[steveog17]

Good Evening Everyone,

Well, like most problems, mine started as a once-in-awhile issue, and turned into an all-the-time issue. I'm the owner of a 1996 Shabah 180 limited, 4.3LX Merc with carburetor and alpha one. The boat has about 250 hours on it. Now the problem: Boat launches great and planes quickly, but when I climb to about 4000 RPM the boat cuts out and stalls. Without fail, at the exact time of the engine cut out, the fuel gauge drops to zero. It restarts strong and fires right up. I know that several issues including fuel delivery, ignition, etc. can cause engine cut out, but the corresponding fuel gauge failure has me stumped. My first thought is that I might have a ground problem, and whatever is causing the engine cutout shares a circuit with the fuel gauge. Before I start tracing and checking multiple wires and connections, does anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions on what might be causing my problem? Thank you and I welcome any and all theories.

[dwmax]

A good friend of mine has a 1995 four winns and had the same problem would start perfectly and run strong at idle and accelerate strong but as soon as you got up on a plane it would fall on its face and die. It would start right back up and run fine you could rev it up and it would sound strong and try it again same thing. What I found was that the fuel tank has a check valve where the fuel line comes off to the fuel water seperater and so on. the check valve was clogged from the back side and was only letting a small amount of fuel through, it was just enough fuel to run at idle and get on a plane and then the engine would starve and die, once we replaced the check valve all was ok. Hope this helps

[steveog17]

Great idea. I partially blocked check valve would certainly be a possibility. I hope to pull the valve and check it some time in the next couple of days and I'll make sure to post what happens. Thanks again.

Steve