First off, great forum! I've got a question that hopefully some off you may have run into before. I now there may be a few different causes but thought I'd ask.
I recently purchased a used 2002 Yamaha 15hp 4 stroke motor for my 14' flat bottom. Mainly to do a little fishing from but mostly duck hunting. I just took it out for the first time this past weekend. Up until now I've only "idled" it in the driveway and once it gets warmed up it idles really nice. Anyway, on to the problem. After it gets warmed up and I'm running across the bay, it will only run for maybe 2-3 minutes and then start sputtering and maybe half of the time die but at a minimum you have to stop and take it out of gear and baby it for a minute or two until it regains and can then take off again, (but for only 2-3 minutes because it happens all over again). The first time it happened, I looked down at the clear glass fuel line filter and didn't see any fuel in it so I pumped it back up a few times and thought that maybe it just wasn't pulling enough fuel in. However, the very next time it started to sputter I had the bulb in my hand already and pumped it up to see if it kept it from happening but did not. The fuel line and bulb is installed with the "arrows" pointing towards the motor and I did not see any leakage in the line at all. Any thoughts on why this might be happening? I had my wife and my two sons, (7 and 4) on the boat and it kept me from venturing out too far for safety reasons. My 7 year old did end up catching his first keeper Redfish at 20-1/4". We were both pumped!
Thanks in advance for any input.
Chris
I recently purchased a used 2002 Yamaha 15hp 4 stroke motor for my 14' flat bottom. Mainly to do a little fishing from but mostly duck hunting. I just took it out for the first time this past weekend. Up until now I've only "idled" it in the driveway and once it gets warmed up it idles really nice. Anyway, on to the problem. After it gets warmed up and I'm running across the bay, it will only run for maybe 2-3 minutes and then start sputtering and maybe half of the time die but at a minimum you have to stop and take it out of gear and baby it for a minute or two until it regains and can then take off again, (but for only 2-3 minutes because it happens all over again). The first time it happened, I looked down at the clear glass fuel line filter and didn't see any fuel in it so I pumped it back up a few times and thought that maybe it just wasn't pulling enough fuel in. However, the very next time it started to sputter I had the bulb in my hand already and pumped it up to see if it kept it from happening but did not. The fuel line and bulb is installed with the "arrows" pointing towards the motor and I did not see any leakage in the line at all. Any thoughts on why this might be happening? I had my wife and my two sons, (7 and 4) on the boat and it kept me from venturing out too far for safety reasons. My 7 year old did end up catching his first keeper Redfish at 20-1/4". We were both pumped!
Thanks in advance for any input.
Chris
Good luck with the new tank I hope it fixes your problem. If it doesn't, I would look at the carb next. When you put gas in the new tank you might put a little carb cleaner in with it, can't hurt.