I have twin 225HP Evinrudes on my 30' Scarab Sport that gave me nothing but trouble all last season. I can't afford to buy new engines so I'll probably leave the boat out of the water for the next couple of years until I can save up the cash unless you think they are worth putting more money into.<br />The engines have 776 hours on them. I've had the boat for 6 seasons and the engines have been pretty good up until the 2005 season. I had the boat in 2 years ago (2003 season) to replace a lower motor bracket on the starboard engine and had the mechanic look over both engines and also replace the waterpumps. The port engine had been running rough and hard to start so the mechanic replaced the powerpack, ignition timer base, two coils and repaired the cam roller and pickup linkage. The total repair bill was $3,104.<br /><br />The 2005 season started out great but both engines developed a hard start when cold problem. The starboard engine would refuse to start if you pumped the primer bulb but would start after a few minutes if you didn't pump the bulb. The port engine would take forever to start also but both would run great once you got them above idle speed. During the year they began to stall at idle while in gear (600-800rpm) and started to stall more and more even when not in gear. By the time I nursed them through the season I was fed up trying to get them started and keep them running.<br /><br />I talked to my mechanic and he suggested decarbing the engines and replace the plugs. I did both but it didn't help. The plugs I removed were 3 years old and still looked great (replaced with the factory recommended plugs). When I removed the carb cover on the starboard engine to decarb it I noticed the top carb was pumping gas out of it when the engine was running or when you pumped the bulb, maybe that's why it wouldn't start if you pumped the bulb? I tried removing the big brass screw on the front of the carb and pump the bulb to clear the problem and it seemed to work for a couple of weeks. Then I could tell it was happening again because of the gas rainbow in the water and the engine wouldn't go above 5,000RPM on WOT.<br /><br />When I pulled the boat I did a compression test on both engines, the starboard engine was 108-115 across all cylinders, the port engine was 95-103 across all cylinders. Since the compression test was an after thought the engines were checked cold after I had fogged the them.<br /><br />After this year I feel like both engines have so many problems that I can't trust them. Several times when coming into my dock both engines would stall and I had to be pushed off of other boats to avoid hitting them. The engines smoked so bad on start up towards the end of the year (I use only Evinrude FICHT oil) that people started to complain at the marina. I also wondered if disconnecting the VRO pumps would keep the engines from smoking so much?<br /><br />In your opinion are these problems simple in nature? If I take to my mechanic am I going to be dumping another $3K or more when I would be better off saving the money towards new outboards?<br /><br />Long post but wanted to give you all the information I could. I trust my mechanic but he told me that the engines are probably "getting tired" and it may not be worth the money to put into them. Of course, he also sells new outboards too.<br /><br />Russ
<br /><br />I would def do it myself, save the labor cost, and have some satifaction in doing a job right!