1979 Johnson 35HP No spark on one cylinder.

Ive been missing spark on one cylinder ever since I purchased my 1983 Sea Nyph deep V. The aluminum wires had seen better days so I went ahead and made a new harness using modern wiring. I got an amazing deal on a new OEM stator, power pack, coils so I went ahead and replaced everything, keeping the parts I took off as spare. 122PSI on upper and lower cylinder. For whatever reason one of the orange wires which runs directly from the power pack to coil is not working. I can connect it to the upper or lower coil, whichever coil it is connected to will not fire. Both coils work great using the other wire. Went ahead and changed the power packs thinking maybe the new power pack was just no good. Same problem. Thinking I had a bad connection somewhere along the way I checked the coil wire for voltage. Its putting out the same amount of volts as the other coil wire. Checked with a spark light for some sort of spark and I get a very very week flash. Just because it was the one thing I hadnt messed with I checked the rectifier. I disconnected the rectifier and same issue!!!!!! This problem makes absolutely no sense to me! I took it to our local marina and they actually recommended I replace the motor because "these old motors are not worth working on" Has anyone out there had a similar issue?

CDI Electronics has a pretty good troubleshooter guide for spark issues that you can follow here:

https://www.cdielectronics.com/support/ (1979 2 cylinder Johnson starts on pg 34)

Based on the guide, you may have an issue with the timing base under the flywheel. This tells the power pack when to fire the spark it has stored. Could be that your timer isn't close enough to the magnet and isn't picking up the field well. Johnson uses a "Locator Ring Tool" to position the stator/timer properly when installing. You may need to re-position it. There should be a little ledge under the timer that is machined into the crankcase. The front of the timer needs to align with this ledge perfectly. Using a straight edge should get you really close.

Might also be that one magnet is just a hair weaker than the other or the timer isn't picking up the field well. May be a bad timer base. But based on your description, I'd look at the positioning first.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. Everything looked good. Strong magnets, stator was still in good condition.

Could a bad battery cause this issue? Battery is now 5 years old and when I think about it, I need to put a charge on it pretty often. Is it remotely possible there is enough juice to crank the motor and run off one cylinder but not enough juice to send both coils enough volts?

Not really. Once the motor is running, all of the power is generated in the charge coils under the flywheel. Battery is only an issue on some much older motors.

Did you check the output of the timing base? Not this same thing as the stator, and can't be visually confirmed.