Expert: Everett Peacock - 2/23/2009

Question
Hello there.  Thanks for taking the time to answer my question, and I hope
your having a good day.

I'm going to apologize right now because I know that this is going to end up
a quite lengthy email...

My buddy had purchased a 16' Alumacraft with a 1982 Evinrude 35 HP on it.
Yeah, it was old; yeah, the boat needed some work; and yeah, it was sold at a
remarkably great price. We knew there were issues, because the engine had
completely conked out on one of the trips that the original owner and I had
taken on a river... since that day, the boat wasn't fixed or nothin' until my
other friend bought it.

We thought that the hub was broken in the engine, nah. It would spin in
reverse, but not forward, and finally diagnosed that the differential had
broken somehow. Luckily we found another 1982 Evinrude E35ECND 35 HP
engine on Craigslist but an hour away from the university. We took the lower
unit off that and slapped it onto the upper unit of the original.

We smacked on a new prop and restored the hub fixture into the original
prop. We gave her a try, still nothin'. We diagnosed it again, only to find that
the water pump had somehow gone and melted to nothin'. Luckily, we didn't
break anything on the engine block. We purchased a new water pump and got
it installed. We had to take the engine up to where we bought the lower unit
from, because frankly, in the world of engine repair - we're freshmen. We're
die-hard fishermen, but boat repair is not a strong point for us quite yet...
We're getting there.

We need your help. This engine would turn over, even though it had some
items in her that just would not work right... the point is that she turned
over. When we put the engine back on, and put the steering back in, and all
the other doo-hickeys all over, we gave her a crank; to no avail. Everything
was working ay-OK from a mechanical-standpoint. We had charged the
battery, hell, we even took the one out of the car to make sure. We had
replaced the fuel because the old stuff had been sitting in the boat for darn
close to two months. We had made sure the ear-muff looking things were
over the vents and that water was flowin' from the hose straight to the lower
unit... Still nothin'.  We think it just may be that we faulted somewhere in
rewiring the battery to the engine, although we're pretty sure that's not the
case.  We're going to take a better look today after my buddy's done with
football practice, and I'm done with class.

Please, if ya got any electrical schematics for the 1982 E35ECND Evinrude 35
HP engine or heck, even just pointers for us, please send them my way. I very
much appreciate it.

Thanks for your time.

Answer
when you had the unit replaced you should have done the pump while there...with the boat on the trailer, pull the spark plugs out, lay them on the block and crank it over, you should have spark at the plugs....if you don't then it is a fire problem, if you do then it is fuel...
you need three things to run..1. fuel ,  2. Spark,  3. compression...