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Honda 9.9A (4 stroke) from 1998 intermittently starting

T

TheGregAB

New member
Hey,

I own a Honda outboard 9.9A (BABL-14XXXXX) from 1998 with electric starter. It has been running OK last year but I have been running into several issues this year so far.

The engine has been mostly failing to start, and very sporadically started a couple times throughout all my testing. I have run the following diagnosis:
  • Kill Switch: Tested at CDI harness. Open circuit when running, grounded only when lanyard pulled. Looks good.
  • Ignition Coil (Primary): 0.6 Ohms. Good.
  • Ignition Coil (Secondary w/ Caps): 30k Ohms with the caps, 18k Ohms without the caps. This seems high? Maybe the caps needs to be replaced? I am not sure what should be the appropriate value here.
  • Pulser Coil / Trigger: ~380 Ohms
  • Exciter Coil / Stator: ~200 Ohms resting resistance. Did an unloaded cranking test (electric start, CDI unplugged) and got 72V AC on a standard multimeter. (Stator is generating solid power) which I guesstimate to be 150V "true" volts (since multimeter will average things out).


I have found out that the battery connectors were in poor shape and the cables were slightly oxidized. I cut the cables short of 15cm to get rid of the oxidized copper and replaced the connectors with new one that I tightened hard.

After this, the engine started immediately and is making great sound. However, after running ~20 mins in neutral, it died.
It is now refusing to restart.

Note that I am always using the electric starter. The manual starter possibly works but requires to be in such a weird position that I never have enough force to make it work.

My suspects:
- Battery was too low (it read 12.3V but you never know) and needed to be charged... although it should have been charged from running 20 minutes in neutral?
- CDI controller is wonky and should be replaced (maybe bad joints/solder that cracks with the heat?). It looks fine from the outside though.

I would appreciate any help from experienced people! This is only my 2nd year with a Honda motor and I have very little experience. I learn as I go 😃

Thank you
Greg
 
Hi,

Sorry you're having problems.

The first point I want to make clear to you is that the battery and charging system have nothing to do with the engine firing (running).

Any connection you perceive to repairs made to battery cables or charging the battery are strictly coincidental to how easy it starts or how well it runs.

This outboard needs no battery or battery cables to start and run reliably.


The battery is strictly for operating the electric starter and the charging system is only designed to keep the battery topped up.

I would though,.advise you to avoid cranking the engine for extended periods as I saw in your video. That isn't good for the starter motor. Doing that can also cause gasoline to dilute the engine oil and cause damage. I advise doing an oil change if you've been cranking it.alot like that. As you probably already know, this engine should start almost immediately with a turn of the key or with one or two pulls on the cord. No need to crank and crank for testing.


Having said that.....
...I don't have the service information for this model so I can't advise about your test values. There is a forum member whose username is  HonDan. and he seems to have good info on many of these older outboards and I consider him to be someone that knows his way around Honda twins. You might try private messaging him about this issue.

I think that you're approach to testing of the ignition system was excellent. Most, if not.all values you posted look reasonable to me but I don't know for sure.

My advice about how to troubleshoot this is to be prepared to find what's missing when it won't start.

You need to first know:
Is it getting fuel? The best method would be to introduce artificial enrichment but it might suffice to simply pull one or both plugs to see if they're wet with gas.

Is it getting good spark? Again the.BEST thing is to use a spark tester but if you pull the plugs and they are wet with gas, it's reasonable to think that it's getting gas but no (or very weak) spark.

So, have what you need handy to remove the spark plugs.

It will likely be lacking one or the other. It's VERY unusual that it's both.

Once you're sure about that, you will then have a logical direction to take in figuring this out.

I'm guessing it's probably ignition (no spark) but guessing is silly when doing this stuff.

Sorry, no silver bullet for solving this puzzle on my end.

Good luck and please keep us updated.
 
Hi @jgmo,

Thank you for your quick reply!

I understand the battery/charging system are only useful when using the electrical start. I am however only starting the engine with the electrical start. The manual rope to start the engine requires much force and I never really have the required force when the engine is sitting in the boat because it requires weird angle and I almost fall in the water everytime. 😅

Thank you for your advice regarding not leaving electrical start for too long. I'll avoid doing that in the future. When it starts, it does start indeed quite quickly!

Thank you also for your advice regarding HonDan. I'll send him a private message right away!

Regarding the plugs, when the engine do not start, they become wet with gas, yes. At this point, I take them off and wipe them dry.
I have however not seen any spark from the plugs when I disconnect one of them, ground it against the engine metal, and try to start using the electrical starter. With that said, I have heard the spark is very small and I am testing in daylight/sunny conditions which is maybe not ideal?

So your guess is maybe right? The fact that I was getting to spark is why I started by testing the whole ignition system as well as multimetering everything. But I don't know what else could be causing this no-spark problem?

Thank you
Greg
 
Yes, you're right
The spark on these can be fairly faint. I have thrown a blanket over my head and the outboard before to try and see it.

