dies when put into gear

My uncle has a 1988 suzuki 85 hp 3 cly and it runs fin out of the water and put it in gear but as soon as you put it in the water and put it into gear it dies. What would cause this?

Re: dies when put into gear

OK, They brought the boat over the the house and I started it up and it ran fine. But as soon as we thook it to the lake and put it in the water it would run good till we put it in the gear and it would die.

Re: dies when put into gear

Hi,<br />1) I would start with to check if it runs on all cylinders (if You get spark on all sparkplugs for example it probably runs on all cylinders).<br /><br />2) Also a compression test can help to determine if any cylinder is in bad shape(worn piston ring etc). If low compression on any cylinder it could be a worn piston ring (or similar).<br /><br />Could be other things, but the above is simple to test.<br /><br />If any cylinder is not firing (nospark) or is bad (worn piston ring etc) that could explain why the engine has no force to give when gear is in forward and engine gets under load.<br /><br />I assume you have checked the fuel line, fuel filter, have new gas, pumped the gasbulb to assist so fuel get to the engine etc. <br /><br />/Bo