Please bear with me, I am a bit of a newbie to boating but have already spent hours searching, including some hints found here. This may be a bit long-winded.
The Problem:
We are using/maintaining a friend's cottage who are out of the country, that comes with a pontoon boat with an Evinrude 50hp 4-stroke, which I believe to be about 1999-2001 vintage. There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on this engine. Ever since it hit the water in early July, the top end isn't there, and it will not rev over ~3000RPM. It runs smooth enough, starts, idles etc and spark plugs aren't fouled, new gas, cooling is working, and no engine lights or alarms.
I have found a few posts that refer to the neutral safety switch and from what I can gather, it does two things, one killing the ignition when out of neutral (which works OK) but also it signals that it is in neutral which and the ECM then limits the revs. If it comes "out of adjustment" the boat will start and run but is still rev-limited as if it is in neutral.
Unfortunately it is a serious undertaking to get it out of the water and to a shop to get checked out so I want to do as much as possible before heading down that path.
Questions:
1) Is this the way this particular safety switch works?
2) Where do you check or make adjustments - pictures would be best because the throttle linkage is buried behind the intake manifold and not easy to get at.
3) Can you reset the ECM by disconnecting the battery for a period of time
4) Anything else, specifics are good. I don't necessarily want to spend the $$ on a repair manual (yet) I really have to, and a trip to the dealer is largely out of the question (no tow vehicle).
Many thanks...Stu
The Problem:
We are using/maintaining a friend's cottage who are out of the country, that comes with a pontoon boat with an Evinrude 50hp 4-stroke, which I believe to be about 1999-2001 vintage. There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on this engine. Ever since it hit the water in early July, the top end isn't there, and it will not rev over ~3000RPM. It runs smooth enough, starts, idles etc and spark plugs aren't fouled, new gas, cooling is working, and no engine lights or alarms.
I have found a few posts that refer to the neutral safety switch and from what I can gather, it does two things, one killing the ignition when out of neutral (which works OK) but also it signals that it is in neutral which and the ECM then limits the revs. If it comes "out of adjustment" the boat will start and run but is still rev-limited as if it is in neutral.
Unfortunately it is a serious undertaking to get it out of the water and to a shop to get checked out so I want to do as much as possible before heading down that path.
Questions:
1) Is this the way this particular safety switch works?
2) Where do you check or make adjustments - pictures would be best because the throttle linkage is buried behind the intake manifold and not easy to get at.
3) Can you reset the ECM by disconnecting the battery for a period of time
4) Anything else, specifics are good. I don't necessarily want to spend the $$ on a repair manual (yet) I really have to, and a trip to the dealer is largely out of the question (no tow vehicle).
Many thanks...Stu