NoMini
PowerDork
7/4/18 7:35 p.m.
Or whatever take we're up to....
I have Grandpa's boat. It's a 1961 (I think) Cruisers wooden runabout, with a 1963 (this I know*) Johnson 75hp V4 outboard.
I'm having an ignition problem with it. I know berk-all about 2-stroke, magneto ignition. Cylinders 2 and 4 get no spark, 1 and 3 spark fine. It runs, but roughly, obviously. I tried rubbing the contact points of the cap and rotor with emery cloth, but it didn't help. Can it be a bad distributor cap/rotor, or could there be a deeper problem?
Help me, GRM. You're my only hope.
* When he bought the boat, new, it had a 40hp on it. That wasn't enough, so he upgraded. 
NoMini
PowerDork
7/4/18 9:27 p.m.
In reply to CJ :
Thank you! Now I have an idea of what to test.
Good luck with it. I run a '73 V4 on my boat but it's a different creature entirely. You may want to check in at Fiberglassics.com as well. They have a subforum for wood boats and one for each engine maker. It's not a busy place but there are some old guys there that know these things inside out.
But you'll probably get answers here more quickly.
NoMini
PowerDork
7/5/18 9:07 p.m.
CJ said:
Could be this?
"That dist has two sets of points. One set fires one and three and the other set fires two and four."
https://forums.iboats.com/forum/engine-repair-and-maintenance/johnson-evinrude-outboards/521813-1963-evinrude-75-horse-v-4-starflite-no-spark-on-2-cylinders
Bingo! Cleaned the contacts off, reset the gap, and now I have spark on all four.
But, in a boneheaded move, I neglected to mark the distributor position. So, now I'm waiting for a manual from Amazon, as I search teh interwebs for the link & sync method in the mean time, to get the timing back in place.
