85 force lower unit drain plug

[Jiggz]

Some boaters put water-fuel separators between the fuel tank and the fuel pump. I do not for I have not experienced any water in the fuel problem. Although, my boat is always parked on the side driveway and not year round in the water like others. If you're NOT experiencing water in the fuel problem, and your boat is not left in a boat slip year round, you probably do not need one.

Remember for this motor, simplicity is the key for almost trouble free operation. A water fuel separator can add a source of problem when having fuel related problems. But then of course, that is just my opinion.

When the engine gets warm and starts to experience starting problem, first thing to note is the clear fuel filter to see if it's at least half full. If not, then there is fuel delivery problem. If it's at least half full, then try running the motor without the top cowling. If starting is easier then there could be exhaust leak inside the cowling. Usually, this hard starting problem is only experienced while in the water with the exhaust snout submerged. This is usually due to the back pressure the water presents against the exhaust. And the only way to overcome is to put the motor on fast idle position so it'll create enough exhaust pressure to push the exhaust to the two nostrils on the midleg.

However, if the problem persists then it's mostly a spark problem. Indicating either a coil or CD modules getting hot or warm is starting to misfire. You can actually put your hand over these components (engine stopped) to see if they are getting too hot. Or at least make comparison with the other components on which one gets really hot.

 

[sidewing]

Took it out to the lake and rpms were low. About 620 idle and 520 in gear.. I turned it gradually and it went as far as it would go so the idle screw was all the way against the nut.. it's at about 760 idle and 660 in gear, which is good.. it starts better now.. I don't need to put it in fast idle anymore when warm. Ideally I'd like the idle to be just a hair higher.. maybe 800 idle and 700 in gear but there's not enough screw left to tighten it anymore... So I'll just leave it as it is.

I need to replace the fuel line, which is coming in tomorrow.. I noticed there's a very light leak where the in line filter is and it seems like a tiny bit of air is getting in because the bulb isn't holding solid anymore. I see a little line crack where the filter goes into the hose. Gonna replace all the hose from the tank to the carb, including the primer bulb with some 5/16 Marine grade fuel line and a k&n screen filter. Once they're in place, I'll dial in the carbs if needed... Right now there's a little bit of sag when I go from stand still to WOT.. which I read means it's a little lean.. but I don't want to adjust the carbs until the fuel line is addressed.. it could be lean just from the air getting into the line. It wasn't doing this prior to me changing the fuel filter, and I think I cracked the line a little bit when I did it.
I also measured the rpms at WOT and I'm getting about 2600, which is too low. I suspect this is because of no spark on cylinder 1.. hoping the new coil fixes it, I'll remeasure on Tuesday if so.

 

[Jiggz]

If the idle screw screws all the way in and the idle remains low, it's an indication the link rod with plastic clevis on both ends that connects the throttle cam to the carbs' tie bar through the eccentric screw roller is improperly set or adjusted. The indication is that it is too short. To extend this you need to loosen the lock nuts on both ends and then turn the rod so it'll extend longer. It'll be easier if you can dismount one of the clevis but I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS AS THIS IS VERY OLD PLASTIC and can break easily. Not to mention it's not available anymore. Before putting it back together, make sure you back out the idle screw first.
Usually a quarter inch extend on the link rod will suffice. Make sure adjustment is even for both ends and you re-tightened the lock nuts on both ends. Note, DO NOT OVEREXTEND THE CLEVIS OUT OF THE LINK ROD ENDS, AS THIS CAN CAUSE IT TO BE UNSTABLE AND BREAK.

 

[sidewing]

If the idle screw screws all the way in and the idle remains low, it's an indication the link rod with plastic clevis on both ends that connects the throttle cam to the carbs' tie bar through the eccentric screw roller is improperly set or adjusted. The indication is that it is too short. To extend this you need to loosen the lock nuts on both ends and then turn the rod so it'll extend longer. It'll be easier if you can dismount one of the clevis but I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS AS THIS IS VERY OLD PLASTIC and can break easily. Not to mention it's not available anymore. Before putting it back together, make sure you back out the idle screw first.
Usually a quarter inch extend on the link rod will suffice. Make sure adjustment is even for both ends and you re-tightened the lock nuts on both ends. Note, DO NOT OVEREXTEND THE CLEVIS OUT OF THE LINK ROD ENDS, AS THIS CAN CAUSE IT TO BE UNSTABLE AND BREAK.

It might be.. I shortened it some because once I had the scribed line pointed at the roller, when I would push my lever in the boat to WOT, it wouldn't open the carbs fully.. so I tried to find the sweet spot of keeping the scribed line as close as possible to not being too far below the roller, and having the carbs fully open when the lever was pushed to WOT.. I'm sure I can adjust it a little more to get maybe another 100 rpm increase on idle.

