Idle better with cover off

[Dsage]

Ok first let me give you some background the motor is a 1976 evinrude 115 hp. Motor idled fine when I put the boat away in November. On Monday I replaced the cable to the engine, they were older and sticky so I replaced them. That went fine, took it out that day for a test run. Noticed that it would not continue to run at idle I did notice that if I pushed up the warm up lever it would stay running. Then today I took the boat back out and noticed that the motor will stay idling if the cover is off. I put the cover on and with in a few seconds the motor idles down some and then a about 20 secs. later the motor dies. I talked to a shop today and they said it might be one of the exhaust seal. But what gets me is if it is that why would the warm up lever keep it running if the exhaust seal was bad. Also the motor runs great once its not idling.

 

[F_R]

Re: Idle better with cover off

Check for the cover pinching or shorting a wire, expecially the spark plug wires.

 

[Grassi25]

Re: Idle better with cover off

Just an idea. Carbs may need to be cleaned. Or adjust the throttle a bit. I have been working on mine and with the carb breather and cover off, it idles 200 rpm's higher than with it on. So, it sounds like the cover is restricting the air to carbs, but thats probably cause they are a little gummed up.

 

[SparkieBoat]

Re: Idle better with cover off

most motors will run some better with the cowl and carb cover off, I did some test a while back with a 1989 115 I use to have, got an extra 300 RPMs with the cowl and carb cover off, but it can damage your engine if done for a prolonged period of time because too much air was getting into the mix, leaning out my mix. the skinny of it is, your outboard was made specifically to run with all covers in place and if it does not run right then something is wrong..and you should really listen to FRs post as it is common for a plug wire to short out on the rear cowl latches...take a pic of the back of your motor with the cowl off, specially want to see how the plug wires hang and position of the coils..had a motor once someone put coils on backwards and the cowl latch pressed against the plug wire boot.

 

[Mas]

Re: Idle better with cover off

Sometimes a motor can choke on its own gases if there is a lack of wind at idling. But I usually think that if a motor was "put away fine" and now a problem after sitting, I'm thinking the carbs are starting to get gummy causing idle problems. Did you use any fuel stabilizer during winter storage?

Mas

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Idle better with cover off

If you replaced the throttle cable, could it possibly be that the trunion was improperly adjusted during the install?

 

[Dsage]

Re: Idle better with cover off

Thank to everyone that has posted. I did have the fuel treated and even tried a new tank that was full of new gas too. I was leaning toward the carb needing cleaned or the throttle cable needing more adjustments. I had a carb cleaning planned so i guess it might be done sooner now. Also I have the factory manual so I'm covered on that, I have never done carb before but I do a lot with car motors I have heard of ways so get around having to readjust the carb linkage and such does this work or should I not bother and just rebuild and readjuct all. Also one last thing now, on the carb kit do I need to buy one or two kits since I have dual carbs. (probable a stupid question but I want to have all the parts on ahnd when I break things open.) Also do we think that exhaust gasket is out of the question for a problem since it was running fine when stored and now it is acting up after coming out of storage and new cables.