On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:50:24 -0700, JamesE
wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:25 pm, Gene Kearns
wrote:

What strikes me, here, is that you haven't diagnosed the problem.


I think that the mechanism which advances the timing is hanging up.
The last time I went out I marked where the distributor was when the
boat was in good running and starting condition. Then I went out for
a ride and played around with the timing until it felt like it was
running the best. I went fast for a while and the boat ran great.
Then when I slowed down it ran rough and then died. I could not get
it started again so I adjusted timing back to the mark that I had
previously made but the boat still would not start so I played around
with it until I got it running again and went straight in. So I think
that it is the mechanism that advances the timing causing the problems
because even when I put it back to the mark it would not start. That
leads me to believe that even though the distributor was in the same
place the timing was different because of something internal being
stuck. I was looking at the conversion kits and it says that the kits
use the old distributor cap, coil, and rotor. So I was wondering if
you know if the rotor is what controls advancing the timing? Because
if it does then I would have to replace that too because that would be
what is causing the problems. Thanks, James.

Like Gene said. It could even be a fuel issue. Before you throw
money at it you might buy/borrow a dwell meter to check the advance.
I would *give* you mine if I could find it. Might just toss a new
condenser and point set in too.
The advance is vacuum if you have a diaphragm fitting on the dist and
a tube running to a vacuum source. Otherwise it's mechanical and
works with centrifugal weights in the dist. I think you can test the
mechanism by hand to make sure it's advancing and returning, but I'm a
bit cloudy on it now. It just might be worth paying a mech to
diagnose it if you're not comfortable doing it.

--Vic