CharlestonMako
Seaman Apprentice
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2008
- Messages
- 40
My 1988 140hp Johnson has run great all year (about 10 trips out). This past weekend however I had a breakdown. It cranked up perfectly at the ramp and ran just fine to the tip of a local beach where we sat for about 4-5 hours. As we went to leave though I was having trouble getting it cranked back up. It would turn over, but refused to stay running.
After seatow took me back I had the same symptoms back home on the hose. It was very difficult to get cranked, and if I could get it to actually turn over it would only run (and run rough) for 30 seconds or so. I was running from an internal 45gal tank with fresh gas and I premix and I add the max recommended dose of Starbright Startron to EVERY fill up. I have a Racor clear bowl fuel water separator that I haven?t changed yet this year. It did have sludge at the bottom of the bowl that I have become used to, but clear blue fuel/oil is still clearly visible. Also I use one of those Attwood glass inline filters under the cowl, which always has a little debris in it? but was not watery or unusually dirty. That night I took it off the internal tank and put it on a clean external tank with gas from an older fill up (1month with stratron) and took the racor fuel water filter out of the loop?. Same results.
Last night I tried to mess with it a little more. I finally got it to stay cranked after about 10 tries. It seems to typically only have a certain RPM range where it would stay running (about 1200-1500). If I backed it down towards idle any it would stall out, and if I tried to give it some more throttle, it would cough and bog down and sound funny, then stall out. I added 5 oz of Seafoam to the external tank with about 1 gal left in it (half the dose I?ve seen recommended for a decarb) trying to clean the jets (??), and took the carb cover off. I ran it on the seafoam for about 5 minutes, then started messing with the throttle again, and it stalled. After that I got it started back up a couple more times, but sometimes had to have a guy sitting at the motor reving the throttle in short bursts to keep it running. I ran 80% of that gallon of gas out by the time I gave up. I DID notice some white residue on the butterfly valve things in the carbs. When we were reving the throttle, you could see the white gummy liquid spitting out of the little black tube sticking up from the bottom of the carb openings at the front (is this a jet??), and gathering around the perimeter of the tube, and on the plates. Note that after bogging out and trying to turn over a couple times the white stuff seams to disappear from the plates and carb openings, but will come back if we get it going and rev it some. Could this be the seafoam? It looked clear going in?
Anyway, Im stumped? really seemed similar to when I had water in the fuel, but running on two tanks from two separate fill ups? and still the problem. Also, having run fine all year, then all of a sudden, half way through a trip the problems surface? kind of weird. Thanks for any help you guys might have.
-Eric
After seatow took me back I had the same symptoms back home on the hose. It was very difficult to get cranked, and if I could get it to actually turn over it would only run (and run rough) for 30 seconds or so. I was running from an internal 45gal tank with fresh gas and I premix and I add the max recommended dose of Starbright Startron to EVERY fill up. I have a Racor clear bowl fuel water separator that I haven?t changed yet this year. It did have sludge at the bottom of the bowl that I have become used to, but clear blue fuel/oil is still clearly visible. Also I use one of those Attwood glass inline filters under the cowl, which always has a little debris in it? but was not watery or unusually dirty. That night I took it off the internal tank and put it on a clean external tank with gas from an older fill up (1month with stratron) and took the racor fuel water filter out of the loop?. Same results.
Last night I tried to mess with it a little more. I finally got it to stay cranked after about 10 tries. It seems to typically only have a certain RPM range where it would stay running (about 1200-1500). If I backed it down towards idle any it would stall out, and if I tried to give it some more throttle, it would cough and bog down and sound funny, then stall out. I added 5 oz of Seafoam to the external tank with about 1 gal left in it (half the dose I?ve seen recommended for a decarb) trying to clean the jets (??), and took the carb cover off. I ran it on the seafoam for about 5 minutes, then started messing with the throttle again, and it stalled. After that I got it started back up a couple more times, but sometimes had to have a guy sitting at the motor reving the throttle in short bursts to keep it running. I ran 80% of that gallon of gas out by the time I gave up. I DID notice some white residue on the butterfly valve things in the carbs. When we were reving the throttle, you could see the white gummy liquid spitting out of the little black tube sticking up from the bottom of the carb openings at the front (is this a jet??), and gathering around the perimeter of the tube, and on the plates. Note that after bogging out and trying to turn over a couple times the white stuff seams to disappear from the plates and carb openings, but will come back if we get it going and rev it some. Could this be the seafoam? It looked clear going in?
Anyway, Im stumped? really seemed similar to when I had water in the fuel, but running on two tanks from two separate fill ups? and still the problem. Also, having run fine all year, then all of a sudden, half way through a trip the problems surface? kind of weird. Thanks for any help you guys might have.
-Eric
