Hey guys, my dad just bought a 1973 wizard ( by serial #). # is ESK6602A37. It has no spark at the plug. I am a veteran mechanic and would like to have a little ammo before I go look at it. It doesn't have points and we suspect maybe a bad coil. Any way to diagnois a no spark condition ? Thanks in advance !! William

ESK means ESKA made it. The air cooled powerhead is
by Tecumseh. Your local lawnmower shop may have parts. I have found Tecumseh engines covered well in
lawn and garden equipment fix it manuals at my local library. Look for all the numbers on sheet metal or
tag as they will enable you to get right parts.
No spark on a solid state ignition system beyond my
understanding other than to use two bills from wallet
to set gap between armature and flywheel...
Local lawnmower shop tested coil for $3 when I
wondered about a coil on Tecumseh snowblower.
Louis

7hp, 1973, Made by Eska. They made tons of them, under various names, mostly for Sears. This forum seems to be mostly for the Mercury made Wizards, but the Eskas have a soft spot in my heart (as that is all I could afford when I was in my formative years). They usually would run long enough to get me into the middle of the lake and then die...but they sure would run at home in the barrel!



Ted Williams (Sears Eska)7 hp and 7.5 hp from72-85 used the AV817 Tecumseh air cooled uniblock power head.
Your Wizard model number starts with 660 so yours may use the Tecumseh 660 series power head.
either way, it sounds like you may have a solid state magneto that is no longer made. The irony is that one can still get parts for the older points type systems, but not the newer solid state stuff.
clean the wire lead connections before you rule out the original coil. I don't know of any way to test them other than spinning the flywheel with the plug out.

The Iboats forum has information on the Eskas and here is a link to a coil retrofit of a Sierra 18-5176 OMC style ignition coil to an Eska 7.5hp outboard. You will have to register there to see the pictures. Ebay is sometimes a good place for Eska parts.

William,
here's a link to repairing the Eska (Tecumseh) solid state ignitions.



It's a potted CDI module that fails on these. Similar to this one:


This link cover some of it about half way down the page.



I copied this elsewhere:
for complete instructions for the repair join the yahoo group and look in the files section for the instructions and do it yourself save you eska $$$ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eskaoutboards/ hardest part is depoting the section just above the C1 capacitor, it works like a charm[/url]

I did some searching with your model number ESK6602A37 and your powerhead is for sure a Tecumseh AV817-640-03B. You should be able to find some parts using that number in a Google search. The solid state ignition is no longer made and you will have to make the one you have work or find another one. The Eska Yahoo group link above has a lot of information about where to get parts and how the ignition is put together and how to repair it in their "files" section.
Eskas are good "poor man's" motors and lots of them were made. Most of the important parts are readily available new from suppliers or used on E-bay.

Link to full chart below: Western Auto (Wizard) Eska models

Sorry for my rambling on.
I finally found the answer to your original question of how to diagnose a no spark condition. A general guide is here