Reply To: 1967 Evinrude Lightwin won’t start/run

[Don]

Sorry, couldn’t make the audio portion of your video work…
You have mentioned alot of things here, but may need more clarification…. Usually, if the only way to make the engine fire is squirting fuel/oil directly into the carb, then you have a fuel supply or carb issue. But, you mention good flow from tank and trying a different carb with no changes…
Sounds like someone messed around with your original carb, which had a fixed high speed jet by jamming an adjustable needle in the threads, which will never work out, and it is unlikely the engine would have run at all, but anything is possible. OMC did make an adjustable needle kit for that engine, but I’m pretty sure that would have included a new carburetor bowl. Perhaps you can post a picture of the old carb with the high speed needle installed. The conventional high speed needle would not fit through the lower cowls of that engine because there is no hole for the needle to pass through.
You mentioned that the engine was running, then the starter spring broke…How long was it before the you attempted to start the engine after the recoil repair? Did the engine sit long enough for the fuel to foul up? How did you check fuel flow from the tank? On your current carb, I would simply remove the lower drain hex plug from the carb bowl, then open the fuel valve and tank vent, fuel should dribble out of the bowl. If it doesn’t, then I would disconnect the fuel line from the carb and retest for fuel flow from the fuel line. You mention that you had the bowl off the current carburetor, did you remove the high speed jet? Did you look through the jet? Was it clean? If not, soak it in carb cleaner for a few hours. You need the special OMC jet screwdriver to remove the jet, trying to pull it off with a regular screwdriver will probably damage the threads, jet, and create more debris inside the carb bowl.
Sounds like you had the cylinder head off, the exhaust cover off, did you pull the powerhead off the midsection also?? Did you replace these gaskets, or reuse the old ones? You replaced the reed intake gaskets, please know that the two gaskets are different, and the engine probably won’t run if you mix them up. Finally, you were making some pretty violent changes to that low speed needle. The initial adjustment for the low speed needle is 1.5 turns out from gently seated. Is the needle valve pictured the one that came from the second carb, or was it transferred to this carburetor from the first one? The reason I ask is that perhaps the needle valve is damaged/broken.
Post pictures that will help clarify things for us. Again, the symptom you speak of is usually a fuel supply or carb issue, but you seem to indicate there is not problem with fuel flow to the carb and the engine doesn’t work even with another carb. So, I’m thinking we have missed something here, and made some incorrect conclusions…