The wet plugs do indicate no/poor spark so that could be caused by one of several things.
One of the "usual suspects" for me would be the ignition getting unintentionally grounded due to the coil/e-stop wire making contact with the chassis because of worn/ damaged insulation. Also, on electric start models, a bad ignition switch can cause this.

You said that the "CDI controller is wonky" but "looks good". I'm curious as to what "wonky" means?
I've never cut a CDI open but I believe that they are."potted" in an epoxy material to keep the board from cracking or components vibrating loose. I don't know how to accurately evaluate one but anything that.old is always suspect considering thermal cycling over time. It would be my #1 pick unless the info you may get from HonDan belies your test results for the ignition coil.

Sorry for the not so sunny and possibly inaccurate assumptions but it's all I got. IE: not much help I know!
 
Amazon sells CDI spark testers and inline lightbulb spark testers for under $10.
If you get inline lightbulb type tester to show a flash of light but the CDI tester doesn't then you might have under 25k volts coming from CDI.

But you mentioned wet plugs so it sounds like you have a float sticking. Honda carbs not run for a while can gum up, try cleaning the carb thru the bowl drain by spraying carb cleaner up it put bowl drain screw on and let sit for a bit. Put white paper towel under the carb bowl when spraying and see if anything comes out.

20 minutes at idle also likely not gonna charge the battery put a multi meter on and check voltage at battery when idling but normally you need to run 1500 rpm to get enough charge from the stator to charge the battery.
 
Thank you for the replies!

We went to the boat today and tested with a jump starter delivering 800A (battery was at 12.3V). This did not work, which excludes the battery being the problem in my opinion.

We then played a bit with the e-stop connectors. We disconnected them and replaced one connector. After doing that, the engine started! GREAT! Then we stopped the engine and placed the engine hat back on, and tried to start again - it did not start. Not great!

With today's test, I am leaning towards a problem with one of the wires that maybe needs to be replaced OR the CDI controller being bad. What do the experts think? I am also not sure how to test the CDI controller myself if you could advise?

---

@jgmo
You said that the "CDI controller is wonky" but "looks good". I'm curious as to what "wonky" means?
Click to expand...
Sorry if that was unclear, this was more of a gut feeling that the CDI controller is bad, because I felt like I had tested most other things and they looked OK. But it's just a gut feeling. The CDI controller itself looks good, it is indeed sealed with some material. The connectors look good as well.

@HonDan
Amazon sells CDI spark testers and inline lightbulb spark testers for under $10.
Click to expand...
There's actually a little LED at the front of the engine that lights up when I try to start it, I suppose that would be the inline lightbulb spark tester you mention? What is a CDI spark tester, could you link me to the Amazon page? I tried finding one, but I am not sure what I am exactly looking for.

But you mentioned wet plugs so it sounds like you have a float sticking
Click to expand...
Today, even after trying to start multiple times, the plugs were dry and not wet. Maybe last time it was because I tried to run the engine using the electrical starter with a lot of attempts that eventually the plugs got wet?

20 minutes at idle also likely not gonna charge the battery
Click to expand...
Yes, I understood that afterwards unfortunately. I should have went on a small loop with the boat to keep the RPM higher. My bad!


Thank you!
Greg
 
Had you read the first 4 paragraphs of post #3 of this thread, you might have dispensed with the jumping and cranking exercise.
But...
...tunnel vision is something everyone struggles with...
...Including me. So, I get it.
Hopefully you have now completely convinced yourself that what I wrote is true...battery, cables and charging system have nothing to do with ignition system. The charging system is completely separate from the ignition system, having its own, dedicated, voltage producing coil under the flywheel and will NOT interfere with the ignition system or cause the outboard to not start and run.

Now please go back and read paragraph #5 of post #3 and change your oil. Because, even if the level looks ok, I can assure you that there is an unknown quantity of gasoline in the crankcase diluting the oil.
Very  bad for engine bearings.

You may be spot on about the kill switch wire finding ground at an unknown/unseen location. I suggest that you follow your hunch and physically trace that wire to be sure it's not metal to metal contacting
anywhere along it's path before assuming a component like the CDI or spark coil has failed.

The little light at the front of the engine is probably the oil pressure lamp. It will illuminate whenever the exciter coil is producing voltage and minimum oil pressure closes the oil pressure switch. That is, as long as someone hasn't messed with it.
It's supposed to have a green colored bulb or a green lens.
But these old outboards have been "molested" over the years so it might not be in "stock" condition.

Good luck.
 
it sounds like bad wire or ground connection, clean every connector and use dielectric grease on them when reinstalling. if it starts and runs for 20 minutes again then its possible its heating up internally and failing. I have had mercury ignition coils do this they work perfect when cold you run a few minutes, they heat up and loose ability to generate spark. a CDI testor connects to spark plug boot and attaches with alligator clip to a ground on the engine and is adjustable to measure spark gap distance. if your spark is weak it will not jump spec gap.
 
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