BriannaK
Recruit
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2016
- Messages
- 1
Hello.
First off, I just want to say how awesome this forum is. This is my first post, but I have been searching on here a lot and learned quite a bit about my boat! I have a 1994 Sugar Sand Mirage with a Sport Jet 90 that I have been having issues with. I am familiar with car mechanics, but 2 stroke and carbureted are new to me, as this is the first boat I have ever worked. So please excuse my ignorance in advance!
When I purchased the boat it was running kinda rough. I took it for a test drive, it started up just fine, but wasn't running very well and seemed bogged down when trying to accelerate. The lady told me that she had put regular pump gas in it and let it sit for a year, and she figured it was either bad gas, or carburetor had gotten gunked up. So I did some research and came back the next day with a mechanic friend and we removed the spark plugs and used a compression tester, and the compression was good on all 3. He agreed that it was probably bad gas or carburetors.
So I purchased the boat and brought it home. The first thing I did was siphon out all the old gas. I then trailered the boat down to the marina and put in 10 gallons of Pure Premium boat gas(not cheap but I wanted to make sure it had good gas in it), and I mixed in a can of seafoam. I launched the boat, it started up, and I began to drive it. It was still running poorly, but I figured I would run gas through it to try and clean up the carbs. Unfortunately within a couple minutes of running, the boat died. I had a can of starter fluid I brought with me, and I tried and tried to start it again, but it would not start. Luckily I had a paddle on board. I paddled in, trailered it home, and I have not been able to start the boat since.
So next I decided to remove the carburetors to clean. I read on here that the vents get clogged. So I pulled off the carbs, removed the bowls, removed the needles and pulled the vent tubes off. Much to my dismay, all 3 looked clean as a whistle. I couldn't find a single thing that didn't look clean. I still sprayed everything out with carb cleaner, and blew out the vent tubes, but everything seemed fine. I put it all back together and tried starting it. Not only did it not start, but now for some reason there is gas tripping out of the air intake!? I don't know what could have possibly cause this.
So anyway, now that I am pretty sure the carburetors aren't the problem, I decided to replace the spark plugs, having no idea how old they are. I went to the parts store and matched them up with the same champion marine spark plugs. I put them in, still no start. So then I removed one spark plug and plug it into the spark plug wire to see if it was sparking. I then noticed that it will only spark once every 30-45 seconds, and it's not consistent. I've read a few threads on here about no spark issues, but my issue is more of a sporadic spark than a no spark. I also read on here to ground the spark plug when testing for spark? Not quite sure how to do that.
Long story short, I was wondering if anyone had a lead on what my issue could be, or what to test for next. And why I have gas dripping out of the intake when I'm trying to start it. I was also wondering how difficult it would be to add a flush kit to the boat, as I read on here that this motor is never supposed to be ran out of water. It would be nice to hook up a garden hose while I'm troubleshooting, so I can run the boat in my driveway.
Any help is very much appreciated!
Thank you
First off, I just want to say how awesome this forum is. This is my first post, but I have been searching on here a lot and learned quite a bit about my boat! I have a 1994 Sugar Sand Mirage with a Sport Jet 90 that I have been having issues with. I am familiar with car mechanics, but 2 stroke and carbureted are new to me, as this is the first boat I have ever worked. So please excuse my ignorance in advance!
When I purchased the boat it was running kinda rough. I took it for a test drive, it started up just fine, but wasn't running very well and seemed bogged down when trying to accelerate. The lady told me that she had put regular pump gas in it and let it sit for a year, and she figured it was either bad gas, or carburetor had gotten gunked up. So I did some research and came back the next day with a mechanic friend and we removed the spark plugs and used a compression tester, and the compression was good on all 3. He agreed that it was probably bad gas or carburetors.
So I purchased the boat and brought it home. The first thing I did was siphon out all the old gas. I then trailered the boat down to the marina and put in 10 gallons of Pure Premium boat gas(not cheap but I wanted to make sure it had good gas in it), and I mixed in a can of seafoam. I launched the boat, it started up, and I began to drive it. It was still running poorly, but I figured I would run gas through it to try and clean up the carbs. Unfortunately within a couple minutes of running, the boat died. I had a can of starter fluid I brought with me, and I tried and tried to start it again, but it would not start. Luckily I had a paddle on board. I paddled in, trailered it home, and I have not been able to start the boat since.
So next I decided to remove the carburetors to clean. I read on here that the vents get clogged. So I pulled off the carbs, removed the bowls, removed the needles and pulled the vent tubes off. Much to my dismay, all 3 looked clean as a whistle. I couldn't find a single thing that didn't look clean. I still sprayed everything out with carb cleaner, and blew out the vent tubes, but everything seemed fine. I put it all back together and tried starting it. Not only did it not start, but now for some reason there is gas tripping out of the air intake!? I don't know what could have possibly cause this.
So anyway, now that I am pretty sure the carburetors aren't the problem, I decided to replace the spark plugs, having no idea how old they are. I went to the parts store and matched them up with the same champion marine spark plugs. I put them in, still no start. So then I removed one spark plug and plug it into the spark plug wire to see if it was sparking. I then noticed that it will only spark once every 30-45 seconds, and it's not consistent. I've read a few threads on here about no spark issues, but my issue is more of a sporadic spark than a no spark. I also read on here to ground the spark plug when testing for spark? Not quite sure how to do that.
Long story short, I was wondering if anyone had a lead on what my issue could be, or what to test for next. And why I have gas dripping out of the intake when I'm trying to start it. I was also wondering how difficult it would be to add a flush kit to the boat, as I read on here that this motor is never supposed to be ran out of water. It would be nice to hook up a garden hose while I'm troubleshooting, so I can run the boat in my driveway.
Any help is very much appreciated!
Thank you