94 Johnson 120hp no spark

JasonB

Lieutenant
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Messages
1,455
Backstory- End of last season had an intermittent starting issue. It was either fine, or had no spark. Pulled the power pack up and Found the yellow wire with red stripe had more almost through against something. With the pack loose and no major bend in the wire, it would start and run. Bend the wire at the wear spot and no start. Seems easy enough. I break out the soldering iron, trim to clean ends, solder it back together and cover with heat shrink. Now I have no spark. I probed either side of my solder joint and continuity looks ok. I’ve checked the connections I undid to get space to work. I’m missing something here unless the problem is elsewhere. I did try unplugging the kill lead with no results. Any idea what I’m missing? I’m starting to think the short is really somewhere else and the near break wasn’t the root problem. Where does the yellow/red wire go?
 

JasonB

Lieutenant
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Messages
1,455
Found the culprit. Now to try to figure out the best repair. If I push the yellow/red wire the way it would be with the pack bolted down I get no start. I pull that wire back any other direction and it fires right up. Ergo, seems like the wire has a short right as it goes in the rubber/epoxy filler of the pack. I hate to buy a new pack over a broken wire, but that seems like the only real option.
 

Crosbyman

Vice Admiral
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
5,650
nothing like new parts.... but$$$$ wise can you pull or position this wire and
JB weld it to keep it from ever moving again ....?

bring a kicker :)
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2019
Messages
936
yeah don't even try... if you want to gamble buy a used one off ebay for $30. better than repairing that thing!
 

JasonB

Lieutenant
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Messages
1,455
New pack will be here tomorrow. Existing one looks original, so even if I found a workable fix, it is probably on borrowed time. I don’t get that many days on the water each year and I don’t want one hosed over a sketchy at best repair. I’ll tinker with this one and maybe it can be a spare. As a wise fellow on here used to say why is there never time to fix it right the first time, but always time to fix it again. Decided to go ahead and put new t-stats, impeller kit kit, clean the idle calibration pockets, and put new plugs in as part of this years maintenance while I’m in there. Boating doesn’t have to be expensive, but it isn’t cheap either.
 
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