I need help... Before this motor makes me a quitter. I recently bought an older Starcraft as a fishing boat. It has a 59 Evinrude 50 hp. I've been working on the boat and motor for a while now, trying to get it in the water for the first time. I finally got all the parts put in so that I could try and start it for the first time last week. It turned over, but wouldn't start. I re-set the timing belt on the magneto and set the points using an ohm meter. Still wouldn't start. Hmm...
I decided to get a can of starting fluid to see if it just need a little encouragement, and to my disbelief, it fired right up. I have the motor sunk in a barrel that barely covers the water intakes, which I thought would be sufficient. After it fired the first time I primed the fuel line and decided to try and get it to run, and it did. It was a little rough, but was starting to smooth out. Then it started to idle up pretty high so I tried to adjust the low low speed jets down a little thinking it was getting too much fuel. That didn't really help. Then it started to smoke quite a bit, but I thought that most of it was old oil burning off the motor. Then I started to get white smoke out of the exhaust. I shut it down and checked everything over. Everything seemed fine. I fired it up again and same thing. I wasn't sure if I was getting water through the motor so I shut it down, disconnected a water line between the head and the t-stat housing and figured I'd see if I was getting any water. I started it briefly and no water. I pulled the bottom end off so that I could check the impeller and everything looks ok to me, but this is the first time I've had a boat motor apart.
My questions, I guess, would be:
-If the water in my tub was bouncing up and down from the exhaust, could have that caused the water pump to not get a good hold on the water?
-What might cause excessive white smoke? (at least I think it was plain white, I didn't think about color until after the fact)
-What kind of temperatures do these run at? After I shut it off, I put a thermometer against the head and it was up around 190 to 200 degrees.
-Am I wasting my time with this gas guzzling (from what I've read) motor?
Thanks to anyone who has any insight.
I decided to get a can of starting fluid to see if it just need a little encouragement, and to my disbelief, it fired right up. I have the motor sunk in a barrel that barely covers the water intakes, which I thought would be sufficient. After it fired the first time I primed the fuel line and decided to try and get it to run, and it did. It was a little rough, but was starting to smooth out. Then it started to idle up pretty high so I tried to adjust the low low speed jets down a little thinking it was getting too much fuel. That didn't really help. Then it started to smoke quite a bit, but I thought that most of it was old oil burning off the motor. Then I started to get white smoke out of the exhaust. I shut it down and checked everything over. Everything seemed fine. I fired it up again and same thing. I wasn't sure if I was getting water through the motor so I shut it down, disconnected a water line between the head and the t-stat housing and figured I'd see if I was getting any water. I started it briefly and no water. I pulled the bottom end off so that I could check the impeller and everything looks ok to me, but this is the first time I've had a boat motor apart.
My questions, I guess, would be:
-If the water in my tub was bouncing up and down from the exhaust, could have that caused the water pump to not get a good hold on the water?
-What might cause excessive white smoke? (at least I think it was plain white, I didn't think about color until after the fact)
-What kind of temperatures do these run at? After I shut it off, I put a thermometer against the head and it was up around 190 to 200 degrees.
-Am I wasting my time with this gas guzzling (from what I've read) motor?
Thanks to anyone who has any insight.