Well guys my boat test #2 was much more successful than boat test #1. Well I suppose I probably should call it more like engine test #1 and #2. The boat does not seem to have an issue other than a faulty gas gauge. On this test the engine started running great after a few good wide open passes down the river. I was having problems with it not always running on all cylinders. My first test started out good, but then it started missing and had no power and would either die or bog down so bad a person would worry about it, so I had to troll it back down river. This time we backed it into the river and it fired right up! (Well it did the first time too) I warmed it up and we took off up river. Boat took off great and we never noticed anything funny until it lost power and kind of surged about 3/4mi up river. I stopped then put it in neutral and revved it fine and it took off again. It did it again shortly after and I was wondering if it was starving for fuel so I squeezed the ball and it started to flood/die, so I don't think it was a fuel problem. It really didn't ever do anything again after that. It did have a smige of a rough idle until about half way through our outing but that cleared up too. I suspect bad gas and maybe over the winter condensation in the tank since it was stored at 1/2 tank. Between test #1 and test #2 I replaced the plugs (discovered it had the wrong plugs in it for the year as they were different from 93-94, plugs were the same length but different spark heat.) Then I put new plug wires on as the old ones were badly warn, installed a new fuel filter, bilge pump, pumped in 10gal of fresh 92 gas, and poured in a bottle of Iso-Heet. If you guys were wondering the boat is a 1994 LOWE 1730 fish and ski, and the motor is a 1994 Johnson 70. Lastly it felt great to be on the water again, we saw tons of wildlife and had an awesome day. We had to boat the river due to lakes still being iced up (even though it was 75* today) and I was surprised to see that we were pulling 33-34mph out of the boat with 3 guys totaling over 600# and over 20gal of gas. The little 70 was pushing her along great!
