First Night out in the New Boat- Force 70 help….

Last Sunday night at 4 PM I decided to leave for MN from Southern Indiana to get a Walleye Boat. The boat has a Force 70 two stroke.

Looking for some ideas other than Stabill, Seafoam and new plugs. If you think that’s all I need feel free to let me know. Those arrrre the easiest. haha

OK so I launched it and it took awhile to get warm. Then once warm it wouldnt start in straight neutral with out the throttle turned up(pushed forward)a bit. Go from forward to reverse and it would die. pulling up to the dock to park to load it dies and about hit some big rock. that was after running the boat and trolling for a couple hours. If i trolled at 3.0 it would stay running. Back it down and it would pure like a kitty cat at 1.7 for 10 seconds and then spit once then puke and shut down. so I’m having low end fuel problem i believe.

Hoping to learn something, and not take it to a shop.

THANKS!!

Any adjustments I might look at?/ such as cable adjustments on the motor or in the throttle control. Any ideas at all.

Also the guy ran a Aluminum like prop/. Seeems like at trolling speeds that thing is horrible. About to throw the stock one back on it.

To be honest–I would trade in the Force for either a Merc or an E-Max. Just my opinion. BTW- I’ve been told by reliable sources that Yamahas are also good.

How old is the gas?

If you don’t know that might be your first choice. I would be leery about using stabile or any other additive without knowing if the previous owner treated the fuel already.

Since it’s a single, float style carb you might want to pull the float bowl off to check for water and/or other impurities while your at it.

I had the same motor, It was my nightmare, get rid of it. Check head gasket. Put 2 in mine Did you have a compression test, one of the cylinders could be scored. Do yourself a favor save on repair bills. Get another motor!

Thanks, my service, go to guy on anything with a motor recommended the same thing.

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To be honest–I would trade in the Force for either a Merc or an E-Max. Just my opinion. BTW- I’ve been told by reliable sources that Yamahas are also good.

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These motors were notoriously bad.
It was a 3rd string Merc motor behing Mariner.
You will most likely be fighting it from here on out.
Not very reliable. I know its not what you want to hear but it is the honest truth.

my dad had a force since 1995 til last year. I’ll ask him his thoughts. thing was a pain in the hind end til he figured it all out after that he had it going good. If he didn’t disconnect the gasline when not in use was a nightmare getting the motor to cooperate. For some reason too seemed odd the motor hated the good gas he was better off with cheap gas. Weird I know. I don’t think you need to worry about constantly messing with it more figuring out the attitude of the beast and getting the routine down. they are a touchy one.
unless you got money to burn would expirement with a few different things then just tossing it or starting to repair expensive things on it.

As BK says, first thing is to find out if the fuel left in the tank was/is contaminated with water or debris. The easiest solution is to dump/pump out the tank and start over with fresh gas.

Honestly, to go any fruther than that is impossible until you verify you’re using good fule. Anything you try to tweak, clean, adjust, etc will be a wast because if the fuel is bad, it isn’t going to work and then you’ll be chasing things that aren’t the problem.

Honestly, the Force is going to be a hard mistress. Best thing to do would be to start looking for a replacement ASAP.

All is not lost, however. There IS however, a decent market for Force parts. Some parts on a Force like the CDI ignition pack bring big $ on eBay because they are rare and getting more rare every day. Between the CDI, the cowling, and the lower unit, you may recover several hundred dollars if you’re patient and sell wisely. If you’re really patient and strip lots of parts, you could recover even more.

Grouse

“New to me” motors get new plugs regardless of anything else. The last motor I bought had car plugs in it, which are too hot for an outboard. I also replace the water pump impeller, unless I trust the person and they’ve maintained it well.

Run a compression check, absolute numbers, unless extremely low, matter less than equality between the cylinders. Hopefully they are within about 5-10% of each other.

If all that checks out, run it with the muffs on using a portable tank with new gas in the driveway. Check the timing, I would be suspicious of that given that it likes to die when you throttle down. Check the spark for each cylinder while you have the cowling off also – I had one bad cylinder of 6 on my current motor and had to replace the trigger.

If everything checks out, then you’ve got 2 of the 3 key ingredients – spark and compression. The only thing left would be to pull the carb(s), disassemble, scrub in a solvent bath, blast out all the little passages with an air compressor, and reassemble with a new gasket kit. Most merc carbs have no adjustments other than replacing the jets, and this motor is old enough that wojld have already been done if needed – not sure about the force line, but may depend whether it is a merc/force or a chrystler/force.

If all that fails, i guess you can learn to live with it while you save up for a replacement, but most people give up on gas engines far too easily when something relatively simple is at fault.

Also, spend the 20 bucks and get a,service manual. It will have all the tests and checkouts, along with wiring harness diagrams, carb diagrams, etc. If you are like me these are invaluable during reassembly.

You can test the fuel yourself by taking a glass mason jar and syphon some gas into it. Let the gas in the jar sit for awhile and see if you get separation of water and gas. If gas smells fresh and does not have any water in it. I would recommend taking your motor to a reputable service technician. Something’s are just best left to the guys that do this kind of thing for a living. They should tell you what is wrong with your motor then you can decide what to do from their. Force motors have been known to have problems. If the motor needs major work I work consider replacement of the motor it self and save yourself the headache.

tough motor to get going well, but it can be done… I’d start with carbs, clean em and check all fuel lines for dryness and cracks… Also check fuel bulb… might be dry and cracked… change plugs, fresh gas etc… fully charged battery might help too…
how does motor run wide open?? if this motor was used for trolling may have massive carbon build up…
the year of your motor is important to this post…

Thanks for all the help. I got it running pretty darn good. It will idle a 2.8 to 3mph like a rock. As we all know that’s a little fast for trolling on most lakes. She will idle like a dream at 1.8 to 2.2 for about 50 yards. I believe it is loading up with fuel and dieing on me. The timing might be off a little. Especially since when I idle it way down it builds quite a bit of vibration. I might just have to go with a trolling plate to get this motor to troll like I want,. Like all AMAZING motor guys, its hard for mine to get the spare time to get in my boat. hopefully that will open up and some days to come.

After getting it running pretty good last Friday night. Sunday evening I did go out and pick a Wally up on a #5 jointed shad rap. Wasnt a giant, but a walleye none the less.

Thanks for everyone’s help. All of you have been very helpful in me getting this thing closer to good,.

Motor runs like a sewing machine wide open. 1995 Force 70 Two Stroke.

The manufacturer calls for 50:1. I feel as though this is a little excessive. I have oil mix on the bottom of my bottom motor after being out all day on the boat, and oil mix prayed on the motor.

I don’t wanna paint a picture of this being a turd. It is a very good motor. I’m just a detailed person when it comes to learning about something.

You could always throw a drift sock off the front end to troll against or run it against the bow mount trolling motor.

Since you said there was oil mix sprayed on the motor, does this have idle bleed tubes from the cylinder backs to the carbs? My merc has a clear fuel line going from each cylinder to the carbs for bleeding off excess fuel and oil. One had split at some point, causing a light spray of oil and gas inside the cowling.

If there is a leak in one of them, that will cause rough idle as well.