1985 Johnson 150 VRO

[davewrit]

I have a 1985 Johnson 150 VRO which has always been hard to cold start, but has rcently (seemingly) gotten worse. It also seems to intermittently, especially at low, no wake type speed, run on less than all cylinders. Obvious things like fuel, filters and plugs have been checked. Ideas?

 

[outboardboy]

Re: 1985 Johnson 150 VRO

It sounds like you may have one or more cloged carburator jets. If it is hard to start when cold (when a motor requires more fuel) and running on less than all cylinders at low speeds sounds like clogged Jets. These carburators are not as complicated as you might think, you might want to try it your self. And I would unhook that vro and mix the gas and oil manually, many a motor has been ruined due to oil injection problems.

 

[JB]

Re: 1985 Johnson 150 VRO

I agree with outboardboy. Sounds like you are losing, or not starting, two cylinders. That suggests a cause that is common to only those two. That means a carb. The times that you get the problem suggests a low speed jet is clogging.

 

[Bluefish]

Re: 1985 Johnson 150 VRO

I have found on my outboard a constain problem with the floats stiking, a guick fix instade of dissambling the carbs is disconnect the overflow hoses install a 5" peace of hose and spray a carb cleaner down each bowl let sit 5 or 10 min and run the engine try a few times this fixes the hard start poor idle.Hope this helps let me know if you need more info have to run work time.

 

[Dunk]

Re: 1985 Johnson 150 VRO

Dave, the first thing to do is get her compression checked. Carbs usually don't clog up unless the engines been siting with unstabilized fuel in it over the winter. I'm not saying it can't be the carbs, but if she runs at faster speeds I doubt it is.<br /><br /> When was the last time you ran a decarbonizer through her like OMC Engine Tuner or Seafoam?? Those old OMC crossflow V6's were the kings of carbon. They'd run fine as long as you took care of the combustion chamber carbon evey 50-75hrs.