1960 Evinrude fisherman 5.5 starving for air

Jtp03819

Recruit
Joined
Jul 4, 2022
Messages
2
I hope that someone here can help me with this problem I’m experiencing. I purchased this motor for my 77 year old father so he can move it on his own at a remote off the grid cabin in the middle of the woods. When I purchased it the former owner told me it had been in storage for 20+ years. So I did a complete ignition and carburetor rebuild (it actually had the original cork float in it). After that it ran like a champ for a week while I used it and then winterized it for the end of the season. This year it ran good for a couple of days and then I started having ignition problems with it. So I brought it home 6 1/2 hour drive to trouble shoot it. I found out that when I replaced the coils I didn’t tuck the primary coil wire down enough and the flywheel rubbed through it and it was shorting out the coil and dropping out the bottom cylinder. Now that everything has been repaired again I was testing it before I let my father bring it back up to camp and it was running like a champ just like before. I was running it with the cowl off because I was still tuning it. When he came over to pick it up I wanted him to run it ( mostly to make sure he could do it) so I had him put the cowl on and start it. I noticed that it wasn’t running so good so I started playing with it. When I took off to cowl it started running great again. Put it back on and it dogged down again. I did this a couple of times. I checked the carburetor to see if there was an air adjustment screw and there isn’t. I then pulled off the air silencer to see if there was some kind of obstruction and there wasn’t. One thing to mention here is that I’m running it in a 45 gallon trash can with a gas mixture of 24:1 so it smokes a lot. Any chance that it is just sucking int a lot of exhaust and just not combusting good with dirty air? Maybe it would get clean air on a boat since the exhaust will just dissipate? Any help with this one would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
 

racerone

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
36,454
It is not what I think.------It is up to you to do some simple testing.-----Most test tanks at outboard shops have an exhaust fan.
 

oldboat1

Fleet Admiral
Joined
Apr 3, 2002
Messages
9,612
'60 fisherman has an idle speed screw on top front for air/fuel adjustment, and a high speed one on the bottom. (not sure if those are what you were referring to). See if the top rear of the hood has a vent at or under the lift grip -- if so, insure it is unblocked.
 
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