 

[Jiggz]

It might be.. I shortened it some because once I had the scribed line pointed at the roller, when I would push my lever in the boat to WOT, it wouldn't open the carbs fully.. so I tried to find the sweet spot of keeping the scribed line as close as possible to not being too far below the roller, and having the carbs fully open when the lever was pushed to WOT.. I'm sure I can adjust it a little more to get maybe another 100 rpm increase on idle.

When adjusting the cam's scribed line with the slot on the eccentric screw, three things should be "mechanically zero". Meaning basically no mechanical force is being exerted by the carb's linkage.
-First and foremost, the idle screw setting should be screwed OUT and just barely touching the engine block and not pushing against it. DO NOT BACK IT OUT ALL THE WAY.

-The tie bar should be at full rest or all throttle shutters on all carbs should be fully closed in neutral position. If any shutter in any of the carbs is not fully close, adjust by loosening connections at the tie bar.

-The cam's scribed line should just be barely touching the eccentric screw with its slot aligned horizontally with the cam's scribed line. If the eccentric screw slot is not aligned loosen the nut at the back of it and then with a flat tip screwdriver turn it to align with the cam's scribed line.

If the slot line is at horizontal and not touching the cam's scribed line, adjust link rod until it barely touches.

If slot line is at horizontal and pushing against the cam's scribed line when aligned, then shorten the link rod.

At this point, all carb linkages are in neutral and pre-set up position. In fact, even the timing tower should be at rest with the trigger at zero advance.

At this point the motor will not run at all. Unless, you put it in fast idle position. But in neutral, it would not fire at all. Reason, because the carbs shutters are all fully closed.

Next is to set the idle speed. You do this with the idle screw at the bottom of the timing tower. As you screw it slowly while watching the cam's scribed line moving down (pushing against the eccentric screw and adjusting throttle shutters opening) below the eccentric screw slot. Start with the cam's scribed line about 1/8 inch below the eccentric screw's slot.

Try starting the motor using fast idle. And as soon as it's warmed up about 1 min or less, then shift the fast idle back to neutral. If the motor dies, then you need to increase the idle screw setting. At this point, I recommend just adjusting it 1/2 turn at a time. Continue to test until you achieved around 1000 rpm idle, neutral on garden hose muffs. If you are using a tub or the snout is under water while testing, 800~900 RPM idle neutral will be fine.

Next is to check throttle shutters (on carbs) at WOT position. With engine off, place the control throttle to full WOT position. Using a flashlight, check the position of the shutters and they should all be in horizontal position. If not then you need to adjust the link rod again. Note if you adjust the link rod, the idle setting also gets affected, so you might want to re-adjust it after setting the link rod with the throttle shutters.

All these actions are made with the carbs' idle mixture settings at 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 turns out from lightly seated.

 

[sidewing]

I made some adjustments and will need to take it to the lake to dial it in.. but I have some room to play on both sides of the idle screw now.. it's idling at about 1100, in the bucket, which is too high, but the idle screw is right in the center so I'll adjust it.

I also reran the fuel lines from the tank to the bulb to the k&n fuel filter to the fuel pump... The bulb and filter are now both outside the engine housing, right in the upper portion of the white tub directly behind the motor.. so I don't have to crawl under to prime it anymore.. and I can visually see the fuel filter while it's running without removing the engine cover. No more leaks.

The ignition coil came in and it's hard to tell because the sun shines right on the tester at this time, but I have a suspicion that there's still no spark on number 1.. I took the new coil out and swapped 1 and 2 (like I should have to begin with, had I listened to your suggestion) and as far as I can tell, it looks like the "bad" number 1 coil is working fine now on number 2... And the known good number 2 now has no spark on the 1 spot... I'll verify this in a couple of hours at sunset when I can see the tester light better..

That being said, I'm preparing options.. CDI boxes are pretty expensive on eBay.. I'm wondering if it's better to just swap the CDI boxes I have:

Currently, Box 1 sending spark to coil 1 (bad) and 2... Box 2 sending spark to coil 3...

If I swapped box 2 to spark coil 1 and 2.. and then used the second open connector on the old box 1 to spark coil 3... I imagine there's probably a fair amount of rewiring that would need to be done.. I'd have to do a 1 to 1 rewire when I swap CDI 1 and 2... Then on CDI box 2, is it necessary to rewire, so the second connector is wired in place of "coil 3".. or does it not matter since only 1 is being used and I can just connect coil 3 into box 2s "4th" connector?

