Reply To: Johnson FD-12 Won’t Run

[Don]

I dunno, that sneezing/coughing doesn’t sound like a spark issue.  Have you tried the engine on a boat?  You can’t judge to much by revving it in neutral in a test tank.  The engine idles well, correct?   Where is the idle needle set now?  The only other thing to check is the sync adjustments.  The engine will cough and fart off idle if the carb is opening too soon.  Any possibility that the choke linkage is messed up holding that throttle plate open?  Perhaps the carb linkage is binding causing it to hang up.

Again, I wouldn’t go crazy looking for problems until you run the engine on a boat and dial in the needle adjustments properly.