OMC SeaDrive 2.0L Won't Start
 

Morning Everyone! New guy here...I recently acquired an 88' V20 Steplift from my Grandfather. It has an '88 2.0L SeaDrive on it. The boat/motor were perfect for him for years. My g'mom got sick, so the boat sat for a few years (4-5). About 3 years ago, my cousin attempted to put it in the water, it started up, and ran, but after about 15 minutes just died. They parked it until I showed interest about a month ago. After reading through several threads here, I did some basic maintenance - new plugs, cleaned the stale gas out, replaced the 2 stroke oil in the VRO system, cleaned the carbs... I attempted to fire it up this yesterday, but no luck. The starter engages, motor turns, but won't turn over. I have fuel all the way to the carburetors. Now, up to this point, I've been trying to be as budget conscious as possible, as I'm not sure if the motor is good, so I don't want to dump a ton of money in it only to find it needs to be re-powered (not necessarily something I want to do). It does have dual batteries, but I've been trying to start/run it off a single battery. So, here I am, hoping for some insight on some additional items to check, or where to go next, to hopefully get this thing to fire up, and go boating! If I did it right, I've attached some pictures of the motor below. Thanks in advance for any insight!

A few more pictures!

welcome to the site/cult. i'd check fire first. when say motor turns, but not over, u mean spins rapidly, but not starting?

i think your right not to put a whole lot in that sea drive unit, but would be an excellent candidate for a bracket and re-power.

what part of the V world are u from?

some of the smart guys will be along later

X2 on what Phatdaddy said. Check your fire.

There are 3 things necessary for an engine to work. (Not talking about Diesel engines here) Fuel, Air and Spark. But wait...there is a 4th requirement, sort of, and that's timing... they all have to work at the right time for the engine to run. But the primary things are the three mentioned.

So, you say that the engine is getting fuel to the carbs, and I'm pretty sure we can presume that the engine is getting air, so the only other primary item is spark. That would be my first check. Is it getting spark to the plugs? I know you said you changed them, but have you checked for actual spark? In it's simplest test you can do it for free. Remove one spark plug, reattach the wire, then with insulated pliers or a plastic fuse puller (anything non- conductive so you don't get zapped) hold the metal threaded part of the plug against a metal part of the engine and have someone turn the key and try to start the engine. You should see nice blue sparks jumping across the gap at the tip of the plug. If you see sparks jumping then you have fire and your problem probably lies elsewhere. If not you don't and that's where you should be looking to determine why you don't. Keep us posted of your results after you test for spark. Good luck.

IF you have spark then the next check is compression. Using a compression tester (borrow one from your neighbor or Auto-Zone if you don't have one) remove all your spark plugs, then check each cylinder by placing the tester into the hole and having someone turn over the engine several times while you observe the amount of pressure that registers on the dial. Write the results down, along with which cylinder the reading is from. Do this for all 4 cylinders and post the results back here also.

Thanks for the recommendations! I'm in NJ.

I didn't check for spark, but will definitely give that a try this weekend. If spark is there, I'll check compression.

When trying to turn over, it seemed a bit sluggish. It would turn give a good turn, then weaken up a bit, then turn again. I would describe it as more of a pulse, then a constant turn. This is my first time working on an outboard, so I'm picturing the way a car starter works. It seemed like a much slower turn then that.

If thats the case, I'd check battery and all connections, might not be spinning fast enough to produce fire.

As far as spark checker, I'd tell one of my kids "hey, hold this wire for me", they'll let you know real quick.

:haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::you::you::you::you::you:

Any engine needs 4 elements to run all in the correct order. Fuel, air, spark, and compression. In most diesel engines the spark happens from the shear heat of compression, in a gas engine they normally use a spark plug. Air and fuel mix is sucked into the cylinder(except for dfi applications in which case the fuel is injected dorectly into the cylinder), the piston moves up compressing the mix, a spark occurs, the piston gets sent back down, and then it exhausts the burnt gases. If you don't have compression, it will never run as the fuel air mixture won't properly atomize to ignite. If you have no fuel, then theres nothing to ignite. No spark and you can't ignite the mix. And if it can't exhaust the gases, it cannot pull in air/fuel mix to repeat the process.

