[mike523]

Had her out for only the 2nd time since I had a different motor installed (blew the first one pretty much immediately after buying the boat). After about an hour of running we were thankfully close to the dock when the alarm started sounding at idle. If I give it just the least bit of throttle the alarm would stop but that was enough to scare me into getting her out of the water. Unfortunately there was a bit of a wait so I turned the boat off and waited and drifted. I'd have to start it up every 10 minutes or so to correct our course and get us heading back towards the ramp, but for some reason it began starting hard. Normally it pops off instantly but it took 2-3 tries to get it started now. This repeated itself 3 times before it was finally our turn to get to the ramp, by this time it wouldn't start at all and I had to swim it to the trailer.

I have a wiring issue somewhere and the gauges aren't functioning all the time and I have no idea if I can trust them. The temp was reading in the normal range most of the day but the needle had dropped all the way below 100 when this issue started so I'm assuming the gauge went dead again.

I hooked it up to the hose after I got it home and still can't get it started. Tried 5-6 times.

I feel like I'm gonna be on my 3rd engine soon...

Any ideas on whats going on?

[kylakerat]

First, is the lanyard kill switch in the RUN position? Are you sure it's getting fuel? I assume it's a carb engine, so you can check pretty easily by having someone pump the throttle while you look down the throat of the carb for gas squirting out from the accelerator pump.

[mike523]

Yeah I checked the kill switch even switched it back and forth a few times. I'll have to check for gas in the carb tomorrow but the fuel filter is transparent and full of gas so I would think there'd be some in the carb

[shipfaced]

I would be on the phone with the shop that put the motor in first thing int he morning. I am sure it was not cheap.

[mike523]

haha, long story short I had the original owner and his "boat mechanic" replace the first, blown engine with a used motor. cost me about $1300 when i'd have probably paid around $3500-$4000 at my local marina to get things going again. unfortunately it looks like i got what i paid for and in the end i'm gonna have 10k in what was supposed to be a 5k boat.

[mike523]

there is definitely gas getting into the carb, i verified that, so it seems to be a spark issue...and considering the wiring problems i'm having with the gauges i wouldn't be the least surprised to see these two issues connected somehow.

[kylakerat]

In my experience, when 12V DC acts "weird" you are likely to find your problem is a ground somewhere. I would start at the negative battery post and follow where the wires lead checking every ground. Grab each ground location and see if it moves, and visually check for corrosion. Also, check the big master plug for the engine.

[mike523]

might there be a list of common ground wires/locations? the way these guys threw this thing together it feels like looking for a needle in a haystack

[Brian Belcher]

Mike, pull a spark plug and check for spark. If you don't have spark, we will go through the check list of possible parts that have gone out. Sounds like what mine did and it turned out to be the distributor gear. Easy fix.

[mike523]

Doesn't appear to be spark, I pulled a plug wire, stuck a screwdriver in it and laid it across some bare metal on the engine block and didn't get any kind of spark when i turned it over. What about the points? Should I just replace those?