Rick and Tom,
Thank you both for your insight. "Pull starting this motor is not something you want to repeat over and over and over in a dark marsh, a long way from the ramp and help." One thing I'm having issues with these days is convincing myself I'm not on the back side of 30 but every day something reminds me I'm on the back side of 50! I tried pulling the rope on this motor last night and was surprised at the amount of compression it seems to have as old as it is. I am quite thankful it's an electric start motor. Rick along with the items you mention in the boat box (which is always in the boat box next to a spare prop) will be a battery tester so on those cold dark thirty mornings I can check the charge before going out since I'll most likely forget or more likely will neglect to put the battery on the charger before heading out!
Well it is pretty obvious I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Good luck Ed. Seriously though, ether has no good use in a 2 cycle engine, it's for diesels.
Well it is pretty obvious I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Good luck Ed. Seriously though, ether has no good use in a 2 cycle engine, it's for diesels.
When I was a kid (13 I remember) my mom's uncle gave me a an old green outboard motor. I don't even know who made the damn thing. I put it on the back of an old wooden skiff my granddad had. Of course it wouldn't start. My granddad threw me a can of starting fluid and told me where to spray it. Well I wrapped the rope around the flywheel and gave it all I had. A flame shot out the front of that motor about two feet and the gas in the carburetor blew the carb apart igniting the loose fuel line and started the boat on fire. I didn't have a fire extinguisher in the boat. I bailed over the side and started swimming away from the boat not realizing I was swimming into the current. By now I'm swimming as my granddads boat starts to take on water and sink. Fortunately our neighbor was watching the whole thing. He jumped in his boat and came to my rescue. At least I had a PFD on but I was sure glad to see him come along side and yank my little butt out of the river. I DON'T USE ETHER or ANYTHING ELSE!
I had a 1986 60hp Evinrude that was oil injected. (you may recall a photo of it on my Starcraft that sank at my dock during a storm some years ago). Anyway I had more trouble with that damn thing shutting down when the oil injector would load up and stop spitting. I yanked that POS apart and started mixing as I've done for 20 years before getting that motor. I never had another problem with it after that. Oh, I also mixed 50:1 and maybe an extra oz. of so during duck/Walleye season.
Ed, Great story!!!! Some of us have to learn the hard way!! I learned about ether days before I was to report to Navy boot camp and I was moving all my worldly goods back to my folks farm in their 67 Chrysler. It was Feb 1970 in Minn. and colder than a well diggers butt. The old beast wouldn't start so I loaded her up with ether and one backfire later the gear drive starter shelled out. Bad enough but time was not on my side and I was parked in the street. If you remember the ground clearance on that old boat was about 6". Anyhow got her fixed, moved stuff home and off to see the world. Starting fluid has the knack of washing any oil off of the cylinder walls and making the engine even harder to turn over. When I was at Tecumseh factory school many years ago they showed us a snowblower engine that had hatched right in half due to an over feeding of ether. Oh well like I said, what do I know ) BTW WD-40 will work as a starting fluid and it has a lubricant.
OMC stopped the 100:1 not because of emissions but because after the motor was shut down, there was not enough oil left over on the cylinder walls to prevent rust. Rust would form within a day or two depending on how the motor was stored. After that happening over and over, the rings were shot at less than a year. All of the variable oil systems run at 100:1 or even leaner at WOT. Then they back down to around 50:1 at idle to help leave enough oil in the cylinders. I had a 150hp Optimax on my Ranger bassboat. It used A LOT of oil. It was the first year of the Opti. Never really had many problems with it other than eating belts to run the alternator. I switched to a 175hp EFI and it cut my oil usage in half. But the gas useage almost doubled. And my speed jumped almost 12 mph.
That reminds me of another good idea that didn't work out so well. We tried some of the first Castrol synthetic oil in a 2stroke race bike on a Sun. and pulled the top end Mon evening to find a nice coating of rust!! Went back to the castor bean stuff that smelled so much better.
) BTW WD-40 will work as a starting fluid and it has a lubricant.