Hard to pull - 1953 Evinrude 15hp

[lilpig]

I'm rebuilding my 1953 Evinrude 15hp motor. I just put a recoil on it that I bought on Ebay cause it didn't come with one. The recoil is working smooth as it should.

When I put it on the motor and pulled, it was extremely hard to pull. Here's a video of me doing that

I took the plugs out to see if I just had too much compression and I was becoming a wimp. Here's a video of me pulling it without the plugs. Almost as hard.

It's not in gear either. I tried pulling it in gear just to check also.

So, any ideas of how I should proceed to figure out why it's so hard?

[boats.net]

Verify that there is no binding in the pull start ***embly. Remove the spark plugs and turn the flywheel by hand, if still hard remove the lower unit and try again. If still hard then the problem is internal.

[lilpig]

I did take off the recoil and no change.

I'll take off the lower end and try that. Tks.

[lilpig]

I took the lower end off and no change. So I took the head off and found the cylinders were gummed up.

So I sprayed some WD40 and PB Blaster in them and pulled it a few times. The put the head back on and it pulled much easier.

Still seems to be a little hard to pull than what I would think it should be but I have not had an old outboard before without an electric starter.

I'm going to do a compression test next.

[boats.net]

If the cylinder was gummed up, the most likely the crankcase has some gum. If you can get it to run. Run some fuel treatment through the engine.