1986 Model 2001

[McKenz1j]

This weekend I went to pull my boat out and ended up waiting at the launch for about 20 minutes.(You've all seen the guy, trying to push a rope) As I was waiting, the boat seemed to idle slower and slower, to the point that I took it out of gear so I could give it more gas. By the time the ramp cleared, the boat would not run at idle any more. I was not able to look at it over the weekend, but I put it back in the water today. Started fine, seemed like all was good again, but when I idled through the no wake zone out to the lake, it wouldn't take off. Hesitating and missing very badly, I had to baby the throttle foward to get it to go. Smoothed out a little bit, but still missing badly. I have no idea where to start diagnosing this. Any suggestions? Thanks guys.

[scott resick]

Fuel filter? bad gas? Distributor points?

[00cls1camaross]

Have you done any maintenance to your boat lately?

[jmcintosh119]

Had a Problem like this with my 85. 2001 it was the points

[McKenz1j]

I had a similiar problem in the past, and it went away when I put in the electronic ignition last year, so to have it come back is extremely frustrating. I'm down to about a quarter tank of fuel from full this spring, So it's running on the same gas. Scott, you think the filter might be clogged? Easy enough to check, I'll be able to tommorrow night. Thanks for the ideas guys!

[scott resick]

Its worth a shot, Im no master mechanic buy I would check it and maybe run a carb cleaner through your next gas fill up.

[Texan1554]

Sounds like an Ethanol issue ie... water in your fuel/clogged fuel filter, carb. Gas(ethanol) sitting in your engine for that long will absorb any and ever drop of water it can. If you bought the gas from a marine based gas station a fair amount of water may have already been absorbed when you bought it.

Run some carb cleaner and sea foam with some new gas.

[AirTool]

It does sound like fuel is getting restricted. It might also be a sticking or heavy carb float.

You might double check your oil and make sure it doesn't have fuel in it. If you have the old timey fuel pump, they can leak into the engine.

For carb cleaner, I recommend the Quicksilver (Mercruiser) brand. It comes out slightly less foamy than shaving cream and adheres to where you spray it for a while. cover your carb in it an use the red tube to spray it in all the ports/air horn/ wherever you can (try to fill the bowl with it) and let it stand overnight. Then hose it again and run the engine. I've seen it work wonders on plaqued up carbs.

I don't recommend Sea Foam. I consider it similar to caffeinated coffee. The negative effects are real and the positive effects are all psychological.

That's why I drink de-caf and don't use Sea Foam.

[pdxCC]

Check the wire mesh screen at the connection of the fule line to the carb. My 93' had similar symtoms and it took 5-minutes to pull the screen out and clean the white powder the ethanol fuel strippedoff my tank and deposited on the screen.

That was after 2-hours of chasing the entire fuel system from the tank to fuel pimp and replacing the filter and water seperator....

[McKenz1j]

Wow, thanks guys! The rain isn't showing any signs of stopping today, this will all have to wait till the weekend. I will let you know how it turns out.

[McKenz1j]

Solved! (Ithink) I siphoned all the gas I could, went and bought some non-oxygenated (pretty sure someone said that meant ethanol free, it said for off road and boats on the pump) put in some sea foam and tried again. It was exactly the same. Started right up, but the longer it idled the rougher it ran. This time though I tried to get it up to speed by slowwly adding throttle and it started to backfire. I got it back on the lift and stared at it for a while and decided to check the timing. It was off by 2 degrees! I hadn't touched anything on that cap for a year! So I adjusted it and it runs great. Does anyone know, does the timing drift on its own sometimes? What could have caused this?