Evinrude Starting Intermittently???

I’ve got a 1998 Evinrude 40hp I picked up this spring and put on 16′ boat. I ran it a few times before the 4th of july, Ran perfect. My friend borrowed the boat for a family trip, and it ran great the first morning to the first spot, then went it wouldn’t restart. wouldn’t start the rest of the trip. He got home, and it fired right up! So he took it again the following weekend, ran fine out to the spot, only to have it not start agian… The motor never started hard at all. Fired up in the first few seconds… Thoughts?

What did it do? It it turn over or just go dead?
I’m betting some kind of loose wire…Pull cover and check for anything loose..

My buddy just went through this and I have too. Sometimes it’s just your battery connection. Clean it up and crank the wing nuts down hard.

It still turns over. and fast, just doesn’t start. I put new plugs in before he took it. but when tested when it wouldn’t start, the spark looked weak? When the boat got home form the trip and was starting again, we suspected the key switch so I replaced it. it worked fine until he was on the water the next weekend. motored out to the spot fine, but then worked restart after fishing for a while…

It seems to be that spot on the lake.
I would GPS that spot and avoid it in the future.

Seriously though,
check both ends of the battery connections
as well as the cable end to the connector itself.

a though the power pac warms up and won’t put out enough power to fire the motor?
Stan

My guess would be the needle and seats are bad and are leaking when it sits flooding the motor. Disconnect the fuel line when you stop to fish for a while, so it can’t keep flooding the motor. If it starts right up after sitting a while then that is the problem. You can replace them for about $6 per carb.