It floats!
Ignore the junky seat, bare wood/aluminum hatch lids, and the mess under the trolling motor. Between being stuck waiting for carpet and generally being tired of working on the boat but not fishing, I decided to pull a late-night blitz on Saturday to get this thing on the water Sunday afternoon. I haven't gotten the big motor running yet, so my daughter and I trolled around for a bit. I didn't throw too many casts, maybe 2 dozen times. I spent most of the time helping her fish and doing function checks.
I got all the wiring sorted out, installed bilge/livewell pumps, console, steering, old switches (and they actually work now!), etc. etc. I put about 4 gallons of fuel mix in the tank, primed the bulb until it was hard, and turned the key. It started right up, but died within 5 seconds. After that, I checked sparkand fuel
So I don't know what the problem is yet, but I didn't chase down every possible issue either. We were happy just trolling around the docks.
Before I spend any more time on the motor, I'm going to do what I should have done a year ago when I got the boat and run a compression test. I think O'Reillys has them available for rent, so I'll run it by the store and test it so I can hopefully rule out the worst-case scenario. Fingers crossed. If compression is good, I think it has to be either the pump or something wrong with the carb. The motor turned over really strong, just wouldn't fire after that first time. Sounds like a fuel supply issue.
Question: is there an acceptable range for compression on an outboard like mine (1996 Force 40 ELPT)? From what I've read, it seems like ~120 is about right.
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