My "new" used Force 85

Greetings! I was pretty happy to find this forum.

I have a 1988 Force 85hp that I just bought, mounted on a 17'Bluefin fish and ski. This is my first boat and I'm pretty excited about it, even though it won't win any beauty contests. Here's the boat:

I found it in Arizona, and bought it sight unseen after having a compression test run by a shop. They told me it measured 137.5, 137.5, 137, and ran well.

I've been putting some time into it, but have not had it out yet. It is going to be a fishing boat for my daughter and me, and I am approaching our first outing carefully. I want to make sure that we don't get stuck on the water... yeah, I am more than a little paranoid.

I saw the Tell Tale thread, and opted to put a water pressure gauge on. With muffs on, at idle , my water pressure is only 5psi, but after warmed up it seems to push a lot of water through the exhaust port. I checked the thermostat, and it dropped off the string at about 120 degrees.

I am a little spooked that at idle, the battery voltage reads 12.47V... I would have thought that it would be higher.

Sure idles nice. Cold starts right up. No tach, and interior is shot. Will do that next winter along with the carpet.

Any thoughts on the water pressure and charging voltage?

Thanks,

Frank

Re: My "new" used Force 85

NMShooter said:

Greetings! I was pretty happy to find this forum.

I have a 1988 Force 85hp that I just bought, mounted on a 17'Bluefin fish and ski. This is my first boat and I'm pretty excited about it, even though it won't win any beauty contests. Here's the boat:

I found it in Arizona, and bought it sight unseen after having a compression test run by a shop. They told me it measured 137.5, 137.5, 137, and ran well.

I've been putting some time into it, but have not had it out yet. It is going to be a fishing boat for my daughter and me, and I am approaching our first outing carefully. I want to make sure that we don't get stuck on the water... yeah, I am more than a little paranoid.

I saw the Tell Tale thread, and opted to put a water pressure gauge on. With muffs on, at idle , my water pressure is only 5psi, but after warmed up it seems to push a lot of water through the exhaust port. I checked the thermostat, and it dropped off the string at about 120 degrees.

I am a little spooked that at idle, the battery voltage reads 12.47V... I would have thought that it would be higher.

Sure idles nice. Cold starts right up. No tach, and interior is shot. Will do that next winter along with the carpet.

Any thoughts on the water pressure and charging voltage?

Thanks,

Frank

Click to expand...

I can't answer your question but it looks to me you picked your self up a nice starter boat and welcome to iboats

Re: My "new" used Force 85

I have a 125HP with a water pressure gauge. At Idle, I have about 6 LBS of pressure. At 5300 RPM's I have 23 LBS of pressure.

I also have a voltage gauge. At idle (800 RPM's) I usually read just above 12 volts. Once I get it up above 2000 RPM's I read 13.5 volts.

Sounds like everything on your boat is pretty much normal. Real test will be out on the water when you can open her up a bit.