Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

At the end of last season, my motor was running OK, until the afternoon of that last day. It started missing and loosing power. I checked compression on all cyls and it looked good. This spring I replaced all of my coils and plugs and took her back out. Had exactly the same behavior. Missing/loss of power. So, next stop was to replace the power pack. Ordered a CDI113-1731 power pack and installed it yesterday. Verified all the wiring was correct, (Moved only one wire from the old to the new at a time) and attempted to start the motor. Nada. Would not fire at all.

I haven't troubleshot the timerbase or stator yet. I suspect that the wire for the timer base or stator could be bad. Stressing and moving them made it go from intermittent to dead.

I was wondering if anyone has seen something like this before. (Ezeke?)

Thanks much,
--Terry

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

Have you ruled out the kill wire by disconnecting it?

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

I have not. My control cable wiring is in pretty good shap but I will be sure and check that when I start troubleshooting.

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

It finally quit raining long enough for me to troubleshoot this problem. I don't have anything to definitively say what the problem is, but here are my finding.

The kill wire is working as it should. Infinite resistance when the key is "on".
The charge coil on the stator produces 85volts when connected to the power pack. It produces 135 volts open circuit.
The stator's charge coil has 625 ohms of resistance open circuit.
The open circuit resistance of each of the sensors is 8 ohms.

So, these all appear outside the nominal ratings of the troubleshooting guide provided by CDI. I am unsure how to proceed.

Thanks for any advice.

Regards,
Terry

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

The CDI resistance is different than the 1973 OE resistance for the sensor coil wiring. OE leads 2 and 4 should read 8.5 ohms, +/- 1. Sensor leads 1 and 3 should read the same.

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

Thanks for the response ezeke! I used the 2nd troubleshooting procedure in the CDI pamphlet. I removed the spark plugs and get spark on all 4 cylinders. Looks like they are throwing strong arcs at 35KV. It says I may need to adjust the trigger gap to get spark. I suspect this is due to an impedance difference with the early model sensors.

Any tips on doing this? I have replaced the stator before (Thanks again ezeke), so I am familiar with the flywheel removal procedure.

Thanks guys!

--Terry

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

The sensor coils should be properly aligned so that they are passed within .020 of the sensor magnets at the center of the flywheel.

Re: Ignition issue 73' Evinrude 115

This past weekend I pulled the flywheel but didn't really determine a way to "adjust" the sensor coils. After putting everything back together, I tested spark with the plugs in. It was now producing spark on all 4 cyls. So I added fuel and it roared back to life. Took it out on the water that afternoon. It started and purred like a kitten. I was having issues with it idling properly and producing power last season and it does not have those problems now. It is now extremely responsive to throttle changes and produces a wealth of power.

Thanks guys!

--Terry