1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

i have had this motor for a lot of years. i've replace the water pump fuel pump, carb kit points coil condeser. and recently it will not start with the electric starter. with the spark plugs grounded, it has weak and speratic spark.(dont sparks evertime) if i pull start it it will start. and idle good in the barrel. but at the lake it is afraid of the water lol and wont idle. bad miss and when it stalls it wont start for a while.

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

aloneim1 said:

i have had this motor for a lot of years. i've replace the water pump fuel pump, carb kit points coil condeser. and recently it will not start with the electric starter. with the spark plugs grounded, it has weak and speratic spark.(dont sparks evertime) if i pull start it it will start. and idle good in the barrel. but at the lake it is afraid of the water lol and wont idle. bad miss and when it stalls it wont start for a while.

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Retrace your steps. Something is wrong. Make sure you have good shiny clean connections on the wires and screw where it goes through the case. Remove the distributor cap and rig up a spark gap off the coil button. If you have good spark there (at cranking speed) but not off the plug wires, you have a distributor problem. Is the spring and carbon brush in the cap?

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

thanks 4 your reply i did just that and put another condenser in it fix all the problems. only thing now is when shifting from low to high the motor seems to stumble trying to come up to full throttle. how lean can i go on the low end mix/needle. and will that fix it.

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

aloneim1 said:

thanks 4 your reply i did just that and put another condenser in it fix all the problems. only thing now is when shifting from low to high the motor seems to stumble trying to come up to full throttle. how lean can i go on the low end mix/needle. and will that fix it.

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If it is a case of idle mixture adjustment, stumbling would indicate that it already is too lean.

But more likely, the problem is related to timing or synchronization.

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

the more i richen it up the worse it idles popp'in and miss fires but to lean it out the idle increases (thats to be expected) but then it shifts hard.

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

aloneim1 said:

the more i richen it up the worse it idles popp'in and miss fires but to lean it out the idle increases (thats to be expected) but then it shifts hard.

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That doesn't make sense. Popping and sneezing (actually called lean-sneeze) comes from being too lean.

Nevertheless, adjust the needles for best / smoothest idle. Then if it is running too fast for shifting, adjust the idle speed (rpm) with the idle stop screw. It is somewhere on the throttle linkage.

EDIT: My comments on idle adjustment assume you have the timing and synchronization correct. If that is not correct, you are wasting your time trying to adjust it out.

If the belt timing is off one notch advanced, it will cause high idle rpm and sneezing. If the carburetor throttle shaft is opening too early it will cause similar problems.

Re: 1964 sea king/johnson v4 60 weak spark

i will try that but probably wont be until this weekend. i will post what happens.
thanks again