 

[sidewing]

Ordered some liquid tape and some insulation piercing probes that'll be here tomorrow. Gonna do the continuity checks around the coil/CDI for #1.. the CDI side connector pin is pretty tarnished looking compared to the others.. maybe/hopefully I'll just need to cut it and repair it using the connector from #4 if the continuity is bad at that junction.

 

[Nordin]

You can swap CD boxes and use the #2 output channel from box one (feeding #1 and #2 cylinder right now) to feed "3 cylinder.
But you have to rewire the wires from trigger for "3 cylinder so they feed the second output channel for the CD box.

 

[sidewing]

You can swap CD boxes and use the #2 output channel from box one (feeding #1 and #2 cylinder right now) to feed "3 cylinder.
But you have to rewire the wires from trigger for "3 cylinder so they feed the second output channel for the CD box.

Thanks. I found the wiring diagram that I think is applicable to this engine on a different post. Attached link to picture. Assuming my continuity check tomorrow doesn't yield positive results, I'll be going this route.

Here's the wiring diagram. Mines a 1988 Bayliner w 85 force:

New item by Marcus Gutierrez

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[sidewing]

So I'm in the process of swapping the CDI units and I see that the red wire off the first CDI is pinched. I couldn't see if it was actively pinched, but it may have been grounding out if so.. I'm still gonna swap em and remove that wire from the equation.. but that very well could be a root cause.

New video by Marcus Gutierrez

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Jiggz]

So I'm in the process of swapping the CDI units and I see that the red wire off the first CDI is pinched. I couldn't see if it was actively pinched, but it may have been grounding out if so.. I'm still gonna swap em and remove that wire from the equation.. but that very well could be a root cause.

New video by Marcus Gutierrez

photos.app.goo.gl

If you have not done the full swap out yet, check for continuity on that wire using safety pins or even thumb tacks to pierce through the insulation. And if there's no continuity, just use a soldering iron (cutting and stripping both ends) to solder it together, one layer of electrical tape and finish it with shrink tubes. It'll save you a lot of work.

If there's continuity but it's just grounding, electrical tape will do although if there's evidence of broken wire strands, you'd be better off re-connecting and re-soldering it together. Keep it up. Almost there.

 

[sidewing]

If you have not done the full swap out yet, check for continuity on that wire using safety pins or even thumb tacks to pierce through the insulation. And if there's no continuity, just use a soldering iron (cutting and stripping both ends) to solder it together, one layer of electrical tape and finish it with shrink tubes. It'll save you a lot of work.

If there's continuity but it's just grounding, electrical tape will do although if there's evidence of broken wire strands, you'd be better off re-connecting and re-soldering it together. Keep it up. Almost there.

Too late unfortunately lol.. I just removed the last wire of the second CDI pack.. I did find that the green trigger wire seemed like it had a bad crimp connection probably.. the wire just broke off from the crimp on the terminal.. so I'm about to add a new connector to fix it.. but that's 2 potentially bad spots that were on the line of coil number 1 (CDI wire and trigger wire)..
I noted where all the prior connections were via video recording.. gonna start putting it back together.. once I have it reconnected, I'll swap the wiring so coil 3 uses the number 2 slot on the CDI instead of the number 1 slot ... I'm racing against the heat cause it's supposed to be 104 today and where I'm standing is the one spot all around me that doesn't have any shade and it's getting hot lol

 

[Jiggz]

Too late unfortunately lol.. I just removed the last wire of the second CDI pack.. I did find that the green trigger wire seemed like it had a bad crimp connection probably.. the wire just broke off from the crimp on the terminal.. so I'm about to add a new connector to fix it.. but that's 2 potentially bad spots that were on the line of coil number 1 (CDI wire and trigger wire)..
I noted where all the prior connections were via video recording.. gonna start putting it back together.. once I have it reconnected, I'll swap the wiring so coil 3 uses the number 2 slot on the CDI instead of the number 1 slot ... I'm racing against the heat cause it's supposed to be 104 today and where I'm standing is the one spot all around me that doesn't have any shade and it's getting hot lol

This is all in the hopes those CD Modules have not been switched before. Anyways, fixing the crimped wires might have also been the initial problem by the previous owner and just overlooked the broken wires. Fingers crossed.

 

[sidewing]

Could be. I just finished everything..
I crossed referenced the wiring diagram for each wire.
According to the diagram, it looks like you just slide the red and the white wires down 2 screws on the terminal (toward the front) to connect them where the orange and green are currently to make the number 2 connector live/connected to the trigger for cylinder 3... and slide the orange and green down 2 slots to the left to where nothing is connected on the terminal...
So I did that.. connected coil number 3 to the red connector instead of the orange (using connector 2 instead of 1)...
It started up and it's running.. it was a little rough at first, but after a minute it got better.. I'm thinking maybe that's because cylinder 1 hasn't fired in a while perhaps..
I need to connect the spark testers and see if I can see them.. the sun is shining right there so I might need to try to cover them a little with a hat or something.. I need to wait for my wife to have a break in 20 minutes so she can start it for me and I can be back there ready..