That engine uses a direct drive starter and needs good CLEAN cables to kick over. It actually takes more juice to start that engine than a v-6 does because of the direct drive starter vs gear reduction. Also, anytime an oil injected engine has sat, you're supposed to start it and run it on a 50:1 mix until oil can get back into the system. Several have burned up outboards with functioning oil injection by not running pre mix until the system is purged, let alone the pos vro system that omc used. Pull the plugs put of the engine and see if it spins over with no load, then so a compression test(should be around 130-150 on that engine). Also check it for spark while the plugs are out. Start checking the basics and work your way down the list to see if you have the needed requirements for it to run.

And I hope it wasn't run at anything over idle with the airbox cover off. If it was, I would be willing to lay odds she's been leaned out BIG TIME!

bgares wrote: "When trying to turn over, it seemed a bit sluggish. It would turn give a good turn, then weaken up a bit, then turn again. I would describe it as more of a pulse, then a constant turn."


I just experienced the very same thing you described with an old Evinrude 135 that came on a Wellcraft V17 I just bought. The motor spun unevenly and I found that the battery negative terminal got very hot while trying to get the motor to start. I put a new set of battery cables on the motor and it spun like a top. It looks like corrosion got to the negative cable at the battery end and caused more resistance than normal in that cable.

I recommend you check your cables especially since you said they have been sitting for a few years.

Welcome to the site.

Welcome to the site brother wellcraft owner, you have no idea how close we came to shutting down but that didn't happen Now I'm not as informative as these guys but one thing I did learn And that is start at the beginning, the first thing I would check is , check the kill switch make sure it's not in the off position,,, Then I would charge the battery's Then prime the bulb make sure it gets hard and fire it up If she don't start try spraying some either in the carbs That should get it going If that does not work Let us know Good luck And remember Check the kill switch also change all the fuel filters and if you have one if you don't get one a water seperator filter

YIKE!!! NO!!!!!!! DO NOT spray ether in the carbs. These are 2 stroke engines.. that means that on the intake cycle that ether is going into the crankcase of the engine, not into the cylinders. One spark and the entire engine blows up. IF YOU MUST resort to ether, unscrew a spark plug, squirt it into the hole then screw the plug back in and try starting it. That way the ether at least is in the cylinder where explosions are supposed to happen and not in the crankcase..

Yep, starting fluid is designed to be used by both spark ignition AND compression ignition engines. A 2 stroke engine compresses the intake charge not once, but twice. Before the intake port opens into the cylinder, the piston going down is compressing the gasses inside the crankcase. And that crankcase pressure could get high enough to cause the starting fluid to ignite, and BOOM goes your block.

Happy Monday everyone! I was able to put some time in to working on the ol' boat over the weekend. I went out and purchased 2 new batteries, and installed them. Had great voltage everywhere, so I decided to try a test fire. After pumping on the primer bulb, it never got 'hard', just kept pumping. I started to notice the smell of gas, so I took the motor cover off, and found one of the carbs leaking fuel out of the overflow (at least I think it's the overflow). In the attached picture, it was leaking from the hole between the 2 bolts, directly above the bowl drain plug. I pulled the carb off, cleaned it up, and put it back on. Instead of 'over pumping' the bulb, I just pumped it a few times, and tried a test fire. The starter sounded a lot better with all the power! She almost turned right over. Cranked the key again, and she fired up! Ran for about 2 seconds, back-fired, and stalled. After that, every time I tried to turn the motor over (2 or 3 more times), right as it wanted to start, it backfired, and shut off. So, could this be a result of the leaking carb? I've already ordered a rebuild kit for it, which should hopefully be here by Friday. But is there anything else I should be looking at in the meantime?

I'd look into your timing first thing. Verify it's where it should be.

