1960's glastron with a 1965 40hp johnson help!

Ok so just bought a boat out of the blue because my girlfriends friend needed money (never owned a boat or new much about boats). Did some research and found out it is a 1967-69 glastron with a 1965 40 hp johnson motor with electric start. Previous owner said it ran so i assumed it did. Got it home and started tinkering with it. Had to install a new starter solenoid and re wire all it all back together. Got it to crank over and pretty much start right up within a couple seconds.(had it in a garbage can filled with water) But the problems i am having is that the lower cylinder is not getting spark, switch plugs to check that and that was not the problem. Not sure if the if it gets spark from a one or two coils or where they are (havent dug that far into the motor.) And the other problem is that the motor was also getting hot fairly quick. I believe the impeller isnt working or somthing is clogged in the intake line which im am also not sure where is. If someone could help me out here and give me some ideas to check it would be greatly appriciated. I would like to post pics here soon if you guys would like them. might help us both out.

thanks kevin

Re: 1960's glastron with a 1965 40hp johnson help!

I never rely on what the previous owner says about the motor unless he demonstrates the motor running for me. If he can't/won't demonstrate, I always check compression before I buy the motor. If it has good compression, the rest I can fix.

You probably need to do some troubleshooting of the ignition system. There are two coils and each fires a separate cylinder. If the bottom cylinder has no spark, it could be the rear coil is bad, or it could be the cut-out switch is bad. Cut-out switch is that square switch on the starboard side with wires going to the center and a vacuum hose coming off it. It is designed to kill the bottom cylinder in a runaway situation. If you disconnect the wires and still get no spark, then it is most likely the coil, or bad point set to the bottom cylinder. Coils are under the flywheel, which needs to be removed in order to service them. A harmonic puller is required to remove the flywheel, and a torque wrench is needed to reinstall the flywheel.

If it's not spitting water out the large hole on the back of the leg, it's probably the impeller. Impeller is inside the water pump and sits on top of the lower unit. You have to drop the lower to get to it. Removing the lower unit is not that hard, but procedure varies depending on whether you have a manual shift or electric shift motor. That motor could also have a bad/stuck thermostat causing your overheating problem.

I'd get a service manual if you intend on working on the motor yourself.

Re: 1960's glastron with a 1965 40hp johnson help!

Thanks for the quick reply lindy,
So far I have done some work with the johnson. I tore down the lower unit and figured out how overthing worked, cleaned out the inpleller area and also flushed out the coolent lines. Tested it out hooked up to a gardon hose instead of a garbage can and it stayed cool just like it should. Since that step is out of the way its back to the bottom cylinder being funky. I have done some reading and found out that the run away switch could cause the bottom cylinder not to fire. I think this may be my problem. Not sure how to test it?? I also think it is bad because when I put a new starter solenoid in, it was from napa originally for a ford truck. Not sure what the difference is but somwhere i read that an auto solenoid will fry some things, sending to much juice to whatever it powers. Also I was wondering if I could disconnect the runaway switch to see is if was bad??