Penta 5.7 GS cuts out after starting

[kwik_uk]

Hi Guys,

I was staying on my dads Four Winns Vista last weekend, all starting and running fine.
Took it to the fuel pontoon at the end of the weekend to top the tank off with fuel (~20 litres).
After starting up and running for 2mins it started to lose power and cut. I managed to drift over to another boat and tie off whilst I took a look.

It would fire up after standing for a few mins then slowly die (even if I gave it some RPM). I tried this a few times and I figured it had too much fuel put in as it blew back out the filler and dribbled out the vent.
I changed the fuel water separator, took the main feed line out and drained about a gallon into a can from it.
It started after this and I managed to keep it running and got back to my berth in the marina.

However this weekend it's showing the same symptoms. It will fire, but it won't stay running. It is coincidence with the fuel being filled to point of overflowing? The fuel should be good as all the other boats were filling up from the same pump without issue.

Things I've tried:

• make sure kill cord is seated correctly
• replaced water separator (primed to the top)
• drained about a gallon out
• left the filler cap open to get rid of any pressure
• left the carb wide-open to dry it out

Also I noticed:

• The fuel pump (electric, above the separator) doesn't spin up when you turn the ignition. Is this normal?
• The live feed to the relay is good, but it seems to have an intermittent pulse out.

Does anyone have any ideas what I could try?

I'm going to try and bridge the kill switch just to isolate. The fuses all appear fine.

Best regards,
Mark

 

[kwik_uk]

Re: Penta 5.7 GS cuts out after starting

Just to provide some closure on this in case anyone has something similar in the future...

Checked the relay (swapped it for a new one) - fine
Checked both diodes (one from started to fuel pump relay, one from ignition circuit) - fine
Checked the pump - fine

The problem? The four spades that the fuel pump relay plug into were dirty!! As is commonly the case, you look past the simple things and start looking at the difficult ones instead!

Cleaned them out with motor cleaner, pushed the relay in and out a few times and dried them off. Put a slight bend in the back of each spade terminal to provide a tighter grip and voila it runs!