69 evinrude 55 lost spark?

I was given a 1969 55hp evinrude last year that looked like new under the hood, except for the wiring, it was rotted bad. I rewired the whole wiring harness, cleaned the carbs, checked compression 135 all 3 cylinders, hooked up a battery to in and after a spray of fuel in each carb it fired up instantly, so I hooked up a fuel tank and ran it again, it fired instantly again and ran for about 30 seconds and I shut it off, on the next try no spark? I dont have a clue what could have happened. I think this motor sat for a very long time before I got it. can someone please help?

Re: 69 evinrude 55 lost spark?

Ilovewalleye said:

I was given a 1969 55hp evinrude last year that looked like new under the hood, except for the wiring, it was rotted bad. I rewired the whole wiring harness, cleaned the carbs, checked compression 135 all 3 cylinders, hooked up a battery to in and after a spray of fuel in each carb it fired up instantly, so I hooked up a fuel tank and ran it again, it fired instantly again and ran for about 30 seconds and I shut it off, on the next try no spark? I dont have a clue what could have happened. I think this motor sat for a very long time before I got it. can someone please help?

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Kind of hard for us to diagnose the problem from a distance. You are going to have to get out your multimeter and a wiring diagram and locate the problem in an orderly fashion. The other option is to start tearing into stuff and replacing expensive parts till you get lucky.

But for a beginning point, check voltage at the amplifier input. Then disconnect the coil and unscrew the whole thing from the distributor cap, and remount the coil. Rig up a spark gap off the wire and see if you have spark there. That test eliminates the distributor.

Then, if no spark there, disconnect the wire going to the points and brush it across a bare metal grounded part. If you get spark across your rigged up spark gap now, you have a problem with the points.

A knowledge of how and why it works or doesn't work is manditory.

Stumbling around in the dark can instantly blow some expensive stuff.

Re: 69 evinrude 55 lost spark?

I've got a wiring diagram but where should I start with the testing?

Re: 69 evinrude 55 lost spark?

I have 12 volts to the amplifier,12 volts out to the vaccum switch, but nothing to the coil.