Reply To: 1958 Evinrude 4- Fifty horse, model 50012 advice

[Jeffls]

Thank you for the manual suggestion. I was thinking about a seloc manual, but was able to find a Ken cook manual. As you said, a bit pricey but not unreasonable.
I have not drained the gear case yet. When I picked the boat up, the previous owner mentioned it would need a prop seal, and it was visible that the whole gear case lower housing was sticky with old oil and had been leaking for quite some time. The motor has not seen any water for a long time, so I assume the gear case isn’t filled with rusty water, plus the prop shaft has no play and spins very smoothly, but you make a good point. We all know what happens when we assume. I will drain the oil, if any comes out and see how bad it looks.

I managed to free up the ignition advance and made an attempt to start it yesterday. I found that I had to jumper the ground side of the trigger to the starter solenoid to ground to get it to crank. I also found that I get no spark. After some research and finding a wiring diagram I believe I have 2 different issues. The starter solenoid trigger is grounded thru the neutral/throttle switch mounted on the top of the motor. The switch seems to be stuck closed so in theory it should allow the motor to crank, I believe there is a break in the wire in the harness between boat electrical box and the and motor. I’m guessing it shouldn’t be too hard to repair
The other issue with no spark, I believe is that the magneto is grounded all the time.

Can anyone tell me, on the side of the distributor, the terminal with the wire that goes up to the gear, that is the magneto wire and provides voltage to the coil correct? There is another wire stacked on top of that terminal that runs down to a splice, which splits it to a momentary push button switch on the back of the motor and also down into the pass thru terminals and into the boat harness. I assume that push button switch is a kill switch and that wire is the kill wire and would ground the coil and magneto to kill the engine correct?
I have to check my ignition switch and see if it’s opening the Magneto contacts. In theory if the distributor/coil/magneto still works, I should be able to pull that kill wire and the motor should then Have spark correct?

I jumped the gun and spent about $80 in parts for this motor for a prop, and gaskets for doing the lower gear case. Not so bad that I couldn’t move onto a different motor, if need be but I have some parts and some time into learning this motor, that I’d like to use this motor. I just want to hear it run though before I put any more money towards it, including the cost of the manual. Once I get it to fire, I’ll pull the lower unit and inspect everything and see if a simple reseal and impeller replacement is all that is needed, or if I’m looking at other issues as well. Thank you all for the help so far.