LightningBob
Cadet
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2021
- Messages
- 26
Long story
I removed an old mercruiser 228 and bought a used 228R 1984 because the older mercruiser had a busted water jacket on the block.
with the “new” engine in my garage I took the time to put new seals all around it. Pulled the heads and lapped the valves. New head gaskets, new valve seals, new intake gasket, new oil pan gasket probably a lot more I’m just forgetting to post. I didn’t replace the timing chain, camshaft, crank or bearings on either of those. New oil, and like I said, a lot of other stuff I’m probably drawing blank on.
after the rebuild I ran the engine on a stand and let it burn through about 5 gallons of gas just to prove to myself that it was a good engine before I dropped it in the boat.
From the old engine, I robbed the motor mounts and the flywheel cover so it would all bolt up to the old “pre-alpha” as I see it called on most forums.
anyway, now to the fun stuff:
I was struggling to get the quadrajet to do anything over a few thousand RPMs. I tried monkeying with it and I shouldn’t have because no improvement was made. A friend at church said to just junk those quadrajets and get something more reliable. I decided to rob the carburetor off the other engine I have. It was probably in even worse shape.
I then moved to draining the gas tanks and put fresh in them.
that seemed to help with the idle issue but as soon as I accelerated, it just took a dump and died.
I’m pretty sure the engine was “flooding” and was struggling to burn all the fuel the carb was dumping, I let the engine sit overnight undisturbed and the next morning I tried to run it again. This time I noticed a brownish gray junk spraying out of the hoses on the flame arrestor on top of the carburetor. (I think it was brown/gray im color blind).
I pulled the hoses off of the valve covers that go to the flame arrestor and out of the holes in the valve cover, engine running, that junk was coming out.
im 99% sure it was gas mixed with engine oil, it smelled like gas but looked like oil.
My father stopped by with a coworker today on lunch break and they sent a video to a local mechanic.
he said that it’s likely the float was stuck inside the carburetor and the engine flooded.
I broke down and went to a performance store in town and I got a new edelbrock carburetor that was suggested to me..
does this diagnosis from a local mechanic sound correct?
what exactly is the fix? Drain the oil and put fresh in it?
how can I stop this in the future?
im pretty lost with this one. Regardless if it was gas and oil mix why would anything be spraying out of those valve cover holes, they have some sort of windage tray on the internal side of those holes, I can’t see why it would matter if it’s a mixture of fuel and oil or just oil... why is it coming out of there. How Do Stop
Thanks always,
Lightningbob
I removed an old mercruiser 228 and bought a used 228R 1984 because the older mercruiser had a busted water jacket on the block.
with the “new” engine in my garage I took the time to put new seals all around it. Pulled the heads and lapped the valves. New head gaskets, new valve seals, new intake gasket, new oil pan gasket probably a lot more I’m just forgetting to post. I didn’t replace the timing chain, camshaft, crank or bearings on either of those. New oil, and like I said, a lot of other stuff I’m probably drawing blank on.
after the rebuild I ran the engine on a stand and let it burn through about 5 gallons of gas just to prove to myself that it was a good engine before I dropped it in the boat.
From the old engine, I robbed the motor mounts and the flywheel cover so it would all bolt up to the old “pre-alpha” as I see it called on most forums.
anyway, now to the fun stuff:
I was struggling to get the quadrajet to do anything over a few thousand RPMs. I tried monkeying with it and I shouldn’t have because no improvement was made. A friend at church said to just junk those quadrajets and get something more reliable. I decided to rob the carburetor off the other engine I have. It was probably in even worse shape.
I then moved to draining the gas tanks and put fresh in them.
that seemed to help with the idle issue but as soon as I accelerated, it just took a dump and died.
I’m pretty sure the engine was “flooding” and was struggling to burn all the fuel the carb was dumping, I let the engine sit overnight undisturbed and the next morning I tried to run it again. This time I noticed a brownish gray junk spraying out of the hoses on the flame arrestor on top of the carburetor. (I think it was brown/gray im color blind).
I pulled the hoses off of the valve covers that go to the flame arrestor and out of the holes in the valve cover, engine running, that junk was coming out.
im 99% sure it was gas mixed with engine oil, it smelled like gas but looked like oil.
My father stopped by with a coworker today on lunch break and they sent a video to a local mechanic.
he said that it’s likely the float was stuck inside the carburetor and the engine flooded.
I broke down and went to a performance store in town and I got a new edelbrock carburetor that was suggested to me..
does this diagnosis from a local mechanic sound correct?
what exactly is the fix? Drain the oil and put fresh in it?
how can I stop this in the future?
im pretty lost with this one. Regardless if it was gas and oil mix why would anything be spraying out of those valve cover holes, they have some sort of windage tray on the internal side of those holes, I can’t see why it would matter if it’s a mixture of fuel and oil or just oil... why is it coming out of there. How Do Stop
Thanks always,
Lightningbob
