Issues up to here!!!!!

[speadphreak]

Heres the deal, I just bought an 82 Chris Craft Scorpion 182 its my first boat so I didnt know much but Im learning very fast especially the part about wanting to strangle previous owners with shady fixes. It has an 898 (305 V8 Mercruiser) engine with a #1 outdrive. The hull is in great shape the engine did run great. The problem is that a few weeks ago I got tossed around by the wake of a 60+foot "pleasure craft" driven by a drunk who was later arrested for capsizing another small boat. When I got thrown ( the whole boat) into the air the motor revved and I was trying to hold on so I couldnt power down and when we hit the water I could hear the motor chug for a second I finally got powered down and when I tried to go nothing. The drive shaft had snapped. Anyways I rebuilt the lower unit (new shaft) my mechanic said amazingly enough everything else was fine. While the boat was out of the water the only other thing I changed was the addition of a Sting ray hydrofoil and I had the manifold that was leaking fixed. The problem is now the it only revs to between 3500 and 4000rpm before it revved to 4500rpm which is where my mechanic friend says it should be. What could cause this? I dont get a chance to talk to him much. The prop is the same, the other day it seemed to run up to the right rpms but now it wont, the manifold still leaks though not as bad and there was a considerable amount of hot water under the engine(broken bilge pump its fixed now) could the extra heat from the water have done this or could the hydrofoil be causing enough extra drag. It was much faster now it just seems slow as **** but it does plane alot faster. I dont know if removing the manifold could have dilocated wires or what but I would think it wouldnt run at all then. Please help this is my first boat and about to be my last Ive had it for 5 weeks and run it for about 3 hours and I live right on the water! The rest of the times Ive been upto my elbows fixing something or other on the **** thing...........

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Issues up to here!!!!!

Gearing? Was the lower unit rebuilt with new gears? Are you running the same prop? Maybe Trent will lend some advice.<br /><br />Bob

 

[speadphreak]

Re: Issues up to here!!!!!

No everything except the vertical drive shaft is the original the shaft is the only thing that was changed.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Issues up to here!!!!!

Hi there Speadphreak, Is it possible that water that is leaking from yer manifold could be shorting out a plug or two? I have also heard that when you have hot steamy water leaking into the bilge area that this hot and humid air is consumed by the engine, this believe it or not helps clean carbon out, but also will increase engine wear since the hot steam will wash away yer oil. Runner with the engine cover open an see what happens.... Good Luck

 

[Walter]

Re: Issues up to here!!!!!

Something similar once happened to me on the Columbia...I didn't snap a drive shaft but did take a large wake too fast and the hard bounce dislodged some gunk from my fuel/water separator which caused a restriction...aka low power. I'm suspecting the wild ride you had may have done the same. It's a simple check...<br /><br />Remove the fuel strainer where the fuel supply line connects to the carb. Look for any gunk there. Then remove the fuel/water separator filter...and blow out the fuel supply line between that filter and the strainer. If you haven't replaced the fuel/water filter in a while, I suggest doing so at that time.<br /><br />Hope this helps.<br /><br />Walt