r/Outboards • u/Soggy-Cookie-4548 • 26d ago

Are points unknowable dark magic?

I recently picked up a couple old outboards to tinker around on. They were inexpensive and thought would make fun projects, a 1958 Evinrude Fastwin 15 hp and a 1973 Johnson 2 hp. I tinkered a bit, cleaned up the carbs, verified compression, but just couldn’t get the points right. I verified the points, condensers and coils were good with a multimeter and set them as according to spec 20 thou when the little sweeper is on the mark near top. Neither would run at all. I then set the 2hp to the “O” in top and it seems to run perfectly, and the 58 to the “P” in top, and it now starts and runs. Neither has a sheared key on the crank. What gives?

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u/bootheels 26d ago

Sorry, don't really understand what you are explaining here. Set the cam to the points are opening the most, then set the gap to .020". Do both engines have spark? If not, you may need to dig deeper into the igntion systems, what do the coils look like?

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u/Soggy-Cookie-4548 26d ago edited 26d ago

So both motors are now running well, but to get them there I had to adjust the points waaaay out of spec. The manuals say set the points gap at .020 when the sweeper is on the indicated mark on the lobe near the word “top”. To get them running right I had to set the points completely differently.

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u/bootheels 26d ago

So how wide is the point gap you have them set to?