Idle problem

I have 2001 Bayliner 195 with a 4.3 merc I/O. Just bought it over the winter. First trip out with it all was fine. Ran like a charm. On second trip out yesterday I had a problem with the idle. It would idle at normal speed and then drop and come back to normal. It would do this over and over again. Also while doing this it would sometime let me accelerate and sometime would want to stall. And sometimes it would stall. She would always restart with no problem. When it first happened. I reved it up in neutral a few times and that seemed to make all this go away for a few minutes, but it came back again. We just about made it back to the dock. When we got home I put the muffs on it to flush out the seawater. Brought it up to operating temperature and it seemed to be running fine then. Only other symptom I can give is that it seemed to be at its worst when it was in gear and not just gunning it in neutral. Any help or ideas on what would be causing this would be great. Thank you in advance!!!

Re: Idle problem

It either needs a full tune up, a carb rebuild, or both. When was the last time the boat was fully serviced?

Welcome to Iboats.

Re: Idle problem

Carb'd? Anyway I would change the fuel filters because you have no idea when they were last changed. When you change the fuel / water filter pour it into a glass and see if the fuel has water in it. Let it sit for about 30 minutes and the water will be at the bottom of the glass.

I my experience so far running the boat out of gear tells you nothing because there is no load on the motor. Boats seem to always run great at idle not in gear. When I bought my first used boat and car for that matter I did a full tune-up on it so I know that everything is in good working order.

Welcome to iBoats a GREAT Forum!!

Re: Idle problem

JustJason said:

just because you found it that way... doesn't mean it's supposed to be that way.

Click to expand...

JustJason beat me to it.

I live by JustJason signature because I had many things on my boat wrong and I have fixed them all except my boat came with a Gen II drive and now it has a GEN I drive. PO changed it out for some reason.

The list that was wrong or missing from my boat is quite long to list from no water / fuel separator to missing check balls and no thermostat.......

Re: Idle problem

I was told it was serviced last fall. But dont know for sure. It is a spin on filter but it does look greasy on the outside. Either dirty hands changed it last time or its been there a while. I will start there and see if that cures it. Thank you!