I inherited an 89 Stratos 289FS. It has a 120 Evinrude. Since I’ve had it, I’ve done a de-carb, new fuel filter, cleaned the plugs, new water pump. First time on the water it ran like a bat out of hell and the the temp alarm went off. So I replaced the water pump. It ran great, fast forward to the next trip and it wouldn’t stay running and would bog down under power. I remembered from dealing with Ursula our 1971MetCraft with a ‘69 Evinrude to do a de-carb. Did that and cleaned the plugs, replaced filter and checked the fuel lines. Got it out and it ran great for about four trips. I ran the hell out of it on the first trip. Took it out with my wife and it’s back to acting up again. It’ll fire up sometimes easily and others it’s a pain requiring advanced idle to get it to run. I can then get out and stand on it and it will be fine. At idle speed it will die after a long period of it. Sometimes it won’t. When it acts up, it’s super hard to get it going again and often dies when you shift. Fast forward to last night, it started acting up and would bog down when you came off the throttle and off plane. Usually to the point of stalling and then being difficult to restart. It would take advancing the throttle to get it up and going again. It would intermittently cut out at WOT as well. Today I pulled the plugs. The left plugs and the bottom right were kinda wet and oily, the upper right was almost charred and didn’t have any oil on it. Also there is now a ticking sound and it feels/sounds like it is missing. It sounds like crap and has major power issues. I’m about ready to Molotov Cocktail the darn thing as I’m overly frustrated. I can’t keep it running right to save my life. I can’t get the serial number because my uncle painted over the stickers. Any ideas on where to start? Also my gauges don’t work because Grandpa fubarred the wiring (dementia is a bad thing).
