Problem with a 1994 Mariner 125 leaving us out on the water

[waterinthefuel]

The last two times I went on my parents houseboat, we got towed back. The engine will start and run fine, we get about 15 minutes from the dock and it quits like someone turned off the switch. It's dead as a stump. The tach works perfectly the entire time and the boat will not restart on the lake. My dad took some of his friends from work out on it between our two trips where we got towed, and it ran perfectly. The kill switch is not the problem, it's not touched. He said he noticed the voltmeter on the dash acting up right before it died.

What can it be? Is it the power pack? The stator? I thought if you cooked a stator its cooked, it doesn't uncook later for another trip out.

I was reading and I think the way my dad has the engine wired up is an issue. He has two large deep cycle batteries to operate the systems on the boat. Well, that engine is hooked to one of those batteries, but the batteries are hooked together. He usually only operates the houseboat at a low RPM which I was told causes the stator to get really hot since it's a low RPM and a high charge requirement. I was told the charging system on an outboard is only to be used for maintenance charging, i.e. charging a small cranking battery back up after its used to start the engine and that's it, not to charge 2 deep cycle marine batteries hooked in parallel. What do you think?

 

[SkiDad]

check out outboardignition.com - it helped me 3 years ago when i had the same issue.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Ok guys, I'm resurrecting this thread because this problem is still here. I did like that website said and we put a new stator on it, even a new voltage regulator and it does the exact same thing. Also, now the starter wouldn't turn the engine over. We pulled the plugs out and tried turning it over the tons of raw gas shot out of the bottom two cylinder plug holes!!! WTF??? We put the new stator on it, and it cranked up immediately. Ran great for about 3 minutes and shut off. Now it has no spark on any cylinder. We let it cool overnight and it's still dead.

We are lost. Anyone have any ideas??? Oh, and the title is wrong, I thought it was a 94 but my dad told me its a 96.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Ok we talked to a master mechanic and he said this problem is most likely the power pack. We will replace when we go back to the camp and see if this fixes it. The gas in the cylinders was probably because my dad left the engine fully tilted down (almost under the boat) for the entire night.