'85 Evinrude 115, won't start after WOT

[Outlawjrb]

Yesterday, started the boat in the water in the morning, starts like new. Idles good. Put it in gear, idle a bit, let it warm up. When I start to give it throttle, the bow starts to rise, and it's almost like the motor kinda "hangs" at 3000 rpm for maybe 5 seconds. As I feed it more throttle, it vibrates a little and then it starts to plane, and the motor flies and all is great. But yesterday, as I slowed down from WOT, it just died. I couldn't start it again, it just turned and turned. But the bendix on the starter was stuck engaged, so I gave a gentle tap and it disengaged. So I tried to start it again, and it just turned without firing at all. So I drifted for half an hour, then tried to start it again, and it fired up! So I just kicked it into gear, and idled our way back to shore. But it ran the rest of the day just fine if I idled and trolled. I shut it off and started it 10 times just fine. What's going on? Any ideas? The starter bendix was sticking on, but a tap made it go down. The stator maybe? Help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[crb478]

Re: '85 Evinrude 115, won't start after WOT

Off hand I would look toward your advance mechanism sticking. That is just a quick guess though. Hopefully some of the real experts can give you better advise.

 

[jonesg]

Re: '85 Evinrude 115, won't start after WOT

Besides the control cables possibly being stretched or not adjusted properly, the ignition linkage sticking...

did you try pumping the bulb when it wouldn't fire up.
Its possible the starter got overheated from all the cranking.

You need to find out if its fuel or ignition related.
I think you can try loosening a float bowl drain screw to see if the bowls have run dry when it won't start.
To see if its ignition put a timing light on a sparkplug wire to see if its getting spark.(when it won't start)

 

[Outlawjrb]

Re: '85 Evinrude 115, won't start after WOT

I tried pumping the bulb when it wouldn't start and it was stiff, so the pressure is there. When I was WOT on the lake it was pulling good and wasn't sputtering or anything like that, it was just when I slowed down to stop basically that it just died. The fuel is getting to it properly, but it's very strange that it ran perfectly fine after I let it cool off. Of course, I only trolled and never went on plane after that. Can something electrical heat up or short out to a point where it would not deliver spark? If so, I have no idea what it could be. Thanks for the advice JonesG. If you have anything else for me it would be great! In the meantime I'll test for spark and check the float bowl.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: '85 Evinrude 115, won't start after WOT

you may have picked up a plastic bag, etc, that restricted water flow, engine heated up. after it cooled down, it started, you also could have a impeller going bad, pumping just enough water to keep it from going into over heat zone. or a tstats that are starting to fail. the motor has to turn +- 300 rpms, to generate enough spark, to start. if it was hot, and getting close to seizing, things expand, and the motor becomes harder to turn over.