asdasc
Senior Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2008
- Messages
- 680
Background: My 18hp had new coils when I got it, so I never pulled the flywheel. It starts right up, idles nice, lacks power - but I attributed that to a very heavy pontoon boat. It was very smooth and quiet.
A buddy has the same motor and I saw it running for the first time the other day, huge difference, so I knew something was wrong. Upon further investigation, I had a bad plug and was running on one cylinder. Thru the inspection plate I can see the points are not adjusted right. They are close to .040 (double what they should be). It no longer runs very smoothly, but has LOTS more power.
Question: I know the points gap effects timing, how urgently do I need to pull the flywheel and fix that? Am I doing any damage? My guess is that since I wasn't able to get any RPMs in the past, timing wasn't an issue. Now that I can turn more RPMs, it probably is a bigger issue.
PS I can't adjust them thru the inspection plate, they ran the points ground wires across the adjusting screw.
A buddy has the same motor and I saw it running for the first time the other day, huge difference, so I knew something was wrong. Upon further investigation, I had a bad plug and was running on one cylinder. Thru the inspection plate I can see the points are not adjusted right. They are close to .040 (double what they should be). It no longer runs very smoothly, but has LOTS more power.
Question: I know the points gap effects timing, how urgently do I need to pull the flywheel and fix that? Am I doing any damage? My guess is that since I wasn't able to get any RPMs in the past, timing wasn't an issue. Now that I can turn more RPMs, it probably is a bigger issue.
PS I can't adjust them thru the inspection plate, they ran the points ground wires across the adjusting screw.