Folks, please help. The alarm on my port engine came on when running at ~4200 rpms. There was oil in both tanks and the telltale was strong. The engine never faultered, hesitated or dropped rpms. It was warmed up sufficiently and ran at idle for about 10 minutes prior to this as we came out of the channel. It ran fine for several minutes before this occurred. There was no obstruction around the intake. After shutting the motor down, cussing excessively and checking for the oil and obstruction it started fine and ran for a minute or so before having the same problem. I shut it down, cussed some more and tried it again. Same results. After realizing that cussing aint gonna solve the problem I left it off, trolled home on one motor and turned it on at the marina to dock. No alarm since the rpms stayed low. The gauges never changed nor reflected any unusual condition.My question is what would cause the alarm in this manner? If the telltale has water flowing is it still possible for the water pump/impeller to have a problem? Could this be related to something else alltogether? Any thoughts,insight or suggestions would be appreciated.Thanks in advance.
Most likely you have a bad impeller. Yamaha's have a drift key on the main shaft that locks into a slot in the impeller. The drift key can break loose and/or tearout the inside of the impeller. The result is the blades on the impeller are likely still intact, so at low RPM's the impeller catches and pumps but at higher RPM's the main shaft spins inside the impeller.Next most likely causes:1. Stuck thermostat.2. Stuck poppit valve.Time to pull it apart and see.
hello the 97,98 models had some impellers that would seperate from the hub. yamaha would not admit it but I saw more impeller failures from those years than all other motors combined. when it seperates it will pump to about 3000 then quit.what did the visual idicator on the tach show when the alarm was going off? good luck and keep posting. PS retorque the cyl heads as well.
do you have the digital yamaha tach or did someone rig it with the bogus stuff?. if set up correctly the tach will indicate which alarm is giving the tone. good luck and keep posting
Thanks for the help- just got back from the boat. The motor warmed up, idled and then ran at 1500 RPMs without a problem, and the tach read normal. As soon as I attempted to get up on plane (~3200) the alarm sounded. The tach had three arrows flashing abbove the red, yellow and green. There is oil in both tanks, with the onboard tank about 1/3 full. The manual oil switch did not run the pump when the motor was off- should this run anytime. Do I need a new oil pump on the remote tank, clean the filter or is this something else?
the three flashing bars are telling you the system has a malfunction. if you have oil in the remote tank and not in the engine tank something went wrong. normally this is caused by a clogged oil filter in the remote tank. the fact that at low speed it will transfer oil and reset the alarm but at high speeds its using oil faster than the clogged filter can transfer it. the key must be on to use the emergency switch. when was the last remote oil tank filter service? good luck and keep posting.
Thanks for the explanation. I bought the boat used earlier this year so I do not know when the filter was last serviced. Is this as easy as just replacing the filter and something I can do myself?
rodbolt- thanks for the help. Given that this was a holiday weekend and there was a local boat show I was not able to obtain a replacement. One dealer did say that I could try cleaning the existing filter as this usually works. I did so (it really wasn't dirty and did not appear clogged) and then proceeded to check the strainer on the onboard tank. That too looked very clean. I put everythin back together.I then, with the key in the on position but the motor not running, attempted to fill the onboard tank using the switch on the motor. Nothing happened- no motor sound and no oil pumping. Does it sound like I need a new oil pump or is there somthing else I should check? Now that I pulled the oil tank apart (and put it back together) I can see that replacing the pump is not that difficult, its just that the access is tight. If I fill the tank on the motor manually do I run any risk of damaging the motor?Thanks again, this has been most helpful.
hello at the remote tank check for 12 volts on the brown wire at the pump with the key on. if 12 volts is not present test the harness between the engine and the pump. test the blue wire at the pump to an enige ground with the key off and the emergency swicth ON. the circuits all use a ground to operate. all the emergency switch is is a toggle switch with one lead to the engine the other spliced into the blue lead going to the oil tank. you can also use jumper wires and run the brown lead to 12v+ and the blue to ground. if the pump runs its fine.somewhere on this site is an excellent trouble shooting chart for the precision blend. do a search for it. good luck and keep posting
Rod- an update. Pump runs with 12v directly. The brown has power. The blue did not have a ground at the tank. Unplugged harness at the engine, blue has a ground. That would make me think I need a new harness, yes? The harness also seems very very long and is just doubled over many many times. Is there a reason for this?Thanks.
hello the reason is the harness comes in standard lengths and sometimes are just to long. if you tested continuity to ground with the emergency switch up and had it at the engine connector and not at the tank connector I woulds suspect a break in the blue wire in the tank harness. good luck and keep posting
Yamaha 97 200SWS alarm
Linear Mode
