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Finally had a chance to do some more work on the motor. I studied the timing advance lever situation again, and sprayed it heavily with PB Blaster all the way around then with PB White Lithium Grease. I disconnected it from the shifter lever that pulls it and worked it back and forth a lot. It is more free than it was, but it doesn't just freely flop back and forth. Hard to describe the effort required, but it would not fall back and forth if tilting the motor but can easily be moved with your pinky finger. Anyway, the shifter lever should exert enough force but I don't think it's properly transferring the force to it because of the sloppy linkage. When the linkage rolls down to a certain position (it has ball joints on either end), it doesn't allow for enough travel. I used a cable tie around the ball to limit the linkage rolling down out of position and that seemed to help a lot Including a couple of pics to show this, the first without and second with the cable tie.
Ran the boat Saturday and did the 1 gallon of concentrated Seafoam "dunk". It jumps up on plane well and runs great at WOT. No bogging during acceleration at all. I could run maybe 75% throttle and up no problem, crusing around 35-36mph on GPS, topping out in the mid '40s. But again, if I backed off and tried to run mid throttle (high '20s, low '30s MPH - still broken tach) I would get the occasional rougher running (missing?) and sort of slow surging in RPMs. This surging I'm describing is cycling from lower to higher RPM every second or so, with probably a 100-200RPM variance from high to low. It's subtle, but you can "feel" it in your feet, and sometimes when it does the missing thing you'll lose some speed and can hear the engine change.
It was worse just after the dunk, but that cleared up after a few and it was probably a little better overall - almost perfect. I didn't have time to put the new plugs in but plan to do that Friday. When I loaded on the trailer, it DID go back to the whole not wanting to spool up unless I pushed the choke, but just one little tap and I was on the bump stop. This is a tremendous improvement from winching the whole way up, but there is still something not QUITE right. Perhaps it is a little lean as ercoa suggest.
To try and verify, I'm going to swap the plugs and take a gamble on one more outing. This time, when the surging or hesitation happens out on the water (if it happens) I'll tap the choke and see if it clears it up. Then I'll be pulling the carbs, and the jets. I'm hoping it won't come to that, but re-doing this steps seems the correct advice should I have the issue repeat again with the new plugs and freshly Seafoamed engine.
I noticed that I do seem to have a leak in the lower end of the motor, on the side below the pistons. I'm getting some fuel/oil running into the bottom of the cowl and down the shaft on the port side. This is sort of confirmation to me of the leak that the last mechanic that saw it said I had. Basically it's a gasket that would have to be replaced by disassembling the motor. I think until it comes to that it's just a nuisance, right? Not my performance issue is it? And it's not likely to be the source of any imminent, expensive, catastrophic failure?
Finally had a chance to do some more work on the motor. I studied the timing advance lever situation again, and sprayed it heavily with PB Blaster all the way around then with PB White Lithium Grease. I disconnected it from the shifter lever that pulls it and worked it back and forth a lot. It is more free than it was, but it doesn't just freely flop back and forth. Hard to describe the effort required, but it would not fall back and forth if tilting the motor but can easily be moved with your pinky finger. Anyway, the shifter lever should exert enough force but I don't think it's properly transferring the force to it because of the sloppy linkage. When the linkage rolls down to a certain position (it has ball joints on either end), it doesn't allow for enough travel. I used a cable tie around the ball to limit the linkage rolling down out of position and that seemed to help a lot Including a couple of pics to show this, the first without and second with the cable tie.
Ran the boat Saturday and did the 1 gallon of concentrated Seafoam "dunk". It jumps up on plane well and runs great at WOT. No bogging during acceleration at all. I could run maybe 75% throttle and up no problem, crusing around 35-36mph on GPS, topping out in the mid '40s. But again, if I backed off and tried to run mid throttle (high '20s, low '30s MPH - still broken tach) I would get the occasional rougher running (missing?) and sort of slow surging in RPMs. This surging I'm describing is cycling from lower to higher RPM every second or so, with probably a 100-200RPM variance from high to low. It's subtle, but you can "feel" it in your feet, and sometimes when it does the missing thing you'll lose some speed and can hear the engine change.
It was worse just after the dunk, but that cleared up after a few and it was probably a little better overall - almost perfect. I didn't have time to put the new plugs in but plan to do that Friday. When I loaded on the trailer, it DID go back to the whole not wanting to spool up unless I pushed the choke, but just one little tap and I was on the bump stop. This is a tremendous improvement from winching the whole way up, but there is still something not QUITE right. Perhaps it is a little lean as ercoa suggest.
To try and verify, I'm going to swap the plugs and take a gamble on one more outing. This time, when the surging or hesitation happens out on the water (if it happens) I'll tap the choke and see if it clears it up. Then I'll be pulling the carbs, and the jets. I'm hoping it won't come to that, but re-doing this steps seems the correct advice should I have the issue repeat again with the new plugs and freshly Seafoamed engine.
I noticed that I do seem to have a leak in the lower end of the motor, on the side below the pistons. I'm getting some fuel/oil running into the bottom of the cowl and down the shaft on the port side. This is sort of confirmation to me of the leak that the last mechanic that saw it said I had. Basically it's a gasket that would have to be replaced by disassembling the motor. I think until it comes to that it's just a nuisance, right? Not my performance issue is it? And it's not likely to be the source of any imminent, expensive, catastrophic failure?
