Thread: puzzled

Could be a cold natured engine. Have you serviced the fuel system (filter and such) recently? Have you thought about cleaning the carb thoroughly? I am not familiar with Evinrudes but I would start with the basics. Pull the plug and check the gap, check for excessive carbon which could be caused by a rich running engine tied back to the carb. Any other ideas fellas? Hoping Cray will chime in, he has a wealth of knowledge as do other members.

I like simple first.
Pull and clean or replace spark plugs. Spark plugs tell you a story, no doubt.
Next, empty the gas tank, fill it with good fresh gas from a place that moves a lot of fuel (Fresher), pour in a full can of seafoam, and run that tank of gas thru it including some wide open throttle once it's warmed up. The two strokes need wound up from time to time, once warmed up. I always do mine that way at least one good stretch EVERY TIME I take it out. Around here, one of the worst abuses I see are two strokes that are too small for the job on pontoon boats that just putt around just above idle, and to add more misery, the owners put too much oil in the gas tank. Makes for a gummed up, messed up motor. "Blow the soot out" my late Dad would say.
If these couple of things don't fix the issue, it's a cheep try, and gives you a good base line to move forward. I would want these bases covered before going too far advanced into it.
Going forward, I recommend using a good fuel treatment in every tank full of fuel, especially if it's not getting run fairly regular.
Cheap insurance. Most are just one ounce to 10 gallons of fuel, that's not going to hurt.
Oh, and keep check on fuel hoses! The older hoses can start breaking down inside, and send trash on down the line. The newer style hoses have an inner liner to help prevent that, or postpone it. Some cleaners ran thru deteriorated hoses can make things worse!
Good luck!

Thanks for ideas. Had carb replaced 2 summers ago, new plugs this year, had put in 2 gal of fresh gas this spring after shop replaced impellar for me and told me that tank had a lot of water in it. new hoses awhile back. switch the tank between 15hp here in ny and 25 in florida so the gas gets used fairly often. It might be the coil and will check that out. Going to go with some sea foam next time out. Except for no wake zones and coming thru the channels on some lakes always run wide open, no trolling for me except electric

does it have a thermostat ? Had a 2000 mercury that sound a lot like that and it was tough to use till it got to putting out a stream . Does it give a stream of water when it cranks ?

You may want to consider a fuel filter/water separator for your boat. I installed one, and I love it. I like that it has a clear bottom where you can see if any water is in there, and easy to drain out. Fuel goes to the bowl first, then pulls up thru the filter, so water and grit stays in the bottom of the bowl for easy removal. I did not want an all metal filter that says it catches water too - I want to see it! 22 bucks, comes with filter, bowl, fittings and tape, here is a link to the one I use. Cheap to replace filter, too.
Amazon.com

Here is something I would try. Get you a can of spray carb cleaner not starting fluid, when you go to crash if it won’t start take cover off and give it a squirt of that cleaner in carb don’t flood it then see if it will hit. If it does that tells you quick you have a fuel/carb problem. My guess is one of the jets has some minute amount of trash in it. Carb probably needs to be pulled and throughly cleaned and float reset.

What year model 15hp do you have? I don't know much about the new stuff but I do have some knowledge on the older 2 strokes.

mid 80's