I have a 1986 Mariner 60 HP that was getting increasingly hard to start last season. I determined that I had weak spark on all three cylinders (yellow spark that had a hard time jumping 1/8" gap) and the engine just didn't have any power (on a 17' alumacraft with fishing gear and my 300 pounds it wouldn't plane and top GPS speed was 13-17 mph)...
Fast forward to this week, I was getting things ready for the fishing season and had started the engine...I ran it on muffs and it started very hard (cranking for 5-10 minutes before it would even attempt to fire...I wasn't sure if it was weak spark or just sitting all winter that caused it to be so hard to start). Once running it sounded and acted like it should. I let it run for about 15-20 min to charge the battery and shut it down. I then tried to start it again right away. Same problem, I cranked and cranked for what seemed like for ever before it finally fired, but once it fired up, it acted ok. This morning I bought an adjustable tester to verify that it did indeed have a weak spark and while testing I found that I no longer had a spark on any of the cylinders.
Where should I start to troubleshoot this? Does it sound like my stator was going last season and finally crapped out on me today? Any help is appreciated as electrical testing is my weak point and in looking at my Seloc manual, test procedures are not very clear...
Fast forward to this week, I was getting things ready for the fishing season and had started the engine...I ran it on muffs and it started very hard (cranking for 5-10 minutes before it would even attempt to fire...I wasn't sure if it was weak spark or just sitting all winter that caused it to be so hard to start). Once running it sounded and acted like it should. I let it run for about 15-20 min to charge the battery and shut it down. I then tried to start it again right away. Same problem, I cranked and cranked for what seemed like for ever before it finally fired, but once it fired up, it acted ok. This morning I bought an adjustable tester to verify that it did indeed have a weak spark and while testing I found that I no longer had a spark on any of the cylinders.
Where should I start to troubleshoot this? Does it sound like my stator was going last season and finally crapped out on me today? Any help is appreciated as electrical testing is my weak point and in looking at my Seloc manual, test procedures are not very clear...