Figured out what was wrong with my choke...

I purchased a 1980's Evinrude 9.9 earlier this spring for the duck skiff. If I used it frequently it would start up on the first or second pull. However if it sat for a week or longer, I'd have to pull it 7 or 8 times. Since I plan to use it for Duck hunting, I was worried that it may give me some grief once it got colder outside. The funny thing was, when I pulled out the choke knob, it did absolutely nothing - almost as if it wasn't even connected to anything. When I tried to look at it, I couldn't see anything because the choke linkage was burried underneath the air box. This morning I started pulling everything apart to see what was going on. Really funny, whoever owned the motor before me must have pulled the carb out at some point in the past - when they put the carb back in they put the choke lever in upside down, so it could not catch the choke linkage or retaining clip. I rotated it 180 degrees and reinstalled it, and it works like a champ. Never know what you are going to find when you tear into something. The take away is - always look at a parts breakdown, as the person who took it apart before you may have put it back together wrong. Here is link to the parts break down - the part they had in wrong was #19 http://www.boats.net/parts/search/BRP/EVINRUDE/1983/E10RCTC/CARBURETOR%20%26%20MANIFOLD/parts.html Last winter I pulled the chain case on my boy's 600 Polaris and found a similar problem...

also never assume a new part works cause its new.

good advice, also had the same problem with my Stihl trimmer, the choke was just slipping on the spline and doing nothing, probably fixed it with a piece of duct tape, not sure, been a long time ago, but it still works great.....