'85 9.9 won't start or idle in Neutral?

[reelfishin]

I picked up a used 1985 Evinrude 9.9, (E10RLCOM) which came as a bonus with a small boat and another motor, the owner said that he had given up on it and had bought the motor that is currently on the boat now.

The problem is that it will only start in gear and will only idle in gear. It stalls when put in neutral, but it does however run at higher RPM's in neutral. It looks to be a pretty clean motor, pretty much all original. It runs good in gear, so I figured that the carb is probably not the cause of this, when you shift to neutral, the RPM's drop and it dies. The only way to keep it alive in neutral is to shift it there with the throttle open.
It dies below what I would guess to be about 2500 RPM or so in neutral. He had several receipts for carb work and even a new carb, as well a new water pump kit. It also looks like they replaced the stator, and the entire ignition system.
It has 117/115 psi compression.

It has spark in neutral when it won't start, but not even a gasp. When I put it in gear, it fires on the first pull and goes along just fine on the water.
It does have what I would call a weak tell tale stream, but it doesn't overheat and I did check the pump and it looks brand new. The block and head is warm but not hot after a few mile run. Nothing changes after it's run a while either. It starts good hot or cold.

The lower unit is clean, no metal and turns freely in neutral, so I don't think it's a binding problem shutting down the motor. The prop was pretty edge battered, but nothing major, just showing signs of shallow water use.

I just got this so I really haven't gotten too deep into it, but just figured I'd get some input here before I mess with it this weekend.

 

[iwombat]

Re: '85 9.9 won't start or idle in Neutral?

Is the shifter interfering with the wires to the kill switch by any chance? Something to check anyway.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: '85 9.9 won't start or idle in Neutral?

Everything looks clear, in fact, the kill switch looks new too. It looks like someone has just been throwing parts at this and gave up. The carb is real clean too, not rebuilt clean, more like brand new clean if you know what I mean.
At this point, I have no idea what I'll find, it may turn out to be junk, but it was sort of free since it wasn't part of the original deal, I let him keep one of the fuel tanks that were with the deal in trade for the second motor.
Either way, I got two motors, (one runnning), three tanks, two new fuel lines, a two year old trailer, and a 12' boat for under $300. The other motor is a late model Mercury.

The best way to describe what it does is that it sounds like the idle stop drops out in neutral. The idle drops the moment you move the shifter and then it drops too low to stay alive. I can hold the throttle and keep it alive if I'm fast, but I have to shift while the motor is still at at least a high idle. I wasn't able to get it to start at all in neutral.
I would think that the idle would drop in gear not in neutral, I am leaning towards either a linkage problem or a timing issue.
I was told that the problem developed after a few years of sitting, it had been put away in a garage for several years and wouldn't run right after that, the part that gets me is that its been to two of what I had always though were a couple of the best shops around here. For the amount they charged him for both the parts and labor he could have bought two new motors.