um0RION
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2009
- Messages
- 88
Well, I bought a boat last fall for $600, a 1990 Bayliner Capri. The boat came with a 1991 120HP evinrude, and the trailer. After several LONG months of working on it, and not being able to work on it (winter in Maine) I finally got it out on the water yesterday.
Ive never driven an 18' boat, loaded one, or unloaded one. That being said, I remembered the important stuff, and the horror stories Ive read on here
The plug was in, trailer straps removed, etc.. It went in easy, and my friend went to park the Jeep & trailer. She ran great (I thought) and was able to get up to 33 mph with the two of us in the boat. This was pretty good, since I had no idea what prop or pitch to get, other than what other members told me would work (Thanks guys).
The first issue occurred when we got brave, and went out to the middle of the lake (which was pretty big). My friend was driving, and his elbow managed to hit the kill switch, knocking the plastic clip off. No problem, I just reconnected it, and tried to fire up the engine. Nothing. No turning of the starter at all. It was in neutral, key was in right, and everything seemed normal. So after a few minutes, my buddy was getting nervous, and I told him with confidence that regardless, I WOULD get it running. So I pulled the power off the starter solenoid, and jumped it directly to the starter. Engine fired right up, and ran just fine. Problem solved, for now. So we went back to the dock to get a 3rd friend, with no issues. However, in my haste (and relief) getting the engine started, I left the ratchet on the rear of the boat, which as soon as I gave the boat throttle, fell right off the back, to the bottom of the lake never to be seen again.
So we pick up my friend, and have a good ol time running the boat around. Then, around 2 hours in, the engine suddenly smooths out, and gives a sudden boost of power for about 2 seconds. We all look at each other like, "WHAT the hell was that?!?" A few seconds pass, then it does it again! The engine gains a lot of RPM, speeds up, runs smoother, then goes back to the way it was. Then the third time it did it, it did it so much that I throttled it down thinking something was wrong and it was gonna run up the rpm. So then I realized, an injector must have been plugged, and wasn't allowing the 4th cylinder to fire right, which I had thought was only spark-plug related.
At this point I started laughing like an idiot realizing that as good as the boat was BEFORE, it just got a whole lot more awesome. I was at idle moving forward, and suggested my friends stay in their seats, then moved the throttle right to full. The engine pulled just like it was supposed to, and actually sat you back in your seat. Acceleration was perfect, it sounded just like the 4 cylinder in my car. It popped out of the hole MUCH faster, and had a very, very satisfying feel. I told my friend later that the boat working on the first shot on the lake was like Christmas, and that finding the 4th cylinder wasn't working fully (and then was working right) was like a second Christmas.
We played around with it a while, then decided to do a couple full throttle tests. At WOT, we were able to hit 39mph with 3 adults on board, with the engine all trimmed up. We used a GPS to clock it, and my friend said it hovered between 38/39 mph. Unfortunately we didn't have a tachometer on board for an outboard, so we weren't able to see what kind of RPM we were getting.
After that, we went back to the dock, and loaded it up without incident. All in all, a great first run with the "new" boat, with only minor problems to fix now. Couldn't be happier
Ive never driven an 18' boat, loaded one, or unloaded one. That being said, I remembered the important stuff, and the horror stories Ive read on here
The plug was in, trailer straps removed, etc.. It went in easy, and my friend went to park the Jeep & trailer. She ran great (I thought) and was able to get up to 33 mph with the two of us in the boat. This was pretty good, since I had no idea what prop or pitch to get, other than what other members told me would work (Thanks guys). The first issue occurred when we got brave, and went out to the middle of the lake (which was pretty big). My friend was driving, and his elbow managed to hit the kill switch, knocking the plastic clip off. No problem, I just reconnected it, and tried to fire up the engine. Nothing. No turning of the starter at all. It was in neutral, key was in right, and everything seemed normal. So after a few minutes, my buddy was getting nervous, and I told him with confidence that regardless, I WOULD get it running. So I pulled the power off the starter solenoid, and jumped it directly to the starter. Engine fired right up, and ran just fine. Problem solved, for now. So we went back to the dock to get a 3rd friend, with no issues. However, in my haste (and relief) getting the engine started, I left the ratchet on the rear of the boat, which as soon as I gave the boat throttle, fell right off the back, to the bottom of the lake never to be seen again.
So we pick up my friend, and have a good ol time running the boat around. Then, around 2 hours in, the engine suddenly smooths out, and gives a sudden boost of power for about 2 seconds. We all look at each other like, "WHAT the hell was that?!?" A few seconds pass, then it does it again! The engine gains a lot of RPM, speeds up, runs smoother, then goes back to the way it was. Then the third time it did it, it did it so much that I throttled it down thinking something was wrong and it was gonna run up the rpm. So then I realized, an injector must have been plugged, and wasn't allowing the 4th cylinder to fire right, which I had thought was only spark-plug related.
At this point I started laughing like an idiot realizing that as good as the boat was BEFORE, it just got a whole lot more awesome. I was at idle moving forward, and suggested my friends stay in their seats, then moved the throttle right to full. The engine pulled just like it was supposed to, and actually sat you back in your seat. Acceleration was perfect, it sounded just like the 4 cylinder in my car. It popped out of the hole MUCH faster, and had a very, very satisfying feel. I told my friend later that the boat working on the first shot on the lake was like Christmas, and that finding the 4th cylinder wasn't working fully (and then was working right) was like a second Christmas.
We played around with it a while, then decided to do a couple full throttle tests. At WOT, we were able to hit 39mph with 3 adults on board, with the engine all trimmed up. We used a GPS to clock it, and my friend said it hovered between 38/39 mph. Unfortunately we didn't have a tachometer on board for an outboard, so we weren't able to see what kind of RPM we were getting.
After that, we went back to the dock, and loaded it up without incident. All in all, a great first run with the "new" boat, with only minor problems to fix now. Couldn't be happier
