Yamaha - after 27 year nap...with VIDEOS

[77SceptreOB]

Recently I was having some performance issues cropping up with my old Yamaha 225 hp 2 stroke outboard. It is a 1988 and we bought it brand new 27 years ago. I thought it might be nearing the end of it's life due to old age problems. It was surging and hiccupping. The idle was getting pretty rough and the hole shot was getting pretty weak. The top end was okay at 38 mph but I could only now turn up 5100 rpms at WOT. Also the low speed performance was not all that good either with vibration and out of tune and song sound. I thought we were near the end and a very expensive 4 stroke upgrade was going to be in my future. I could make that happen from a financial perspective, but it would be a stretch and with college for my kids in the next 5 years I would really have to think long and hard about this...

I was talking to a mobile marine mechanic that works out of the marina I keep my boat at about these problems. He gave me a few suggestions to look into but he didn't want to work on such an old motor due to the time involved to trouble shoot everything and he was very busy. I was pretty discouraged. One point he made clear was to run a compression check on all 6 cylinders BEFORE I did anything or spent any money on parts. That made a lot of sense to me.

So armed with my friends compression gauge I went to the marina to run a compression test on all 6 cylinder to see what I had. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I would find and had serious doubts.

I warmed the motor up with a little ride on the lake. Motor was not running too good as mentioned above. I pulled into a covered wet slip and commenced to do the compression check.

The first cylinder was 125 psi. I thought that was excellent and my attitude went from near death motor thoughts to some optimism.

The # 2 cylinder was 126 psi, #3 was 125 psi, # 4 was 122 psi. I was pleased but guarded thinking the next cylinder would be 50 psi or something like that. BUT, #5 was 120 psi and the last cylinder....drum roll please....was....120 psi!! I was very happy with these readings needless to say!

Well buoyed by this good news I walked over to the marine mechanic to share my great news. He said that was surprising and actually pretty impressive for the age of the motor. BUT---He still declined to work on the motor. I left to go back to the boat with a deflated attitude.

I tinkered around on the motor but nothing really helped. New spark plugs etc... When leaving the marina the mechanic whistled and called me over to the boat he was working on. I thought he might have changed his mind and wanted to earn his $95/hour and take a shot at my motor. NOPE! still not interested, BUT he knew a retired Yamaha certified mech that was good with older carbed engines and gave me his phone number.

I called the retired mech (Travis) and told him my sorrows. He said he would try to help. He loves old Yamahas and bought into my troubles. We agreed on a time to meet and he would bring his tools, meters and years of Yamaha experience.

More below.