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.