Oil Injection failure..:(

[S2100]

'97 Evinrude Ocean Pro 200HP

Well, it finally happened to me. The oil injection system on my usually reliable Ocean Pro quit. The aural and visual warnings let me know it quit but I had to run it at idle for a few minutes to get out of the channel. The engine quit shortly thereafter. Got a tow back in from a fishing buddy.

Back at the dock I manually mixed my tank at 50:1 and tried to start. It turns just fine but won't relight. I'm concerned that there may have been internal damage but can't be sure. IF the warnings went off when they were supposed to, it should be fine but if they came on too late... Is there any way to verify whether ot not I damaged the engine or not?

Also, is there a procedure for disabling the automatic oil injection? I just don't trust it anymore. I know lots of guys who disable them right away and manually mix. I should have done the same.

Your input is greatly appreciated.

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Oil Injection failure..

Sorry that happened to you. If the engine wouldn't restart on the premix, you could begin with a compression test on all cylinders. If one or more is low, then you have the answer you didn't want to have.

I sure hate to hear about this kind of thing on a very expensive outboard. I don't have any outboards that don't use premix, so I'm not at risk, but it seems to me that they could design some sort of fail-safe into the VRO system, even if it was nothing more than a small tank of oil with a dump valve on it that would meter oil into the fuel if the VRO failed. Obviously, the system knows when the VRO fails, since you got warnings. Why can't they engineer a fail-safe that would add oil by gravity feed or some other simple mechanism...enough to limp out of the way, at least, or to go a few miles, at most.

Or, why not just simply shut the engine down instantly on failure of the VRO. I know that might leave the boat in an awkward position, but it's shortly going to be in one anyhow if the thing fails.

I believe I would never trust such a system, as long as there was no fail-safe mode. Outboards are just too expensive to lose over a failure like that. Just IMO.

 

[S2100]

Re: Oil Injection failure..

Thanks for the reply CAT,

I went out and purged the fuel line until the pre-mix could clearly be seen re-assembled and got a successful relight. Idle is kind of high,1000-1200 rpm. I'm failry certain no damage has occurred but will check it out completely before going back out. Too bad, the Mackrel are running like crazy right now and we were rigged up for Kings. You're just about assured of limiting out right now.

I'm definitely going to disable the system and pre-mix from now on. I will fix the oiler and leave it installed for re-sale value but it is overly complicated and costly to maintain. Nobody I know trusts the auto injection enough to risk damaging $10-15K engines. When this engine runs out or I get another boat, I'm going 4 cycle.

I'm looking for a safe procedure to temporarily disable the oiler and alarms.

Thanks to all,

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Oil Injection failure..

Thanks for the reply CAT,

I went out and purged the fuel line until the pre-mix could clearly be seen re-assembled and got a successful relight. Idle is kind of high,1000-1200 rpm. I'm failry certain no damage has occurred but will check it out completely before going back out. Too bad, the Mackrel are running like crazy right now and we were rigged up for Kings. You're just about assured of limiting out right now.

I'm definitely going to disable the system and pre-mix from now on. I will fix the oiler and leave it installed for re-sale value but it is overly complicated and costly to maintain. Nobody I know trusts the auto injection enough to risk damaging $10-15K engines. When this engine runs out or I get another boat, I'm going 4 cycle.

I'm looking for a safe procedure to temporarily disable the oiler and alarms.

Thanks to all,

Good deal! Sounds like you may have skipped real problems. Do a search for VRO here and you should find instructions for disabling. I know I've seen it a bunch of times, but don't trust myself to run it down for you, since I'm not even an owner of a VRO machine.