135 Evinrude not staring easily and seizing up at cruising speed

Hopegully someone might have an idea of what is going on. I recently bought a 1973 Evinrude 135 starflite. I went through the motor pretty well before taking it out on the lake. Plugs, impeller, new gas, compression check, cleaned carbs, decarbed at ramp before taking out. It revs p and idles ok when warm. I still have to use starting fluid to get it to start though. What is a common problem that would cause this? I was thinking possibly the fuel pump but wasn't sure. I wqas really ready to take it out and see how it ran so even though it was hard to keep it running I went ahead and took it out and got the boat on plane. Got about 500 yards at wot and the ungine shut off. It would not turn over and I could not move the flywheel by hand. After letting it sit for about 10 minutes I was able to start it back up and head back in. About half way in it did it again but only a couple minutes and it started back up. Also, when I checked compression all were at 150 accept for one which was at 90. I haven't checked it since I started it the first time. I was hoping the rings would seat and it would pick up but not sure yet. Any suggestions of what to check would be appreciated.

Re: 135 Evinrude not staring easily and seizing up at cruising speed

Hopefull you are using pre-mix to start the engine and not off the shelf starting fluid!!!!!! starting fluid contains no type of lubrication and can cause internal damage of your engine. what type of gas mixture are you running? you could have spun a crank bearing and that is probably why your engine keeps seizing up!

Re: 135 Evinrude not staring easily and seizing up at cruising speed

There are several problems in cold starting the 1973-1977 crossflow engines.

The engine must turn at 300 RPM to start cold. This requires a fully charged, powerful battery.

The choke plates must close 100% and stay closed while cranking for a cold start. This allows the vacuum created by the pistons to pull a necessarily richer mix of fuel into the firing chambers. The only way to be sure that the chokes are working properly is to remove the cover so that you can watch the plates and see that they stay 100% closed while you crank the engine.

The 1973 V4 motors had a automatic choke function as well as a toggle switch on the remote control. The automatic choke did not work well and most were disabled by service departments in the 1970's. The better method is to hold the toggle switch while turning the ignition key to start. The problem with the automatic choke was that it continued to choke the engine after warmup, causing the engine to flood.

Generally, when a motor dies at cruising speed in the way you describe, it is binding because it has overheated. The thermostat must be clear and functioning and the water pump must be in good shape.

The lost of pressure in one of your cylinders could be because of a blown cylinder head gasket, usually caused by overheating.

At any rate, you cannot continue to run the engine with that large a variation or you will destroy it, so get a new head gasket and pull the cylinder head so that you can see what is happening there.

Re: 135 Evinrude not staring easily and seizing up at cruising speed

you should have followed this when you bought it. http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=158086