johnson evinrude 1989 20 hp outboard trouble help!!

hello my father has recently purchased a river cruiser with an evinrude 20 the engine ran ok ish for a few weeks then decided to start seriously flood and ever fuel when lrft for a week or so, on crank over have managed to discover that we were mis informed about the primer unit we were told it was a fuel on fuel off lever which now we know it isnt, i am a envine reconditioner but i am used to 4 stroke car engines, thisgs i have done - check float cut off valve - fine, replace inlet chamber gasket, check all fuel lines- clear, adjust idle mixture screw- only seems to adjust faster running of the engine not so the idle, basically we have the engine running on a bench but thats easy when its on the boat with everything hooked up its a nighmare as it fairly inaccessable. are there any more checks or common faults on this engine, all gaskets are sealing, compression is 125psi on each cyl, good spark, primer solinoid is between 4.5 and 5.5 ohms, new plugs ngk equiv of the std champion ones, thing is we need to get this up the thames to reading and dont want it to die again and end up in the sea :-(
thanks for any help

Re: johnson evinrude 1989 20 hp outboard trouble help!!

are you running in a tank? the idle will have to be set higher when testing on the bench, and fined tuned on the river. unless the European version is different, that motor has fixed jets, no adjustment, so it sounds like you still have a carb problem. the jets are screw in till the are softly seated. the red handle needs to be back over the solenoid body, (picture) read this: http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=244013

Re: johnson evinrude 1989 20 hp outboard trouble help!!

hi right yeah have managed to work out the solenoid however had it running nicely in a tank then after a while of idleing it cut out again checked the plugs and they were wet again and ther is now no spark so thinking points are prob and have been from the start, if there breaking down will show the same as if it had to much fuel ie not burining it. bloody headache