Thanks for correcting me about the either All I know about that is I brought my engine to the mechanic and he told me he had to use either to get it started I never asked him where he sprayed it So you guys saved me from ever doing that A big thanks guys

So, if I haven't mentioned it, outboard mechanic work is completely new to me. I have the OEM Service Manual, and was looking up the timing procedure. Everything in there shows the motor running, and being brought up to temperature, operated at a certain RPM, etc. Is there another procedure to check/set the timing when the motor won't run? Is there a different manual that may explain things better to me? Based on reading the OEM Service Manual, it seems to imply a certain level of knowledge to understand...

Thank Spareparts and TheFermanator. They corrected me when I said the same thing several years ago. They get the real credit. :clap:

I seriously doubt timing is your issue. If it was to far retarded it simply wouldn't want to idle and stall out at low rpm's chugging blue smoke. And I've run them at full advance at idle with no problems setting timing. What you're describing is a lean sneeze which most likely means the carbs and jets need cleaned then a link and sync, then set your timing. Also of note, MANY of these old outboards need to be rejetted to run on todays fuels. And you have one of the toughest set of carbs to rebuild and not ruin in front of you with that engine. They are largely plastic, and many carb cleaners can danage them. Make sure whatever you use is plastic safe, be VERY carefull not to overtighten any screws and strip out a screw hole, and be EXTREMELY carefull tightening the 4 bolts that hold the carbs to the butterfly's. More of those carbs are junked by improper tightening of those 2 long bolts than anything else.

Ok...finally had some time to put in to the boat this weekend (been a crazy few weeks at that place that pays the bills). I finished rebuilding the one carb that was leaking, cleaned the others out. Did a Link & Sync (to the best I could figure out). Put a new in-line fuel filter in, as I had no idea when the other one was from. Finally, it was time for another test fire. She continued doing the same it did before (would fire, 'burp'/backfire, then stall out). I decided to try to start with the throttle open a bit - started about 10% throttle, and worked my way up to about 50%, and it fired up! I immediately backed down to neutral after it fired, and it stalled right out. No matter what I did, unless the throttle was opened up a bit, it wouldn't stay running. After 2 tries like this, I decided to call it quits on starting until I could get back here and get some more advice. After getting out of the boat, I noticed a little smoke/steam coming from the exhaust ports. So, I guess I need to replace the water pump (planned on doing this anyway, just haven't been able to figure out how to yet). I also drained the gear oil, and plan on replacing that too. So, my newest questions:
1. How do I get the lower unit off to replace/rebuild the water pump? I found the 6 or 7 bolts at the bottom, but after taking them off, something is still holding it.
2. Any advice on why it would run with the throttle open, but not at idle?
3. What's the best oil to use to refill the gear case, as I doubt the OMC Hi-Vis Gear Oil recommended by the manufacturer is still available!

As always, thanks for any insight/help. It's greatly appreciated! Here's to still hoping I can get my grandpop out on the boat one more time!

OMC Hi-Vis Gear oil is still available. If you can't find it any other place look on eBay. Lots of it there.

My bet is you didn't get the carbs cleaned correctly, and your pickup tubes are plugged. Otherwise you need to inspect it for cracked reeds. As to dropping the lower unit, did you remove the trim anode and get the bolt above it?

Not getting the carbs cleaned correctly is a definite possibility! When you say pickup tubes - are you referring to the small fuel lines that run to each carb, or something else? If it's those small fuel lines, what's the best way to clean them? Pressurized air? Carb cleaner?

In regards to the lower unit, I did remove the trim anode, and the bolt above it. The unit dropped about an inch, and would move back and forth/side to side, but wouldn't drop out completely. Is there something that connects it the the motor, or do the gear just slip together, and perhaps I did to pull a little harder to separate?

You didn't take the shift linkage loose. Look under the carbs on the front side of the powerhead, and com8ng in from the port side, you'll see the shift linkage. I want to say it's a 5/16" hex head bolt. DO NOT DROP IT taking it out. If you do, it can fall down the whole for the shift shaft, and be gone. And do not turn the shift shaft once you drop the lower, if you do, you will be resetting your shift linkage height.