[allz28]

Well, after a fun holiday weekend of skiing and cruising and really enjoying my boat now that it runs great, we ended it on Sunday by breaking down. Yay!

I was cruising at about 25mph and decided to speed up to overtake a boat. When I punched the throttle it made a weird noise that I cant' even really describe. It wasn't real loud or anything but it just didn't sound normal and the boat didn't really speed up. I immediately brought my throttle back to where it was and the boat continued on just fine, running smooth. After thinking about it for a while, I decided maybe the noise was because of the heavy chop we were experiencing.

Anyway, about 5 minutes later we had to slow down to 5mph to go under a bridge and as soon as I slowed down the boat sputtered and died. There was absolutely no restarting it. Even with my can of starting fluid.

I put the boat on muffs in my driveway today and the boat started right up and ran fine. I ran it until it was fully warm and tried cutting the engine several times and such and never could get the boat to act up. Which really stinks because now I don't know what to fix and I can't trust the boat to take it back out. Argh.

Any thoughts of what might have happened? After visually checking everything, the only thing I found was a drive belt that was getting loose.

[ColoradoDiablo]

How were your gauges? Could you have overheated it or maybe vapor locked it?
It sounds like temp switch or oil pressure switch might have shut you down. That would explain the no fire on ether.
Man , that's hard to tell anything without hearing the "noise" you heard.

[Andy b]

water pump?
running on muffs the impeller in the leg will cool the engine when it's not under load.

[allz28]

It seems like my gauges were all reading good, but now it's kind of hard to remember specifically looking at them (but it sure seems like I would have!). My wife kept saying we were out of gas and I kept showing her the fuel gauge that we weren't, so I think I would have noticed if one of the other gauges was looking crazy, but I truly can't recall for certain.

Overheating and the Temp switch or oil pressure switch make sense. I'll have to keep an eye on those gauges the next time I take it out. It was crazy hot out so I guess vapor lock is possible too. I don't know a whole lot about vapor lock.

[allz28]

So I got it out on the water and haven't had any overheating or oil pressure problems on my gauges.

Question: Will a vapor-locked engine restart on ether?

[ColoradoDiablo]

I would think it would at least try to fire. But if the pump is dry the system might not let the ignition fire.
I'd check fuel pressure just to verify your good there. Then probably start cleaning connections. Can you check the coil? Is it to hot to hold on to? any oil leakage? Seems there has been a rash of coil problems around here lately.
Just a few things that come to mind.

[allz28]

I checked out the coil and its resistance is all within range. No oil leakage. I took the boat out and ran it for an hour and didn't encounter any problems again. After I got back and unloaded the boat and put the dog away, I opened up the engine and felt the coil. It was certainly hot, but not so hot that it burnt me. It was cooler than the engine. I'm thinking that is normal, but let me know if it's not.

I didn't check the fuel pressure because my fuel pressure tester is only for fuel injected engines. But I replaced the fuel pump, both filters, and the fuel line from the gas tank this spring, so I'm thinking it's likely ok.

At this point it seems like I'm just going to have to run the boat and see if it ever happens again. I just hate having to worry about it. Especially since I have a bunch of family coming in town to take tubing in two weeks. Thanks a bunch for your help though!