Reply To: Re-built Evinrude 18 HP 1960 won’t start

[salnaes]

Hi fleetwin and all others. Thank you very much for participating in these issues. I really appreciate every single post here. You are all fantastic, and it really helps this old guy(me) in making the right decisions and solving problems.

I was very happy when I found marineengine.com, because there’s not really many parts to find by dealers here in Norway for such an oldtimer like my eighteen horse from 1960. So I thought I could purchase from marineengine who had mostly everything I needed. But I was wrong. Marineengine does not sell to Norway. Period. What?!!  The didn’t even answer my emails because my email address was Norwegian. So I had to find other ways to purchase parts. Purchasing on ebay is not what I want, but sometimes I have no other choice.

The pistons marineengine.com have on their parts catalog for my 1960 18hp mod 15032 is #377262 and #385338. At the time of purchase #377262 was unavailable, so the only choice was to purchase #385338. But they does not sell to Norway, so I was stuck with ebay. I found #385338 on ebay by a seller in Cypros in Europe, and according to an experienced friend who had bought lots of items from this seller, my friend have had very good experiences with this seller and recommended him. So I ordered two pistons #385338 and two sets of rings #378415. It’s my own fault to order wrong rings.

#385338 has only two grooves. This pistons is also used many years after 1960 on 18 hp. I received two sets of three identical rings, and not two sets of two different rings, because I ordered the wrong part number for rings.  So I don’t blame the seller on ebay. He just sent what I ordered.

Now the pistons #385338 is provided by marineengine as pistons for the 1960 modell I have. They are on the marineengine Power Head parts page for my model 15032, although not in stock. So I feel confident now on using these two pistons #385338 with the special rings which I was lucky to acquire later by a dealer in Sweden. Those two pistons are now correctly installed, and should work just fine since marineengine have them on their parts page for my power head.

The image I posted previously show both pistons in the same position, and that’s because the rods are not connected to the crankshaft at the time the image was captured. Since the rods are not connected to the crank shaft it’s possible to slide the pistons up and down the cylinders in parallell so they are in the same position.

So my little worries concerning the pistons and rings are now gone.

Now to the other possible problem, connecting ignition leads to the right cylinders. I studied so many resources (youtube, repair manuals and other stuff) to connect coils to the right cylinders. I have installed new coils, condensers and points on the armatur plate. The ignition leads and spark plug caps are all new too. When I did this job I followed the recommendations I found in the sources of info I had. The two ignition wires that goes to the spark plugs are installed in this way:

Wire to the top cylinder is connected to the first coil the wires meet when they are travelling onto the armaturplate. Wire to the bottom cylinder goes further around the edge of the armaturplate about 180 degrees and then disappears into the second coil. So the ignition wire to the second coil is the longest of the two wires. The wire to the top cylinder is labeled with a small metal clip with the letters “UP” on it to not interchange the wires by accident. This is how I did it, and correct me if I’m wrong.

I have tested sparks on both cylinders with two spark testers, and they both show good sparks when I rotate the flywheel. I feel confident that the ignition is correct.

I did a search on the Internet to find the Detent #204490 which is holding the choke lever in the ON position. It seems that this part is gone out of production, but it still exist on ebay. But who would pay USD $42.50 pluss shipping and taxes for a little plastic piece? It’s crazy.  So luckily I found a dealer here who had one piece. And the price was ok too.

Well. Now I will spray a little fuel in the carburetor intake and try starting again. Just one final question. How much throttle do I need to set before I begin to pull the starter handle?