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I've got a 15 Johnson that is a '92 model and has maybe 15 hours on it. I got it from my dad last spring and put new plugs in it and ran it five or six times with no problems. My first chance to hook it up and run it was
Thursday nite and it wouldn't crank. Worked on it til midnight and gave up. Took it in and had the carb. cleaned completely w/ new gaskets etc. and ran it Friday afternoon....no problems. Sat. am took it through about five hundred yards of flooded grass where I had to clean the prop a few times. Hit the open water, cleaned the prop, and ran about half throttle for 5 or 6 hundred yards and she began to lose power and choked down until she went dead. Woudn't crank...seemed hot. Paddled to the hole and tried a couple hours later to crank it...nothing...turns over but won't crank. Got it cranked 2 hrs later and she ran fine til I got back to the grass where I attempted to clean the prop and she went dead again. Now back home I hook er up and she's hard to start...have to choke it and give it the gas. She'll crank and run for a few minutes then shuts down and won't crank. I diluted the fuel because it was too rich and she still is hard to crank even after I pulled and cleaned the new plugs. Anyone have any idea what may be wrong?

I had this problem once. I had stopped the intake up with grass. It could not get water to cool it.

Well as brief as your comment is it explains alot.

what did u dilute the fuel with?

I added more gasoline to the mixture of gas and oil.

I would put some new gas in it and clean the intake out and check the water pump and if that didn't fix it i would take it to some one