[BillRoundsEsq]

But I refuse to travel to a fishing area with a motor of an unknown quality, taking the chance of a potential problem. Any used motor I repair has to run in a tank for a few hours at all speeds before I am convinced of their water cooling condition and carburetor idle jet setting. I often times even start then up the night before a fishing trip if they have sat for a while, to be sure they will be running when I am ready. I am getting too old to have to crank and crank on a cantankerous motor or have to resort to a paddle to get back to the launch or worse just to a shore. I have even called a couple of fishing trips short by a day or so because of a motor that did not appear to be running right. I have also struck out a couple of times and had motor failures on the water.

[K7Off]

Water Cooling System : These outboard motors are water cooled, requiring a water pump system. They utilized a screened water intake BEHIND the prop, using it's motion to force water up into the water pump (as shown in a photo below). This was well known in those days and the mechanics put the motor in a tank (WITH THE PROP ON) to do a test. Now after 50 years, there seems to be many Do It Yourselfers who are new to outboards and do not understand this system, who put the motor in a small garbage can, but take the prop off so it will not cut the can. This may allow your motor to run, but not for an extensive amount of time because of the now underwater exhaust bubbling in the can, which disrupts any water flow (because of a lot of air bubbles) up into the pump.
here

[ichi]

Driveshaft Alignment : This motor uses the same lower crankshaft seal as the 5hp of the same years EXCEPT it has a seal retainer compartment on the underside of the block in the upper exhaust housing area that contains the seal assembly. In the 5hp, the seal can/will fall out when you pull the lower unit/driveshaft down and out. [links]

[aurelian]

Therefore, it is critical to get points perfectly set on the mark. On twins, it is even more critical because it affects the balance of the power impulses which are traveling through all the moving parts, and can cause at a minimum, poor performance, moderate vibration, and if really out of synch, it can wear out and break things eventually.

[Syke]

This magneto system is pretty basic to most of the previous Johnson/Evinrude motors in various sizes. Magneto ignition was used on all the OMC motors up until about 1976. However some of the later smaller single cylinder motors (4hp) may still have magneto ignition for a number of years later. The earlier models will have coils mounted under the flywheel while some later motors use external coils.

[dragon]

Convert to Transistorized Ignition : � Now if you are having problems finding new replacement parts for these old motors, there is an alternative. That is convert it to electronic transistorized ignition. Briggs & Stratton has been using this type of ignition on their lawn mower motors for years.

[GLR444]

I purchased a spark tester and indeed confirmed by suspicion that only one plug was producing a spark on my 1976 6HP 6R76A motor.

[jefelex]

The motor starts and runs when I manually wind the magneto (currently waiting on new pinion gear to rebuild starter recoil) but only the bottom cylinder is running.

[i5Steve]

I can purchase a new lead for a reasonable price ($18), but I've never worked with a magneto before and not sure what I'm getting myself into trying to replace the lead myself (I want to learn everything I possibly can so it's something I would like to attempt).

[mati]

I am trying to pinpoint the issue we are having with our 1976 Evinrude 6hp.

[qube]

We got this motor with a boat we purchased and it had the original points system, there was a bit of play in the armature plate and it was causing the gap to change and not run correctly. We changed both coils, fuel pump, spark plug wires/boots, clean the carb and we were only getting spark in the bottom cylinder.

[bruno666]

We decided to switch from the points system to the transistorized ignition via the nova 2 chips. We tested spark and both were sparking, seemed like we solved the issue. We got it on the boat and into a tub of water and once we got it running the top coil was not sparking once again.