1996 mariner 25 hp (rebranded mercury, same motor as merc 25 hp) 2 stroke, long shaft, tiller, electric starter. Fresh water.
I got it on a boat I bought last fall. I've put it through some decent usage since then. Never really had any trouble with it.
This past weekend, I took it out fishing. At one point I had trouble starting it and figured I had flooded it (I'm sure I did) so I let it sit. Half hour later it started fine. Same problem again later but it wouldn't start up again after that.
Took the boat home and checked it out. Replaced the spark plugs right away since I had new ones lying around that I hadn't bothered to put in yet. Could not get it to turn over at all. Took out a plug to see if it had spark. Most of the time it didn't, but here or there as I cranked, it would spark. Not a "one spark here, one spark there" type of thing-- it would start sparkign and spark 100% of the time it was supposed to (and the other spark that was still in the cylinder would properly combust) for a second or two. Then nothing.
I worked on it a long time to see what was wrong, wiggled wires, etc. Twice I was able to get it to spark enough to actually get the thing to start-- and once it got started and was running, it would run as if there were no problems at all. Then I'd kill it and the intermittent spark problems would happen again.
I don't know very much about the specifics of ignition systems so I didn't really know where to look from there. I'm not stumped at the fact that there is an intermittent spark, but the fact that it sparks just fine sometimes, but usually not at all... that seems weird to me.
So, I'm looking for ideas. If you have any idea what specifically might be broken or what else I could do to narrow down the problem, I'm out of ideas at this point and would love to hear it.
Thanks in advance,
Scott
I got it on a boat I bought last fall. I've put it through some decent usage since then. Never really had any trouble with it.
This past weekend, I took it out fishing. At one point I had trouble starting it and figured I had flooded it (I'm sure I did) so I let it sit. Half hour later it started fine. Same problem again later but it wouldn't start up again after that.
Took the boat home and checked it out. Replaced the spark plugs right away since I had new ones lying around that I hadn't bothered to put in yet. Could not get it to turn over at all. Took out a plug to see if it had spark. Most of the time it didn't, but here or there as I cranked, it would spark. Not a "one spark here, one spark there" type of thing-- it would start sparkign and spark 100% of the time it was supposed to (and the other spark that was still in the cylinder would properly combust) for a second or two. Then nothing.
I worked on it a long time to see what was wrong, wiggled wires, etc. Twice I was able to get it to spark enough to actually get the thing to start-- and once it got started and was running, it would run as if there were no problems at all. Then I'd kill it and the intermittent spark problems would happen again.
I don't know very much about the specifics of ignition systems so I didn't really know where to look from there. I'm not stumped at the fact that there is an intermittent spark, but the fact that it sparks just fine sometimes, but usually not at all... that seems weird to me.
So, I'm looking for ideas. If you have any idea what specifically might be broken or what else I could do to narrow down the problem, I'm out of ideas at this point and would love to hear it.
Thanks in advance,
Scott