I bought a new boat, an older 15ft double eagle, with a 1995 60hp johnson, I took it for a nice 45 minute sea trial before I bought it and everything worked great. I took it out with my girlfriend the day after I bought it and it ran great then as well. I decided to take my dad out for a fishing trip one day so we went out the night before and bought a bunch of new lures, flashers etc. I prepared the boat the night before had all the fishing gear ready started the motor up just to make sure as this boat was still fairly new to me. I had it all strapped down and ready to go. Picked up my dad at 5:00am and drove to the boat launch.
6:45am parked my truck had the boat in the water at the side of the dock jumped in the boat and went to start it. All it would do is turn over, no coughing or even sound of it starting. I played around with it for the next 1/2 hour or so pulled the cover off checked all the spark leads, fuel lines etc, I tried taking the fuel line off and squirting fuel out of it. I knew I was getting fuel though due to the nice circle of fuel/oil mix building up behind the boat, at one point I started up my kicker and ran it just to clear some of the oil/gas mix away from boat. Around 7:45am after trying everything three times that I could possibly think of the battery was starting to die. My dad was getting frustrated standing there watching me. I gave up and went and got the truck, while I went and got my truck a boat pulled up that had been out fishing where we were going to go and they had limited out in an 1 1/2 hours with 12 nice sized fish so it would have been a great first fishing trip in my new boat and would have been nice for my dad taking him out the first time and limiting out. Anyways I bring my truck down load up the boat and take it home extremely frustrated and upset, thinking I would now have to spend several hundred dollars to get it fixed or else not have a boat running in the peak fishing season until I have time to diagnose and fix it myself. So I get home around 10:30am or so and Iam prepared to spend the rest of the day playing around with it or coming on here and doing some research. I take the lid off the motor hook it up to the muffs and hook up my spark tester ( I assume it is spark as I was clearly getting fuel/oil) While I was hooking up the tester I noticed this little red pointed thing hooked into a black cylinder type thing with a wire coming from it and remember that I had turned it slightly the night before curious to what it is or does (I have no idea) I turned it slightly again and didn't think much about it. Well I get my dad to watch the spark tester as I turn the engine over and it started right up instantly. Relief, frustration, happy, anger, I don't remember exactly what I felt but it was all running through me at that point. I took the tester off and started it up again and turned the little red thing with it running and the engine stutered for a second and then died, I turned it the other way and it fired right up again. Anyways I just glad it all ended without anything broken. I'll take some pics of the little red thing on the engine, but it is located on the right side of the engine if you are facing it from behind and is closer to the carbs then the engine I would like to know what it is and will take some pictures and make another thread in the johnson forums but if anyone knows off hand what Iam talking about it would be nice to know. My little frustrating but happy ending story I suppose.
6:45am parked my truck had the boat in the water at the side of the dock jumped in the boat and went to start it. All it would do is turn over, no coughing or even sound of it starting. I played around with it for the next 1/2 hour or so pulled the cover off checked all the spark leads, fuel lines etc, I tried taking the fuel line off and squirting fuel out of it. I knew I was getting fuel though due to the nice circle of fuel/oil mix building up behind the boat, at one point I started up my kicker and ran it just to clear some of the oil/gas mix away from boat. Around 7:45am after trying everything three times that I could possibly think of the battery was starting to die. My dad was getting frustrated standing there watching me. I gave up and went and got the truck, while I went and got my truck a boat pulled up that had been out fishing where we were going to go and they had limited out in an 1 1/2 hours with 12 nice sized fish so it would have been a great first fishing trip in my new boat and would have been nice for my dad taking him out the first time and limiting out. Anyways I bring my truck down load up the boat and take it home extremely frustrated and upset, thinking I would now have to spend several hundred dollars to get it fixed or else not have a boat running in the peak fishing season until I have time to diagnose and fix it myself. So I get home around 10:30am or so and Iam prepared to spend the rest of the day playing around with it or coming on here and doing some research. I take the lid off the motor hook it up to the muffs and hook up my spark tester ( I assume it is spark as I was clearly getting fuel/oil) While I was hooking up the tester I noticed this little red pointed thing hooked into a black cylinder type thing with a wire coming from it and remember that I had turned it slightly the night before curious to what it is or does (I have no idea) I turned it slightly again and didn't think much about it. Well I get my dad to watch the spark tester as I turn the engine over and it started right up instantly. Relief, frustration, happy, anger, I don't remember exactly what I felt but it was all running through me at that point. I took the tester off and started it up again and turned the little red thing with it running and the engine stutered for a second and then died, I turned it the other way and it fired right up again. Anyways I just glad it all ended without anything broken. I'll take some pics of the little red thing on the engine, but it is located on the right side of the engine if you are facing it from behind and is closer to the carbs then the engine I would like to know what it is and will take some pictures and make another thread in the johnson forums but if anyone knows off hand what Iam talking about it would be nice to know. My little frustrating but happy ending story I suppose.
