Ok, got myself all excited to take the maiden voyage on my new-to-me 1994 Larson 174 with 4.3L Mercruiser and Alpha One stern drive. The outing proved to be something of a disappointment.
I pulled off the trailer, tied up to the dock, parked and got ready to get out to the lake. All the way past the marina through the no wake zone, everything was great. I get past the bouey and begin to throttle up. The boat planes nicely and I get up to about 3/4 throttle, not wanting to go just wide open yet and am enjoying a relatively calm warm day. As I began to round a corner, I wanted to slow down to check out my surroundings and powered down just enough to where the boat lost plane but was still going faster than no wake speeds. I look back and I notice a ton of smoke coming from the engine compartment.
I stopped the boat, cut the motor and popped the engine cover. Smoke was billowing out of the underside of the motor, but when I peeked down in, I saw no visible flames or anything. It didn't smell like oil or electrical, but was definitely foul smelling. After about 5 minutes, the smoke subsided and I looked around, couldn't see anything visibly wrong. I trimmed up, hopped in the water and inspected the outdrive and everything looked fine from what I could tell with the exception of a black rubber hose about 3/8 with a white cap kind of thing on the end was sticking out. It didn't look like it visibly went anywhere that I could tell.
I got back in the boat and decided to try and limp my way back to the dock since I was only about 1/4 mile out. The engine started just fine but when I attempted to put it into gear, either forward or reverse, it would not go. There was tension on the throttle and when I'd move it anywhere near where it was supposed to engage, the motor would stall. When I cut the motor the second time, with the ignition all the way off and the key out of the ignition, the engine would studder and burp like it was attempting to stay running for almost a full 60 seconds afterwards. Reminded me of an old jalopey that has a whooped engine that just doesn't want to turn off, but like I said, the engine in idle seemed to run perfectly.
What should I look at first or what other information do you guys need? Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
I pulled off the trailer, tied up to the dock, parked and got ready to get out to the lake. All the way past the marina through the no wake zone, everything was great. I get past the bouey and begin to throttle up. The boat planes nicely and I get up to about 3/4 throttle, not wanting to go just wide open yet and am enjoying a relatively calm warm day. As I began to round a corner, I wanted to slow down to check out my surroundings and powered down just enough to where the boat lost plane but was still going faster than no wake speeds. I look back and I notice a ton of smoke coming from the engine compartment.
I stopped the boat, cut the motor and popped the engine cover. Smoke was billowing out of the underside of the motor, but when I peeked down in, I saw no visible flames or anything. It didn't smell like oil or electrical, but was definitely foul smelling. After about 5 minutes, the smoke subsided and I looked around, couldn't see anything visibly wrong. I trimmed up, hopped in the water and inspected the outdrive and everything looked fine from what I could tell with the exception of a black rubber hose about 3/8 with a white cap kind of thing on the end was sticking out. It didn't look like it visibly went anywhere that I could tell.
I got back in the boat and decided to try and limp my way back to the dock since I was only about 1/4 mile out. The engine started just fine but when I attempted to put it into gear, either forward or reverse, it would not go. There was tension on the throttle and when I'd move it anywhere near where it was supposed to engage, the motor would stall. When I cut the motor the second time, with the ignition all the way off and the key out of the ignition, the engine would studder and burp like it was attempting to stay running for almost a full 60 seconds afterwards. Reminded me of an old jalopey that has a whooped engine that just doesn't want to turn off, but like I said, the engine in idle seemed to run perfectly.
What should I look at first or what other information do you guys need? Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
