Short story:
115hp 1999 Evinrude Ficht, 220 total hours, less than 20# compression in top two cylinders. Observed cylinder wall scoring. Repair estimate: $3800, new 115hp engine around $12k. Ive searched the forum for info, see below. Good or bad idea to repair given negative info on this engine?
Long story:
We bought a 17' Alumacraft with a 115hp 1999 Evinrude Ficht engine. Last season the engine performed flawlessly. Used it to pull the kids on tubes and kneeboards and also to run out on Lake Michigan for perch fishing. Did not troll with the motor as we never could get the boat to go slow enough. Always used the electric trolling motor. We put the boat in for winter in November and had it winterized. Pulled it out early April. Started on first crank. It sat at idle for 10 minutes with my son at the controls while I parked the trailer. Took off at 2500~ rpm to verify smooth running. Pushed it to 5k (normal operation) and headed across the lake. 2 miles later it quit. Acted like the lanyard was pulled out. Just slowed down and stopped. Took 15 minutes of intermittent cranking and it finally restarted, but only at idle. Symptoms **very** similar to this post. Link.
Water in fuel was suspected as we had a very similar problem with a boat in Florida.
Got back to dock at idle speed in gear. Any throttle advancement would kill the engine. While I got the trailer, my son restarted the engine and was able to get RPM back up. We took the boat back out and ran at 5k RPM for another 15 minutes with no problems. Brought the boat back in and pulled the filter. No water. Sumped the gas tank. No water. Figured we flushed it out. Back to the lake. Same deal. Started fine. Allowed warm up time. Ran across the lake at high power for 10 minutes and it died. No restarting this time. Troubleshot electrical suspecting ignition key assembly. Keyswitch ohmed out fine with my multimeter.
Brought it to a repair place and found out that one of the top cylinders has 0 compression, the other 15. The bottom pair are over 100. They said dump the Ficht. I brought the boat to a second shop for a second opinion. Same results and they took a look inside the cylinder with a scope and confirmed scoring of the cylinder walls. Damage is evident. Shop #2 says the oil pump failed and also suggested scrapping the Ficht due to its reputation.
Other post suggest scrapping to be a good idea. Some folks appear to have had good luck however (Link) others suggest this may be throwing good money after bad. (Link, post 13)
The above posts are a couple of years old and Im wondering if current opinions are still the same.
The estimate to repair is $3800. A new E-tec is ~12k. The shop will give me $800 for my problem engine.
Spending about 1/3 of new sounds good to me, but Google shows a lot of negativity with this engine. There is currently 220 hours on my engine. The last 30 hours were put on by myself.
The $8000 question is do I risk $3800 on a 10 year old engine that has a shaky reputation?
All input GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance.
115hp 1999 Evinrude Ficht, 220 total hours, less than 20# compression in top two cylinders. Observed cylinder wall scoring. Repair estimate: $3800, new 115hp engine around $12k. Ive searched the forum for info, see below. Good or bad idea to repair given negative info on this engine?
Long story:
We bought a 17' Alumacraft with a 115hp 1999 Evinrude Ficht engine. Last season the engine performed flawlessly. Used it to pull the kids on tubes and kneeboards and also to run out on Lake Michigan for perch fishing. Did not troll with the motor as we never could get the boat to go slow enough. Always used the electric trolling motor. We put the boat in for winter in November and had it winterized. Pulled it out early April. Started on first crank. It sat at idle for 10 minutes with my son at the controls while I parked the trailer. Took off at 2500~ rpm to verify smooth running. Pushed it to 5k (normal operation) and headed across the lake. 2 miles later it quit. Acted like the lanyard was pulled out. Just slowed down and stopped. Took 15 minutes of intermittent cranking and it finally restarted, but only at idle. Symptoms **very** similar to this post. Link.
Water in fuel was suspected as we had a very similar problem with a boat in Florida.
Got back to dock at idle speed in gear. Any throttle advancement would kill the engine. While I got the trailer, my son restarted the engine and was able to get RPM back up. We took the boat back out and ran at 5k RPM for another 15 minutes with no problems. Brought the boat back in and pulled the filter. No water. Sumped the gas tank. No water. Figured we flushed it out. Back to the lake. Same deal. Started fine. Allowed warm up time. Ran across the lake at high power for 10 minutes and it died. No restarting this time. Troubleshot electrical suspecting ignition key assembly. Keyswitch ohmed out fine with my multimeter.
Brought it to a repair place and found out that one of the top cylinders has 0 compression, the other 15. The bottom pair are over 100. They said dump the Ficht. I brought the boat to a second shop for a second opinion. Same results and they took a look inside the cylinder with a scope and confirmed scoring of the cylinder walls. Damage is evident. Shop #2 says the oil pump failed and also suggested scrapping the Ficht due to its reputation.
Other post suggest scrapping to be a good idea. Some folks appear to have had good luck however (Link) others suggest this may be throwing good money after bad. (Link, post 13)
The above posts are a couple of years old and Im wondering if current opinions are still the same.
The estimate to repair is $3800. A new E-tec is ~12k. The shop will give me $800 for my problem engine.
Spending about 1/3 of new sounds good to me, but Google shows a lot of negativity with this engine. There is currently 220 hours on my engine. The last 30 hours were put on by myself.
The $8000 question is do I risk $3800 on a 10 year old engine that has a shaky reputation?
All input GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance.
