I want to thank all of you who replied to my initial post. Armed with the valuable advice and instructions, I gathered up my courage and replaced the plug wires on my TD 20. and the operation was a success, despite really shaky hands when I got near the coils.. Although, I didn’t think so at first. After I completed all the soldering, securing the cables, adding new clips and cable boots, I put together the old lady and Easter morning after church I put her in a garbage can of water and pulled the starting rope and …. nothing. Foul sounds and recriminations erupted from my mouth. I dragged it back to the workshop and took her apart again and went over everything I had done, used the multi meter on all the cables, coils and points, then realized…got to move the magneto to “start”…. (Yes, I know, I’m an idiot) Suffice to say she started right up (after a squirt of starting fluid into the cylinders and carburetor). Joy in Mudville..
For anyone attempting cable replacement in the future, realize that few people actually fabricate spark cables anymore, including all of the five auto parts stores and one Farm Fleet store I went to here in Bemidji, MN. Not only did the sales help not know how to do it, but only one actually carried the correct tool for crimping plug cables ($38.00) (one sold me another tool that apparently crimped everything BUT plug cables), but their supply of plug connectors, wire and boots was either non-existent or very limited. Even at the most hands on store, which does machine work on premises, the copper core wire was found only on a dusty back shelf, and they did not carry plug boots. Apparently, making your own plug wires is a thing of the past. It required the salesmen searching through seldom used parts catalogs.
One hint I can give is that a hot air gun will prove to be very helpful in getting the cables to conform to the very sharp bends they make particularly near the ignition coils. I was able to carefully heat the wire and get a bend that got the cable to curl right up to the coil soldering terminal. With my shaky hands, that proved invaluable.
I did notice a couple of things when I finally got it running. First, in addition to water jetting out of the pee hole as it should, water was spraying out of the joint between the two auto pilot screw clamps, and it seemed to me that the lower part of the body was in danger of falling off or is at least in need of tightening. See photos IMG_5754 and 5756. There are two holes right below the rubber seal; the water seem to be coming from the location of the rubber seal. Does anyone know if this is normal?
Again, thanks for all the help in getting the old lady started. I have to learn about rich vs lean, and try to find a way to minimize the smoke and occasional backfires I get when I boost her to top speed. I presume that is a issue of adjusting the fuel setting?
Now onto the other motor I have – what appears to be a 1951 or 52 Evenrude Big Twin 25 hp. But I have to find a customer’s manual before I can figure out how to take off the cowling…
