lonerinalaska
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2017
- Messages
- 6
I recently purchased a 1979 Chris Craft 28' Express Cruiser with twin GM181 inboards. I made three trips, one of which was 1.5 hours each way, without any issues. On my last trip, I had a starboard engine failure on both the 1.5 hour trip out and on the trip home. Both times the failure happened the exact way.
The engines started fine and ran fine. As I entered the harbor and placed both engines in neutral to dock, the starboard engine died and would not restart at all. I had to dock on a single engine, which in this boat doesn't work so well. After the first failure, I thought it was a result of a ball valve I put in the fuel vent line. I did this because gas spilled out and I wanted to make sure this never happened again. I forgot to open the valve after we were underway. I laid awake that night trying to mentally come up with an explanation as to what the problem might be. It dawned on me the valve was closed and the engine probably died due to the lack of fuel created by the vacuum.
I went out to the boat the next day, opened the valve and the motor fired right up. Problem solved, so I thought, until a day later when we went back to our home port and the same engine again died while docking.
Due to my work schedule, I will not be able to see my boat for another 3 weeks and I would like to come up with some likely reasons this happened, possibly order some parts so I have minimal down time on my next time off. I realize it is either a spark or fuel issue. I cant fathom why the carburetor would crap out on me in this fashion, so I am leaning towards a spark issue. Does anyone think maybe there is crack in the cap and rotor that the heat is causing to create an open circuit or maybe the coil is being affected by the heat?
Thanks for any suggestions.
The engines started fine and ran fine. As I entered the harbor and placed both engines in neutral to dock, the starboard engine died and would not restart at all. I had to dock on a single engine, which in this boat doesn't work so well. After the first failure, I thought it was a result of a ball valve I put in the fuel vent line. I did this because gas spilled out and I wanted to make sure this never happened again. I forgot to open the valve after we were underway. I laid awake that night trying to mentally come up with an explanation as to what the problem might be. It dawned on me the valve was closed and the engine probably died due to the lack of fuel created by the vacuum.
I went out to the boat the next day, opened the valve and the motor fired right up. Problem solved, so I thought, until a day later when we went back to our home port and the same engine again died while docking.
Due to my work schedule, I will not be able to see my boat for another 3 weeks and I would like to come up with some likely reasons this happened, possibly order some parts so I have minimal down time on my next time off. I realize it is either a spark or fuel issue. I cant fathom why the carburetor would crap out on me in this fashion, so I am leaning towards a spark issue. Does anyone think maybe there is crack in the cap and rotor that the heat is causing to create an open circuit or maybe the coil is being affected by the heat?
Thanks for any suggestions.