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Good Day,

I am hoping you folks can give me a hand on troubleshooting an issue with my Whaler. It's a 1984 17' Montauk with a 90HP Evinrude that I believe is the original motor. The engine will run at cruising speed for 1-2 minutes then I can hear the tone of the engine change and withing a couple of seconds it just quits. There is no sputtering it just stops running. The tone change sounds like it is bogging down. I have changed the plugs and have swapped out the gas tanks thinking that the three year old gas in the tanks was the culprit. I checked the in-line fuel filter and while there was some rust in there it was still flowing gas fairly well.

Once it stalls I am able to start it right up and it will run for another 1-2 minutes.

Any ideas where to go from here?

Thanks,
Kurt

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After it stalls, do you have to prime the bulb again to get it running?

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Nope it starts right up without doing anything.

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Vent on the tank clear and open? sounds like the fuel is not flowing for extended periods of time. When the pulgs were checked what did they look like ? tan, wet, sooty?

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I installed a brand new 26 gallon tank to completely eliminate fuel from the equation. It is still doing it. Three of the plugs seemed OK (grey/black, dry, no deposits) when I pulled them but I am far from an expert plug reader. One of them looked like it was wet and coincidentally that cylinder had an insert where the plug screwed in. Possible from a cross threaded plug at some previous point. That cylinder also had a buildup of what looked like burnt oil around the spark plug. I cleaned it up and made sure that I had as good a seal as possible around that plug.

It does not idle very well and I was hoping the new plugs would sort that out but no luck. It still will stall regularly when shifting.

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This is "Guess work" without the engine in front of us but, I'd start with replacing the in-line fuel filter (ya gonna have to do that anyway) or by-passing it, can you try a different "Newer" fuel line (older fuel lines can get weak spring's, not pushing the pin in, or check valves hanging up, this is usually clear when the bulb goes flat). A friend had a similar problem and it ended up being the "Insulative foam" in the engine cover. It was "Loose", and falling over the carb's choking the engine out of air when he applied throttle. I'd check the fuel pump next for a possible pin hole. Will she keep running if you prime the bulb ?

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I will try replacing the fuel filter and fuel line and see what that does as well as checking to see if it will stay running if I prime the bulb.

Thanks for all the assistance everyone.

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Is the "Arrow" on the fuel primer bulb pointing in the correct direction ? (The "Arrow" should point away from the fuel tank toward's the engine). I've made that mistake before.

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How many cylinders? i've heard of a lot of 3 cylinder outboards stalling. my engine stalls sometimes in between idling and planing, but if you know its going to happen its easy to prevent it.

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4-Cylinder

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If you have rust in your gas, that is probably your problem. The jets on the carbs may be clogging.

I just went through this on a Johnson 40 that would bog down and quit. I could keep the motor going if I continually squeezed the primer bulb to force fuel to the motor.

I suspected the fuel pump had worn out but it turns out there was some rust in the gasoline (which was fresh) in the plastic tank.

Change your fuel, replace your filters and try again. If that does not solve it it is time to rebuild your carbs.

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It's brand new fuel and a brand new tank. I am going to replace the bulb and gas line as well as all the fuel filters today to see if that helps. If that doesn't help it looks like a carb rebuild.

Thanks!

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I have same engine on a 17. Number of years ago engine would run great and then at near WOT would just stop. Wait a couple of minutes and it would crank and run fine until I throttled up again.

There was a crack in the plastic hose at the VRO pump. At WOT, it was not getting adequate lubrication and the pistons would seize in the cylinders.

Required tearing down engine, boring out cylinders and replacing pistons.

Check this out before you allow the engnie to quit enough times to damage the pistons like I did.