I'm trying to help out the new owner of my old ski boat. I owned the boat for 3 years, a 1989 with the Mercury Inboard Ski package engine 5.7L 260hp. When I got the boat 3-years ago, it ran rough, and I found a bunch of water in the fuel. Drained the water, replaced all the fuel filters/water separator, fuel lines, still ran rough. Had the carb re-built, only ran rough after warming up. Found that it had the wrong coil on it. New coil, has run PERFECT for 3 years.
Buddies lost interest so we sold the boat this spring. I tuned the boat up, de-winterized it, and put it in the water, no problems. Skiied with it a couple of mornings, no problem. The new owners wanted a test ride/ski, drove the boat up to their marina (20 minute ride), picked them up, skiied a couple of times (probably 1/2 hour on the boat), cruised back to my marina, no problems. Sold the boat with "As-Is" on the receipt. They picked the boat up cruised it back to their marina, everyone was happy.
A month later I get a call, boat won't run right. They had run the tank of gas out, filled up on the water at a marina known as having the lowest priced fuel in town, and now it won't start/run right. Sounded to me like bad gas, but they wouldn't hear of it. We had had some really bad rain, and I said that it could also be moisture in the distributor cap. They put a new distributor cap on it, same problem. A couple of days later I get another call. They had to put a new battery in it because the battery was bad, then they had to replace the starter because the starter was bad, and in the process they found teeth missing off the flywheel, so they pulled the engine and put a new flywheel on it. All of this implying that I had done something to provoke this. Now, I have cranked that boat hundreds of times, especially in the spring when de-winterizing, getting full revolutions of the engine, and never once heard it skip, or the bendix wing, like there was teeth off the flywheel.
Yesterday I get a call that now the engine has milky oil, and 4 spark plugs had water in the cylinder. I guess with all the cranking, again if it was bad gas, all the un-combusted fuel could have gone up into the exhaust risers, then just ran back down into the cylinders, past the rings, and into the crank case, but it would have had to be a ton of bad fuel. Now, they did ruin a starter and battery cranking it without firing the engine, so maybe??
The bigger issue to me, is the boat ran perfect when I sold it. They ran it for a couple of weeks, now they are back on my door step implying that I sold them a bad boat. I have been trying to help them out, but I don't like the way this is headed, and would be open to suggestions from the group.
Thank you,
Mike
Buddies lost interest so we sold the boat this spring. I tuned the boat up, de-winterized it, and put it in the water, no problems. Skiied with it a couple of mornings, no problem. The new owners wanted a test ride/ski, drove the boat up to their marina (20 minute ride), picked them up, skiied a couple of times (probably 1/2 hour on the boat), cruised back to my marina, no problems. Sold the boat with "As-Is" on the receipt. They picked the boat up cruised it back to their marina, everyone was happy.
A month later I get a call, boat won't run right. They had run the tank of gas out, filled up on the water at a marina known as having the lowest priced fuel in town, and now it won't start/run right. Sounded to me like bad gas, but they wouldn't hear of it. We had had some really bad rain, and I said that it could also be moisture in the distributor cap. They put a new distributor cap on it, same problem. A couple of days later I get another call. They had to put a new battery in it because the battery was bad, then they had to replace the starter because the starter was bad, and in the process they found teeth missing off the flywheel, so they pulled the engine and put a new flywheel on it. All of this implying that I had done something to provoke this. Now, I have cranked that boat hundreds of times, especially in the spring when de-winterizing, getting full revolutions of the engine, and never once heard it skip, or the bendix wing, like there was teeth off the flywheel.
Yesterday I get a call that now the engine has milky oil, and 4 spark plugs had water in the cylinder. I guess with all the cranking, again if it was bad gas, all the un-combusted fuel could have gone up into the exhaust risers, then just ran back down into the cylinders, past the rings, and into the crank case, but it would have had to be a ton of bad fuel. Now, they did ruin a starter and battery cranking it without firing the engine, so maybe??
The bigger issue to me, is the boat ran perfect when I sold it. They ran it for a couple of weeks, now they are back on my door step implying that I sold them a bad boat. I have been trying to help them out, but I don't like the way this is headed, and would be open to suggestions from the group.
Thank you,
Mike
