Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here guys, appreciate any responses in advance. My 1987 (I think) 'rude 88 SPL has been acting up. Bought the boat/motor this spring, ran it many times until the last few weeks when it has been acting up. Basically, it doesn't start reliably and doesn't like to idle for longer than a few minutes without shutting itself off. What I know has been done on it is fuel tank replacement, new carbs, new fuel/water separator, new plugs.

Fast forward to this week - I bit the bullet and brought it into a mechanic who knows old rudes and he said at first crank he could hear a bad piston. I was surprised to hear this because it pushes my boat 35mph no problem and has run very well the last few months - he said that he has run outboards with a single blown piston before without issues. Is this possible? He said to leave the boat and he would take a look and see if there is anything else minor that could cause the rough idle/start issue. For example the contacts on the coil connectors were very corroded.

My 2 questions:

• Would the piston issue cause poor idle and trouble starting? They seem unrelated to me but I am obviously no expert.
• Do you think I need to dump the motor and get something else right away or could it wait until after this season? If I get another used one, what is involved in hooking up controls?

Thank you!

Re: Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

Do a compression check to see if a cylinder is low I would be a little leary of a mechanic who can tell that a cylinder is bad just by cranking it over

Re: Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

crb478 said:

Do a compression check to see if a cylinder is low I would be a little leary of a mechanic who can tell that a cylinder is bad just by cranking it over

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Or one who claims that an engine will run perfectly fine with a "blown piston". I'd bet you'll easily find better mechanics right here on this forum (and some of them have been a huge help to me).

Yes, check compression. Get a spark tester and make sure you have good spark on all cylinders. Take a look at the plugs and report back what they look like (one plug that's significantly different could point to a carb problem, for instance).

Re: Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

metriccrescentwrench said:

Or one who claims that an engine will run perfectly fine with a "blown piston". I'd bet you'll easily find better mechanics right here on this forum (and some of them have been a huge help to me).

Yes, check compression. Get a spark tester and make sure you have good spark on all cylinders. Take a look at the plugs and report back what they look like (one plug that's significantly different could point to a carb problem, for instance).

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I think I have confused the term "blown piston" with "low compression" on a cylinder. I'll see what he comes back with but will certainly test the compression myself when I get my boat back.

Side note, when I changed the plugs last week the old ones were black & oily, all of them looked pretty similar.

Re: Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

Just an update after a month or so - the mechanic adjusted the timing & idle as well as cleaned all electrical connections. He said he found lots of corrosion and now she starts first time, every time. Compression test checked out OK so it looks like I won't be re-powering right away.

Thanks for the insight.

Re: Evinrude 88 SPL Problems - What do to next?

That old mechanic was right. On those V-4's, you can tell if you have a weak or bad cyl by just cranking it over and listening to it. Been there.