Hello everyone,
New to the forum here. Purchased a 1994 Bayliner 2452 which has a mercruiser 5.0/alpha1 last October. The boat sat for about 3 years before that. I changed the engine oil (Mercury 25W40), oil filter, fuel filter & spark plugs and it ran fine on the first couple outings. Last time I took it out, I probably had too many people on it (6 x 200+lb guys) and after getting on plane and cruising for a while, the engine starts getting louder and then it starts banging and popping and loosing power. If I shut it off for about 10 minutes, fire it back up, get it on plane and cruise at around 3,500RPM its fine for about 10-15 minutes before the popping and banging comes back as well as what sounds like a valve clicking. This problem occurs even when I am alone on the boat.
I got an older boat mechanic to take a quick look and one of the things he noticed was cylinder 1 & 8 spark plug wires were reversed on the distributor cap so we corrected that and it definitely starts and idles much better now. The two of us went for a little cruise and it ran normally for longer than before, but the engine getting louder and then popping/banging/losing power came back. The other thing I should mention is that the oil pressure drops slightly when this happens.
His theory was that it runs fine until the engine oil gets hot and that I may have the wrong engine oil in there ( he said to get 10W40) and also that I may need a valve adjustment. We also removed the distributor cap and what we found below was quite a bit of corrosion on the bottom as well as on the rotor. I got a distributor cap & rotor to replace and see how it goes from there.
Any ideas as to what might be causing this? Could just a corroded distributor rotor/cap cause all of these issues? We don't think its fuel related as there was no water in the fuel filter after we dumped it in a jar and we also ran it with the flame arrestor removed and there was no change in fuel amount being delivered in the period where the engine goes from normal to popping and banging.
Any and all tips and information will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!
New to the forum here. Purchased a 1994 Bayliner 2452 which has a mercruiser 5.0/alpha1 last October. The boat sat for about 3 years before that. I changed the engine oil (Mercury 25W40), oil filter, fuel filter & spark plugs and it ran fine on the first couple outings. Last time I took it out, I probably had too many people on it (6 x 200+lb guys) and after getting on plane and cruising for a while, the engine starts getting louder and then it starts banging and popping and loosing power. If I shut it off for about 10 minutes, fire it back up, get it on plane and cruise at around 3,500RPM its fine for about 10-15 minutes before the popping and banging comes back as well as what sounds like a valve clicking. This problem occurs even when I am alone on the boat.
I got an older boat mechanic to take a quick look and one of the things he noticed was cylinder 1 & 8 spark plug wires were reversed on the distributor cap so we corrected that and it definitely starts and idles much better now. The two of us went for a little cruise and it ran normally for longer than before, but the engine getting louder and then popping/banging/losing power came back. The other thing I should mention is that the oil pressure drops slightly when this happens.
His theory was that it runs fine until the engine oil gets hot and that I may have the wrong engine oil in there ( he said to get 10W40) and also that I may need a valve adjustment. We also removed the distributor cap and what we found below was quite a bit of corrosion on the bottom as well as on the rotor. I got a distributor cap & rotor to replace and see how it goes from there.
Any ideas as to what might be causing this? Could just a corroded distributor rotor/cap cause all of these issues? We don't think its fuel related as there was no water in the fuel filter after we dumped it in a jar and we also ran it with the flame arrestor removed and there was no change in fuel amount being delivered in the period where the engine goes from normal to popping and banging.
Any and all tips and information will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!
