bishop1976
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
- Messages
- 93
Took the pontoon to the lake last weekend and the motor ran great for a day and a half. I noticed an intermittent rough idle. This motor has an oiler but I also added some oil to the tank for added protection. This is common practice for us on the pontoon because we pull the kneeboard with it often. Well the intermittent rough idle became permanent and continously got worse. Over an hour it would start dying when at idle throttle. We took it back to the dock and it ran great at WOT no issues at all. Checked plugs and looked for a possible spark jump after dark but were not able to find anything. I took it over to the marina the next morning and they ran a compression test. 125 on both port cylinders and 120 on both starboard cylinders. They put in new plugs, cleaned one lower card, and said they set the timing and adjusted the cam timing which they told me was a little off. The motor still idled a little rough but the mechanic said it could be some trash in the carb and that I should run it and see if it smooths out. Well we ran it all day with the rough idle which never seemed to get better. WOT was still A-OK. On Sunday I was pulling a kneeboarder back to the dock when we went through some pretty rough wake. About the 3rd wave the engine stalled out. It would fire and run for a few seconds then die. We had to get towed into the marina and I assumed we must be out of gas. We fueled up and I tried restarting but more of the same. I pumped the bulb a good 50 times and it would not stiffen up. Just limp bulb not collapsed. I did get it to run for a few minutes right before we pulled it out but it died before I got it all the way on the trailer. After the rough idle started it would run great at WOT but you had to walk the throttle up slowly and let the motor catch up or it would stall. It was also kind of weird where if you moved the throttle up it would go to WOT vs a smooth take off. You could then throttle down between 2800 to 4800 rpm's and had good control but the minute you went back to idle it was rough and you had to coax it back to the sweet spot.
We brought it home 160 miles fromthe guy at the lake that worked on it. I took it to a trusted guy here but he says it will be two weeks before he can start on it. Is there anything I can check between now and then? Anyone have any ideas of what could cause this?
We brought it home 160 miles fromthe guy at the lake that worked on it. I took it to a trusted guy here but he says it will be two weeks before he can start on it. Is there anything I can check between now and then? Anyone have any ideas of what could cause this?