1969 evinrude running at half speed.

[DarrensBand]

My problem is two-fold. I recently purchased an old evinrude motor (55 horse, 1969, Model #55973). In opening it up at full throttle on the water it was clipping along and then suddenly went to about half speed on its own. I took motor out on the water at a five day cottage. For four days, it worked well, but still only at half speed. Then on the fifth day, it sputtered when I put it into drive. Now it is really slow. On the fifth day, I put new gas in and made sure the oil mixture was correct. However, the oil was a couple of years old. Could that be the problem? I am going to try new gas and oil, but it was originally running at only half speed on new gas and oil so there still is a problem. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

 

[oldboat1]

Re: 1969 evinrude running at half speed.

Man, that's a bummer when it happens on vacation. It sounds to me like carb problems. Check to see if the motor is overheating if you haven't already done so. I haven't had any experience that I'm aware of (important qualification there) with bad oil. Bad gas is a problem though, and seemingly getting worse -- good you are aware of the potential there.<br /><br />Best guess would be a clogged jet -- had a similar problem with an '85 Evinrude (same vintage as yours), and ended up getting the carbs rebuilt. That corrected the problem. You can save some money by trying to clean out the carbs yourself before deciding on whether to rebuild or not (and whether you want to do a rebuild yourself).