SO sorry for leaving you all hanging, gentlemen! I have spent hours and hours on this issue and finally solved it! I took all the wiring apart, all of it, checked all connections, re-did the connections and retaped things. I needed to tidy it up anyhow. I found the problem was a bad ground for the motor. She started up and after some adjusting of the carb needles, was running smoothly in the barrel. (I had rebuilt the carb last year and had never gotten it back out the water to test it there since. I only had the carb put back in but not the face plate or cowl back on.) So with me confident with what the problem was and having it running in the barrel, I took it over to my friends house to gift it to her Friday night. Her kids were climbing in and out of it and having a blast. They were SO excited and couldn't wait to get it on the water but we had rain all day Saturday. Today was the big day: maiden voyage of the S.S. Minnow for her new family!! I was a nervous wreck, I wanted so badly for everything to go well (and I know how many times I've gotten to that dock only to be disappointed with yet another issue). She started up and ran like a trooper. My friend drove it off to their lake lot alone to be sure it was ok and her husband and kids (and I in my car) followed. She made it there ok!! The only glitch was she said it won't go full speed, it only putts along and won't go any faster when she throttles up. I couldn't stay to tinker on it and anyhow the kids wanted to go for a ride even if it was just at slow speed. I thought I"d ask you all what might be causing the issue. Would that be the need to tweak the carb needles on the lake? Is it a throttle issue? Thank you ALL so much for always helping me through this. Your expertise and the time you've taken to assist me is now being passed to another family. I will still help them out whenever I can so I will probably keep coming back here (and I encouraged them to join here too!). I'm attaching a couple pictures of her new family and her splashdown day!
