MASTERBrian
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2011
- Messages
- 84
Haven't had boat out since late last season until yesterday. Last time out we did a fair amount of tubing and just idling around, etc. Towards the end of the day I noticed the boat seemed to be running a bit rough, so I brought it in. Though I did get it winterized, I never had a chance to go through things and take it back out.
Yesterday, I finally got it back out for the first time this year. It was very windy so the lake was rough, but I wanted to run her and get some fresh gas run through to see how she was going. The mixture, which I always do at start and towards end of season was 1 pint of seafoam to 12 gallons of gas. She fired right up, but seemed a bit sluggish off the start. Wide open she seemed to run fine with no signs of missing. I had my high speed prop on, so wasn't sure if that was the cause of the low end sluggishness, due to decently choppy water. 22+ mile an hour winds with gusts I believe upwards of 30-40mph and about 1'+ white caps.
In any case, the time it took to plane out seemed to get progressively worse and on way back to ramp, it seemed to affect the mid-top end a bit as well. Wasn't out too long, maybe 20-30minutes with boat running. Due to the chop I didn't want to mess with it on the trailer, so we towed it back to the campsite and I pulled the cowl off to look around. I pulled all the plugs and they were more black than brown, looked wet and looked to have some carbon flakes on them as well. My buddy who is very big into cars, thought the plugs looked pretty good, for what that's worth, I didn't like the carbon flakes that seemed to be there. I also noticed that there appeared to be small water pools in misc. areas on the bottom cowl towards the front of the engine. Upon further examination I also found that the hose going to the water by-pass had some cracks in it.
My thought at this stage is, the hose to the by pass was leaking spraying water on the engine, causing a mist, which was probably causing the poor performance. What I'm worried about is carbon build up causing sticky rings. With that said, I've owned the boat about 7yrs and around the first year I had to rebuild the motor due to a ring sticking due to carbon build up. Hence why I try to run seafoam through on a fairly regular basis, I think I've also decarbed it once a few years ago, if not twice. So, while I'm skiddish on that thought I am doubtful that's my problem.
My plan is to pull all the plugs and clean them with a spark plug cleaner, basically it sand blasts them, then I'll spray them well with air and carb cleaner. I also plan to mix up some decarb mix and run that through the entire engine. I may also run a quick compression check. While doing the decarb or right before I do that, I'll likely stick the cracked hose on see if it definitely does spray water out.
I'm curious if anyone has feedback on my plans or other things to check. Fuel filter looked great, I'm also wondering about the fuel/water separator as it hasn't been replaced for a year or so. I'll probably pick a new one up tomorrow.
In case it isn't in my profile, this is an '86 Evinrude XP 150 on a Ranger 373v.
Yesterday, I finally got it back out for the first time this year. It was very windy so the lake was rough, but I wanted to run her and get some fresh gas run through to see how she was going. The mixture, which I always do at start and towards end of season was 1 pint of seafoam to 12 gallons of gas. She fired right up, but seemed a bit sluggish off the start. Wide open she seemed to run fine with no signs of missing. I had my high speed prop on, so wasn't sure if that was the cause of the low end sluggishness, due to decently choppy water. 22+ mile an hour winds with gusts I believe upwards of 30-40mph and about 1'+ white caps.
In any case, the time it took to plane out seemed to get progressively worse and on way back to ramp, it seemed to affect the mid-top end a bit as well. Wasn't out too long, maybe 20-30minutes with boat running. Due to the chop I didn't want to mess with it on the trailer, so we towed it back to the campsite and I pulled the cowl off to look around. I pulled all the plugs and they were more black than brown, looked wet and looked to have some carbon flakes on them as well. My buddy who is very big into cars, thought the plugs looked pretty good, for what that's worth, I didn't like the carbon flakes that seemed to be there. I also noticed that there appeared to be small water pools in misc. areas on the bottom cowl towards the front of the engine. Upon further examination I also found that the hose going to the water by-pass had some cracks in it.
My thought at this stage is, the hose to the by pass was leaking spraying water on the engine, causing a mist, which was probably causing the poor performance. What I'm worried about is carbon build up causing sticky rings. With that said, I've owned the boat about 7yrs and around the first year I had to rebuild the motor due to a ring sticking due to carbon build up. Hence why I try to run seafoam through on a fairly regular basis, I think I've also decarbed it once a few years ago, if not twice. So, while I'm skiddish on that thought I am doubtful that's my problem.
My plan is to pull all the plugs and clean them with a spark plug cleaner, basically it sand blasts them, then I'll spray them well with air and carb cleaner. I also plan to mix up some decarb mix and run that through the entire engine. I may also run a quick compression check. While doing the decarb or right before I do that, I'll likely stick the cracked hose on see if it definitely does spray water out.
I'm curious if anyone has feedback on my plans or other things to check. Fuel filter looked great, I'm also wondering about the fuel/water separator as it hasn't been replaced for a year or so. I'll probably pick a new one up tomorrow.
In case it isn't in my profile, this is an '86 Evinrude XP 150 on a Ranger 373v.