My thinking on them being bad was this:
Old Cdi1 (running coil 1 and 2), I know at least connector 2 is good... So if I did my wiring right, after the swap (so connector 2 is now powering plug 3) should have spark on plug 3...

Old cdi2 (running old coil 3.. now moved and powering plug 1 and 2) I know at least spot 1 was good...

So now that they're moved, at a minimum, I should (if I did the wiring right.. and also assuming there isn't a problem further up the chain) have spark on plug number 1 and plug number 3 based on the fact that those were producing spark prior...

Will report back in about a half hour. Hopefully I can see lights in the spark tester and I don't have to wait until sunset again

 

[sidewing]

Still can't see the light tester unfortunately wish I would've gotten better ones that work in bright sunlight.. I'll have to see if I can find some... But for now, I'll be waiting until sunset to see

 

[sidewing]

Here's my recording of the work I did, including the wiring.. let me know if anything looks off.. and if it's good, maybe it'll be a helpful visual for someone some day:

 

[Jiggz]

If the motor is running as you previously mentioned, then the re-wiring must be correct. Otherwise, it would be backfiring or not running at all if re-wiring is wrong. Take note though, the most critical wires in here are the trigger wires. IT CANNOT BE SWITCHED AROUND AS IT IS ALL TIMED TO EACH CYLINDER BY THE TRIGGER.
The power wires for the CD modules (Blue and Yellow per you drawing) are simple power input for the CD from the stator. Again as long as you follow the diagram, i.e. yellow to yellow and blue to blue the power input is good to go. Note the power input wires for each CD module is the same on both modules.
Next, the CD modules power output wires are also the same. Again, as long as you follow the color orientation as per your drawing it should be good to go. Except that for the #2 CDM which will now power up #1 and #2 cylinder plugs will now have connections for both of the CD power wires outputs, i.e. Orange (#1 plug) and Red (#2 plug).

While the previously #1 CDM will only have one power wire connection USING ITS RED WIRE (because there's a presumption the #1 ckt power wire is not working) to power #3 plug. Additionally, the trigger wire connection of this CDM should be using the red and wh/grn wires (#2 ckt) but continue to use the orange and green wires from the trigger as before.

Lastly, the shunt wires (white stays the same) as both are identical on both CD's. The black ground wires do not change either.

If the preceding actions fix your misfire on #1, there are only two reasons for the problem.
-Broken trigger or power wire to the CDM on #1 (originally)
-Broken #1 ckt on the original CDM.

And there's an easy test you can do to find out which one by simply re-wiring the now #2 CDM powering #3 plug using its #1 ckt (orange output wire) and switching the trigger wires back like it used to be originally. But then, it's all up to you. Or just leave it as it is if working accordingly.

 

[sidewing]

Well, looks like I have spark on 1 and 2 now but not 3...
Idk everything looks wired right.. I'm at a loss now..


On the trigger for number 3.. there's an orange and a green cable.. on the CDI side there's White striped and a red cable (for the second connector...
I have trigger orange with CDI white striped.. and trigger green with red CDI...
Yellow and blue CDI are on the right terminals.. and I didn't disconnect black or white kill...
Known good coil 3 is connected to known good red connector CDI...
What could be wrong?
Is there something wrong with this cdi pack? It used to have no spark on 1 and yes spark on 2... Now, only connected to 3, no spark on 3.. other connector not being used.. I guess I should try switching it back to the first connector and see if it yields different results...

 

[sidewing]

Switched it back so cdi2 connector 1 is powering coil 3 and still no go.. (same connector that gave no spark to coil 1 originally.. I'm thinking maybe the CDI is bad.. I don't have a way to test it unfortunately.. anyone have any thoughts I can try before I order a replacement?

I wonder if the CDI was always bad and they had it wired for 2 and 3 for some reason...

 

[sidewing]

It feels like what may be happening is a bad CDI (perhaps a bad blocking diode inside one of the CDI packs)..

from reading other threads, it sounds like I may be able to test this by disconnecting the white kill wire one at a time to see if it makes the other pack have spark..

Will probably try this tonight.. Although it makes me a little nervous about the engine possibly not turning off.. I saw someone said to remove both, then you can depress in the key to engage the choke and the engine will stop... Any thoughts or advice on this?

I ordered a replacement CDI pack from eBay but it'll take about a week to get here.