25 hp Johnson 2 stroke, no oil or water !

[bill jenkins]

I just bought a 2000 Johnson 25 hp 2 stroke 3 cylinder. The guy I bought it from, bypassed the constant oil injection system and didn't tell me. Needless to say I mixed no oil with the gas. When I tried it for the first time, only a little water was coming out of the "tell tale" then it stopped all together once I got back to the dock. The motor kept stopping on me when I was in the bay. I had to keep restarting it to get back to the dock as I didn't want to get blown out into the lake (it would restart right away easily) . I took the cowling off and I could put my hand on the cylinder head for a second or so, but it was not so hot that you would burn your hand. Any way, I changed out the water pump and it is peeing like a race horse now and not stalling out on me. I only ran full out for about a minute and idled slowly back to the dock for about 25 minutes. The motor seems to run great now. Lots of power and idles right down. But when decelerating it makes a sutle whining noise like when a power steering pump squeals on a car, but not as loud. It does it when idling too some times but comes and goes, again, just like a power steering pump squeal on a car.
My questions are:
1/ How do I know if I damaged the engine by running with no oil ? Is the squealing noise an indication of this.
2/ Water comes out of a large hole at the back of the leg between the transom and motor above the water line. Is water suppose to come out of there ?
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[rjezuit]

Re: 25 hp Johnson 2 stroke, no oil or water !

Squealing sounds can mean bad bearings. Without lube they overheat and start to rub instead of roll. Rick

 

[Rick.]

Re: 25 hp Johnson 2 stroke, no oil or water !

The best way to determine if you have damaged the internals is to perform a compression test. Pull all the plugs and do one cylinder at a time and then post the results. Maybe you got lucky. Lets hope so. Did that squeaking sound just start after the no oil situation? It is normal to get water mist and exhaust out that hole you mentioned. More exhaust at idle than at full throttle. Best of luck. Rick.

 

[rusirius]

Re: 25 hp Johnson 2 stroke, no oil or water !

Everything you've described sounds like it's fine, and I've seen numerous discussions where engine testing was done by OMC on running engines (below 2000 rpm I believe) on JUST gas (testing an occurance where a VRO fails) and all the tests basically turned up no damage even after hours and hours...

HOWEVER... If you ran it full out even for a bit, it's very possible... And when I said everything sounds like it's fine, I should have said EXCEPT for the squeeling... Since you just did waterpump work my first thought would have been that you forgot the key and the impeller was spinning around the shaft causing it... But since you're getting a good telltale AND ran without oil... I'd be much more inclined to think a bearing is toast...

That's quite a bit of work, the bearings aren't cheap, nor are all the gaskets you'll need to replace to get to them... I wish I had better news, but.... I'll put it like this... I'm not a professional, and honestly most of my experience is with cars, very little with outboards... but.... if it were me, I'd pull the engine and replace the vitals just to be safe... That's just me, and well... I love a project anyway...

 

[rjezuit]

Re: 25 hp Johnson 2 stroke, no oil or water !

A compression test will tell you nothing about a burnt bearing. Unless you lost the rings, the compression will be fine. You will have to tear it down to check the bearings for burning and scarring.Rick