86 Johnson 110?

[Ranger 335v]

I have an 86 Johnson 110 HP outboard on my Ranger. The Johnson was rebuilt 3 years ago by a Marine Mechanic who is now gone. The boat belonged to my uncle and ran great 2 years ago. He pulled the gas tank out and a few other parts to get to a live well issue and never put it back together. I put things back in order over the past month and took the boat out for the first time today.

Everything checked out, except the Johnson. Here are my issues.

It started up and idled rough. I replaced the plugs with NGK, all fuel lines replaced, new plug wires.

It will rev in neutral but then slowly starts to bog down. Almost like it is flooded. You can smell fuel.

Once we got it going, it would hit about 25 and start to plane out, at 30 it would bog and die. It was rough to start again but after a lot of playing around we would get it to go. This time not over 10 mph. It will idle around in both rev. and forward gears, with any load it starts to bog and wants to die.

The engine says V4 with VRO on the bottom. We ran 50:1 mix on a new full tank with a can of sea foam added.

The engine feels like it has a miss all the time. When it dies it has a large "pumpf" air back out and will kick hard. It will die at idle periodically.

Never could get it to run out of the system.

Any ideas on what it could be? I live in Southeastern Indiana and I am totally new to the boating game. I have raced cars and built engines, but outboards are greek to me.

Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Also on the engine someone has disconnected and plugged one line on the carb and one on the base of the engine housing where the fuel line enters. (two total lines come in at the bottom pass side of housing)

On the throttle control I know what the key is obviously, the idle lever, the remote kill switch but there is a three prong wire that doesn't seem to matter if it is hooked up and a flat knob of sorts that turns left and right that i can figure out what it does. Any ideas?

Thanks and Semper Fi,

Rod

 

[Joe Reeves]

Re: 86 Johnson 110?

You say it ran great two years ago.... I assume it has been siting for those two years. If so, the carburetors are fouled and will require cleaning and rebuilding with new complete kits, kits are available on this site, your dealership, marine stores, etc.

Check compression.... what are the readings?

Check spark (with the spark plugs removed).... spark should jump a 7/16" gap with a strong blue lightning like flame... a real SNAP! Does it? Note that the 7/16" gap is important.

Plugs should be Champion QL77JC4 plugs gapped at either .030 or .040 . Try both settings and compare performance. The .040 was the original recommended setting and was revised to .030 at some point in the 1990s.

Plugged line (oil line) at the entrance of the hood pan..... the VRO feature (auto oil mix) has been discontinued. It is now manatory that a mixture of 50/1 be used... 1 pint of TCW-III 50/1 oil to 6 gallons of gasoline. A octane rating of 87 will be fine.

One plugged line on a carburetor? Very small hose, medium hose, regular size hose? Wher is the other end connected to? You'll need to elaborate somewhat on that one.
Three prong socket under the key switch is the tachometer hookup.

Flat knob is most likely the throttle tension adjustment to keep the throttle from moving due to viberation.

 

[Ranger 335v]

Re: 86 Johnson 110?

Thanks for the info on the wires and knob under the throttle control.

I rebuilt both carbs and also found it leaking fuel at the red choke switch on top so I replaced it as well.

The fuel line was hooked to the oil side of the pump on the engine. I reversed the lines and it came to life and ran great. The oil has been disconnected prior to me and I was told to run a 50:1 pre mix in the tank. The oil side of the pump has a hose with a plug in it.

The lines were all cracked and dry rotted and I replaced the lines. In my haste I must have hooked the incorrect side up.

I took it back out and the boat ran great. With both my cousin and I in the boat, both over 200lbs and a full tank my GPS said we were running 47-49 mph depending on where I put the trim.

After got back I put in the champion plugs and took out the NGK's even though the NGK's didn't have but a couple hours on them.

Thanks again for the help.

Rod