2 mechanics could not help me.....im lost and need help!

[afi999]

So I just got a 1999 renken 1880 with an outboard 1989 Johnson 2 stroke 115 motor. The first time on the water I noticed that at full throttle the motor only gets to 2500 rpms and bogs down and will not plane but only sometimes, other times it will work fine. Then the next time I went out the trim motor stopped working. I hired a mechanic to look at the boat and he said the trim motor was bad and he replaced it along with the cleaning the carbs. The boat still would only sometimes get to speed without bogging down and other times it still bogged down but the trim motor seemed to work fine for a few weeks. Then after two more outings with the boat the brand new trim motor stopped working and I was receiving a large shock from not only the metal on the throttle but also the metal on the steering wheel. So I hired another mechanic to take a look. We found that even with direct power the trim motor would not work (brand new only used 2 times) both relays are fine and were even swapped for new, power is getting to the relays and they are both clicking but the motor does not operate (it was intermittently working the day prior to when it stopped working completely. So question one is why is the trim motor not working, question 2 is why am I getting a high voltage shock when touching anything metal on the boat intermittently. Finally in regards to the motor bogging down, the fuel lines are clear, there is no water in the lines and everything seems to be fine and should work. So im lost and really just cant keep paying mechanic after mechanic to find out why these issues are happening. Any ideas? Could these 3 items be related? Im begging for help!!!

Jonathan

 

[sutor623]

Yikes, sorry to hear about your troubles. This sounds very frustrating and dangerous.

The reason you are getting shocked is more than likely because one of your power wires is shorting out to ground. Basically, a power wire is cut somewhere and draining into your boat somewhere. Odd thing is that there arent any fuses blown..... I want you to take a multimeter, set it to 12V, put the positive lead to the ground where you are getting shocked (like steering wheel) and negative lead to battery negative. See if you are getting 12V. If you are, then we have proven this theory. Maybe your trim motor circuit is grounding out somewhere. You can set the meter to continuity and put one lead on the pos of the trim motor, and other lead to ground on the boat. If it beeps, you have found that your trim motor is shorting. If not we have some other things to look at.

I am not sure they made a 115 in '89 but they did make one in '90. Can you give us your model number off the transom mount to be sure?

It sounds like you are having an electrical problem (which are often intermittent) and they are likely to show their faces after the components get hot. If you are dropping all the way down to 2500 rpms I would guess that you are dropping an entire bank. (Meaning 2 out of 4 cylinders.) It is unlikely that your rpms would be that low if you were only down 1 cylinder (although not impossible.) Dropping a bank normally consists of a failing stator (like an alternator in the car, but under the flywheel) or it could be a powerpack. The powerpacks on these years Johnsons seem to be the weak link. You ought to order yourself a DVA adapter for your multimeter and use the CDI troubleshooting manual to identify if and what the problem is in the electrical system.

Your motor troubleshooting guide should be page 42 in this manual.

(Some of these motors have something called SLOW which knocks the motor back to 2500RPMs when the motor is overheating, or if you have a faulty temp switch or powerpack. That is why we need to find out your model number.)

http://issuu.com/cdielectronics/docs/practical_ouboard_ignition_troubles