Honda 9.9 Starting Problems

[Peter & Judy]

My Honda 9.9 is about 10 years old and has an automatic choke and electric start, it has at most 100 hours on it. This motor has always been finicky and difficult to start and now it will not start. Over the past month or two when I was on the coast I had it started and running a couple of times, but generally it would turn over and run for a few seconds and then stall out. It never has been an easy starter, but once it was running it ran perfectly. Twice it has got me home over long distances when my Honda 90 gave me problems. That is its main purpose as a 'Get Me Home' motor, although I do troll with it once in a while. While cruising I like to use it every couple of days to keep it working.

Now I am back in Alberta and trying to get it working again. I am using good fresh stabilized marine fuel. I suspected that the carberator was the likely problem, so I pulled that. It was very clean, but I gave it a good cleaning as well. It also got a new set of spark plugs. It seems to be drawing fuel and the fuel filter is clean. I am trying to get this thing working, hopefully without taking it to a mechanic. Good Honda marine mechanics are rare in Canada and very scarce here in Alberta.

Any help that you can provide will be welcome.

I might be in the market for a new kicker and the Yamaha High Thrust 9.9 looks like it might be a good choice. Yamaha has a very good network of dealers and mechanics in Canada.

[jkidd]

If it is getting fuel and spark then the next thing I would do is adjust the valves. If they are out of adjustment they will make it hard to start. Also make sure the automatic choke is really working.

[starcrafttom]

Define getting fuel. There is fuel going from the tank to the carbs but is it getting thru the carbs? and is it getting thru all parts of the carbs. I have been down this path before. A small piece of goop was pluging one of the tiny passages. Until you pull the whole carb apart and blow air thru every hole you will not be sure. but its almost cheaper to buy a new carb if you have to have a shop do it. but then again its not hard.

[jkidd]

Give it a shot of ether and see if it tries to start. If it does the carb needs more work.

[colbysmith]

Hi Peter. Not sure I can offer any help, but when I bought C-Traveler, my kicker (Yamaha 9.9) was hard to start. I doubt it had been ran much. I continued to start it every day when out on the boat (which was frequently). After a while, it just seemed to get better. I suspect the carbureator just needed cleaning. I run ethanol fuel, and I know ethanol is a cleaner. It may be that you just need to clean some gum out of your carbs. Also make sure there is no air leaking in any of the fuel lines. Good luck. Colby

[C-Wolfe]

I had similar issue with a honda 2.3, very hard to keep it running. What I did was dump the fuel and clean the internal tank then add a little bit of fuel and about the same amount of seafoam. I ran it every day for a couple/few minutes then let it sit, it ran a bit better every time, after 3-4 days of that it was running like new. it was a cheap easy fix for me, hope that work for you

[jkidd]

times two on the Seafoam great stuff.