1988 evinrude 20hp no spark?

[bowfisher2636]

Hey guys,

Today someone gave me a 1988 Evinrude 20 HP. It hasn't been ran in 10 years. I checked the foot oil, compression, spark, and spark plug condition. Everything checked out, so I decided to take it to the water. After about 20 pulls it cranked, but ran like crud. A few minutes later, it opened up and ran like a champ. It was also pumping water like a champ. I drove it about 1000 yards. When I came back to the boat ramp, it died. When I tried to crank it again it would not hit. I checked for spark and it had none. My kill switch was in working order. I think it is the power pack but don't know for sure. It's an expensive part to order just to try out. My reason for thinking it's the power pack is that it got warm, died, and lost spark. For example, the electrical components probably heated to running temperature and expanded. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Bosunsmate]

Hard to know until its totally gone burger. You can resistance test the stator and also inspect things for signs of cracking.
You can also disconnect the kill circuit next time from the powerpack just to be totally sure. You can also look up cdielectronics and they give a few tests for your motor (resistance and voltage readings) which can indicate when somethings failing.
Another thing you can do is look for signs of wire failure. Often the wires rub on the housing as the timer base changes and they will short out, or you can feel the wires along their length and discover parts that are crumbling. On a salt motor that happens a lot. This website use to say where people are from which took away a lot of that guess work

Unfortunately though it does often need a total failure to find it out.

 

[bowfisher2636]

Update purchased a power pack and ran it like a scolded dog all summer I'm about to do another post and start some modifications to the motor from start to finish