one of these wacky things. I'm on my second. First was a 60, now a 100. I get them cheap.

There's an automatic half-choke that you need to disable. There's a thermoswitch left and low on the head. Clip either wire (purple/yellow) and tape the ends. That should handle the excessive smoking and some of the poor running characteristics. That feature never was worth a sh**!

Don't count that amplifier out quite yet. Address the stuff under the flywheel first. Be very careful of the distributor, they break with little provocation.