1998 J70TLEC Idle Problem

[Asport-16]

just did a bunch of work to my motor. Carbon reeds, carb rebuild, tstat, impeller. The motor runs better than before. Its Obvious the carbon reeds made a difference, however its idle in the water is 15-1600! It goes in gear,a little hard, which i know is no good. But it idles in gear at 8-900. Thats where it should be in neutral at idle. Runs great at all rpm’s and wot. So im stumped if i dont fix this idle problem ill be learning next how to rebuild my lower unit. I got no airleaks, i also replaced all the fuel lines from tank to motor any help or experience advise would be appreciated and thanks

 

[flyingscott]

Did you do a link and sync? Did you adjust the throttle cable so it pulls the arm against the idle stop?

 

[havoc_squad]

That sounds like a classic throttle cable slack adjustment issue. There isn't enough pre-load tension taking up the slack so the throttle at minimum is not pushing the throttle arm on the motor to the idle speed stop screw.

This is assuming that you had correctly did the link n' sync per service manual as flying scott is asking.

I bet if you push the throttle arm to back to the lowest point at the outboard motor where it connects to the throttle cable, you'll find the idle probably will normalize to the proper RPM's.

With the engine off, move the throttle arm back and forth with it on the cable. Use that slack distance to closely take up as much slack but don't go over that.

If there is a published min/max throttle cable adjustment distance in your model's factory service manual, you'll want to follow that data.

I made the mistake of not recognizing too much slack/takeup by the plastic throttle cable arm was there. Once I had no need for medium/high idle throttle for cold engine start, my return throttle to minimum didn't work.

Went to the throttle arm on the outboard and pushed it to the idle speed screw stop and everything normalized. Diagnosis, throttle cable tension was not adjusted correctly.