water is spitting into my engine compartment!

[ryan04]

Ok after fixing one problem after the other, there is what seems to be the final hurtle for this engine to run properly again. It's a 1972 125hp johnson electric shift. I dumped it in the lake and started it up and of course it did things that I've never seen it do before. I pulled the coweling with the engine running in the water and saw that water was spurting intermitantly from through the hole where the two shift wires go into the exhaust housing. Every time this engine would sneeze and cough the water would shoot into the engine area. It didn't get in or even on the engine it just squirted it out through that hole and the water settled and some drained out the opening for the steering. The engine would only drive about the speed of a 5hp trolling motor. Any thoughts on what kind of seal or what could have gone wrong? thanks.

 

[Joe Reeves]

Re: water is spitting into my engine compartment!

The sneeze/coughing is due to either fouled carburetors or incorrectly adjusted carburetors..... or in your case since the carburetors have fixed slow speed jets...... slightly clogged jets.

The shift cable would have quite a few circular ridges built onto the cable at that point when when pulled through would seal that access hole perfectly. If someone has simply replace that factory cable with standard wire, it cannot seal without having some sort of sealer applied.

 

[F_R]

Re: water is spitting into my engine compartment!

Maybe the last guy that had the lower unit off simply didn't pull the shift cable up high enough. As Joe said, it has rubber rings that seal the hole. But the rings have to be in the hole to do it. Give it a pull up and see.

 

[ryan04]

Re: water is spitting into my engine compartment!

that's great, I will do that, and as for the sneezing that would mean a simple cleaning of the carbs again. So it's safe to assume then that by that water coming out there is not a vacume leak or a massive seal failure of some kind.

 

[HighTrim]

Re: water is spitting into my engine compartment!

No just a misplaced seal. Clean and rebuild your carbs , paying special attention to the low speed jets , soaking isnt enough, try getting in there with wire or the like to clean out the gunk. I think i would invest in a can of seafoam, in a portable tank, mix 3/4 gallons of premix gas, an 3/4 can of seafoam, (assuming you don't have the vro connected). Put the remaining seafoam in a spray bottle, run the motor up to temperture, remove the plugs, one at a time, spray some seafoam into each cylinder and replace plug. let sit 15 minutes, remove the air silencer from the carb while waiting, restart motor, and spray seafoam into each carb, until it start to stall. repeat till seafoam is gone. run out the rest of the gas. it is going to smoke like it is on fire, and drip goo on the ground. replace the plugs with new ones. this procedure burns the carbon out of the motor and been known to free up rings, and increase compression.