Looking to get some advice and help diagnosing the problem that’s causing my engine to not get the power to get on plane. All ■■■■■■■■ is appreciated.
I first realized an issue two weekends ago. The boat seemed to be running fine. I was going fast and on plane then slowed down to go through a no wake zone and the engine kind of just puttered out. My first concern was in fact that I had some bad gas… I emptied the fuel water separator and I couldn’t tell if there was water in the gas b/c I didn’t have a clear container(although I think there was). So it took a while but I ended up getting the engine to turn over and was able to “massage” enough to work up the power to get me back to the boat landing. In which at one point in time I was able to get full power and plane out. Reluctantly to say I bogged down again. After this it consistently had about the same power. I could get the bow of the boat up and make a wake but not enough power to plane out…
So during the week last week I started to try and diagnose… All fuel lines and bulb looked ok - without cracks. The fuel filter in the engine looked clean as whistle. However, my vent to my fuel take had been broken off (which I think is where water could have been coming in…) I replaced the vent.
I’m embarrassed to say that I was also not treating my gas. This is because I recently re-powered with this engine (completely rebuilt engine). As well as had the gas tank pumped clean…
So I was worried there was some amount of water that was in the tank, so I ran sea foam through it… It seemed to help some, the engine sounded better, but not 100%. I decided this past weekend I would load some fresh gas and go back to my old trusty staybil and hopefully I would have resolved the issue…
Unfortunately there was no change… Still wasn’t able to get on plane. At times it sounded like something was trying to work out giving the ever slightest burst of power. However, I was nervous so me and my wife just putted to the nearest sand bar, got our sun, en
Have you checked for a dead cylinder? I’d try running it in the yard at idle and pull one plug at a time. If the engine doesn’t change when one of the 3 plug wires are pulled, then you aren’t getting spark to that cylinder. Probably a bad coil then. It’s also worth testing if you have compression on all 3 cylinders just to rule that out. A cylinder with zero or low pressure can give you the same symptoms.
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Geronimo-
No I haven’t tried that. I’ll give it a try this afternoon.
To add some more detail:
It has no problem starting up on the first try either. When on the muffs it get’s high RPM’s. The problem seems to occur when under a load.
Thanks for your ■■■■■■■■.
If anyone else has suggestions please let me know!
Carbs. They need a good cleaning by a professional and it’ll run like brand new. Also do a drop test. I bet it’s not running on all cylinders. If so, don’t run it again until you get the carbs cleaned or you’ll wind up spending a whole lot more on a new powerhead.
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drop cylinder test
compression test
spark check
Geronimo
when doing a drop cylinder test, with the plug wires, you cant verify spark or fuel issue
you can only isolate the problem to a specific cylinder
if you have a dirty carb, and pull the plug wire for that cylinder, nothing will happen, just like if the coil was dead.
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So what I’m hearing is a carb job and drop cyclinder test… Correct?
Going to work on getting that taken care of this week and will report back.
Chris- I’m no professional mechanic but do consider myself pretty handy. I’ve also never done a carb job… With that being said do you think this is something that I can tackle myself? If not, do you have a recommendation of someone that can do a carb job? I know if I take it to a mechanic this time of year I’m likely going to be waiting weeks…
Thanks again.
we do carb jobs
if you haven’t done one, bring it to us, but yes, it will take 2-3weeks
if you do need a carb job, and you keep running it, you WILL blow the powerhead
a carbed 2 stroke gets its oil through the gas
if its not getting gas its not getting oil
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My old Johnson 65 would bog down about like you are saying. It was always a bad plug with it. Check to see if one of the plugs is “wet”. If so it either is bad or not getting spark which would indicate probably a bad coil. You might consider changing out the plugs to see if it helps. But if it doesn’t you need to stop runninmg it immediately as stated above.
Thanks again for everyone’s input on this thread.
Diagnosis is in fact a bad coil. Since I bought this engine less than 90 days ago the mechanic is honoring his work. Called him up yesterday to tell him the news and had me bring it in last night to have it ready for the weekend. I hope we don’t run into any other issues.
Thank you Chris at Diversified Marine.
I’ll update you guys if there is more to the store when I pick it up.