I forgot to mention, that yes, the vent was open, and yes, I did remove the fuel fill cap, and also I removed the engine shroud, thinking it may be breathing it’s own fumes, but none of that made any difference. The fuel lines under the hood are all new.
As far as how it ran before, this motor has NEVER run correctly for me. When I first got it, it didn’t run at all, and I went through it and did all the usual stuff. I had a problem where it would only run on one cylinder, and then the other one would kick in and nearly toss me out of the boat. That was because I had installed one of the new plug wires a little crooked into the coil. Then, it would either have a rough surge or run only one one cylinder until I changed the crankshaft seals. It finally starts easily and runs smoothly until it has run about a minute.
The choke butterfly is normal, not able to close when the choke lever is pushed in.
The plugs are Champion J4C and I was planning to replace them as all that running on one cylinder fouled the lower one.
