Outboard woes :>(

[sycamoreredneck]

Ok any of yall who have been on this site for a while just might remember my outboard troubles I had last summer. Well needless to say I didnt get them all fixed and it is driving me crazy. The motor in question is a 1986 Merc 40 horse. The problem with it is that it starts fine, but whan you go to dump the throttle it dies!!! After re-starting and dieing about 10 to 15 times it runs like a champ. My question to yall is what could this problem be?? I had the carb cleaned and gone over last Spring and had the whole motor tuned as well. I run good gas and good oil and it is stored in a garage all the time. Spring will be here before we know it and I want the old tub in tip top shape. Thanks guys hope to get some good advice soon!!!

[tuffshot]

You might find an answer for your woes at this site, they have some real boat pros there that might be able to help.

http://forums.iboats.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

[geezer]

Well if your fuel delivery system is ok then it probably is something in the ignition - you could have a poor connection or a coil problem (or other part of the ignition system) that doesn't make good contact until it heats up from the 10 to 15 starts - i had a bad coil in an outboard that would start and idle fine but crap out when you tried to power up - just my 2 cents.

good luck
geezer

[Jeff Goebel]

If all fails, like tuffshot said, post a question on iboats. There are definitly some boat wizards over there. They've helped me out many times. Good luck, Goeb

[Bucko]

I had the same problem on a little newer 40hp ,It
would start and run great, on the river when I would power up it would die. we rebuilt carbs work fine for a couple of trips then do the same thing all over again,I ended up buying a new tank and put in 2 inline gas filters and it ran the rest off summer and fall with out a hitch.It was getting a little crap behind the jets from the old tank I guess.good luck.Bucko

["J"]

Does it only do it when the motor is cold? If it stops when the motor warms up and is fine the rest of the day its in the cold idle circuit if I remember right. If you have an electric choke try hitting it a couple of times when it starts to die to see if that works.

[sycamoreredneck]

It gets progresivly better through out the day, but never really works like it should. One thing I did leave out is this. I have found to combat this problem a little, I start the motor in neutral, with the throttle about half way. I let it set and run at half throttle for about 20 seconds put it back in neutral and then dump the throttle forward. This seems to help most but not all the time.

So useing this new info what is yall's diagnosis??

[sycamoreredneck]

Gonna put the muffs to it tommorow and she if she'll fire. Barring a bunch of snow......:help: