Hello,

Newb' here. I have what I hope is an easy question(s).

About 5-6 years ago (I think) I "inherited" my uncle's old cedar
planked reinel boat. It had a 1965 75 horse Evinrude on it (the real
reason I wanted it). The problem was, it had sat in my uncle's yard for
18 years. He didn't do any up keep on the engine (or the boat). It got
so that that the boat's transom rotted out. The guy who owned it before
my uncle, had put in, I kid you not, 8 screws in each plank that
connected to the plywood transom. I think that sped up some of the
rotting. Subsequently, the motor stood in the mud (and halfways
connected to the transom).

Anyways, I junked the boat because I would've had to replace every
piece of wood in order to fix it (I fell through part of it). But I
kept the evinrude and the trailer. I built a structure to hold the
engine, and got to work on getting it running. I was told that old
johnson and evinrudes are bullet proof (and the fact my family has a
1962 75 horse Johnson, that's still working fine after 43 years says
something) and that I should be able to get it running relatively easy.

After I bought a new distributor cap, plug wires, and plugs I got it
running like a champ. One thing that was nice (at least, I thought so)
was the water spitting out of the exhaust (or whatever it comes out of)
at a better rate than another engine I have access to (the
aformentioned 62 Johnson).

It even sounded stronger/healthier than the 62.

My concern/question is this. In the garbage can I used to run it, the
water got a layer of an oily substance on it's surface, after each time
running. Now, I know that old boat engines (of this vintage) tend to
leak oil (etc), but I was wondering if there could be another reason
for that to have happened?

Like (and I realize there are important bits of information that I'm
leaving out, that could help better decipher the situation for you)
maybe I had flooded it, or I might have put too much oil in the gas. I
don't remember how much oil I put in (I'm fairly certain I put in the
correct ratio) or if I flooded it. And since I haven't used/started the
evinrude since, I really don't have any recent evidence to reference.

Was it maybe that the garbage can I used was small enough that what
oil/discharge would normally appear (and usually dissapated in a
lake/river) just accumulated in the garbage can and appeared to be more
than what was "normal"?

Also, is there a way to check the gaskets without taking it apart?

I hope this makes the least amount of sense.

Thanks

Dan