Reply To: RD-17 bottom plug fouling – no high speed power

[The red boat]

i probably am not being very clear so I’m sorry about that but I appreciate your replies.
Let me see if i can clear it up.
When I ran it on the lake last weekend, it seemed to only run on one cylinder and only at high speed. Idle and slow speed seemed perfect. It has never done this before with the previous original RD-17 carb.
When I pulled the plugs, the bottom one was fouled but it was fine before the lake run.
the carb I rebuilt was an original from an electric start RDE-17. I bought a carb rebuild kit that included the cork seal where the nozzle seals up against the bowl and it is installed properly. That is what I think you are referring to when you say bowl nozzle tube. The carb had one when i dissembled it (as have all the RD-17 carbs I’ve rebuilt) so I replaced it with a new seal from the rebuild kit.
The high speed needle is approximately half a turn out from seated at the moment (adjusted in the tank). when I was on the lake, it didn’t matter what I did to the high speed needle since I think it was running on one cylinder. More on that at the end of this response in terms of the cut-out switch.
I only put it back in the tank to see if I could achieve any kind of higher rpm at all since it wasn’t happening at the lake. So I put it back in the tank after replacing the high speed needle to see if it made a difference (it did).In the tank I WAS able to get some higher revs in neutral so I agree – need to get on the water again for a real test. I only use the tank to make sure it starts but i always set the needles while on the lake.

cut-out switch question:
I tested it last night by removing it from the boat, and hooking it up to a multi-meter.
as it sat on the bench, there was no continuity between the wiring post and the body of the switch. When I applied vacuum, the resistance measured approximately 1 ohm.
when i reinstalled it on the boat and hooked up the lead wire to the post, I checked it again and saw that I had resistance though the entire assembly.
SO my question is: when it is installed on the boat, should I have resistance like that and does that mean the points are being grounded? I would assume that the post would still show no continuity with the switch housing until vacuum flexed the diaphragm and competed the grounding and cutting out the set of points. Maybe I have a bad switch that is constantly grounding out the points?
Like I said – it tested properly when disconnected but seems to be grounded when I connect the wire (not running motor of course).

sorry for the long response – i do appreciate the help