woodman4

This boat has been putting me through the ringer here lately! Got the new fuel pump installed and it is running great. Brought it out today and went for a ride, about 15 minutes in while at cruising speed the boat completely lost power. Nothing would work, couldn’t even open the engine hatch to try and get a look at the motor. We sat there for about a minute or two while I tried to call in some help, reached over and turned the key and it fired up like nothing was ever wrong with it. Drove it a little more and am now hanging out on it back in a cove. Anybody got any idea what would cause that? I assume something electrical and hope it’s just a loose wire or something along those lines, but I don’t know what kind of wire would cause something like that. If anyone has suggestions please let me know. Thanks.

I’d be staying far away from that place in the future!

You’re the man. I’m gonna try and knock this out this week while the weather is bad. Supposed to be raining here for like 9 days straight

Got any idea what that latch mechanism is called? I haven’t found the right words to google yet to get anything like that to come up.

Sweet, I appreciate you looking those up. I’m going to get on this ASAP. I only trailer my boat through my neighborhood so I’m trying to decide if the locking mechanism is necessary.

Ah, ok. I couldn’t tell if it was part of your locking mechanism or not. I really do think I’ll do this ASAP if nothing else just for the sake of convenience. Waiting on that thing to go up and down is painful. Do you think it absolutely has to have a locking mechanism at all? Is the only risk in not having one the fact that the hatch could fly open while driving? Do you remember what length those shocks are?

Thanks for the link. What is the metal bar running side to side in the third pic?

That was one of my first thoughts after this happened was to put some shocks on the hatch and get rid of the hydraulics. Did you happen to do a write up on that? Know what shocks you used and where you got the locking handle? If you have any pics of that I’d love to see them.

Got it, thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as I can.

Been having some intermittent issues with my boat starting. Sometimes it works fine and sometimes it takes a few try’s to get it to work. I always get the 2 beeps when I turn the key on, but sometimes the starter won’t engage. I thought it was the neutral safety switch, so I took both wires going to the switch and put them both on the same post, but that didn’t seem to fix it. Is there anything else anyone has done to fix this issue? Maybe something with the ignition?

Did you have to change the risers when you did this? I’ve heard people say the risers have started leaking and in turn caused the manifolds to do the same thing. And yes it will produce symptoms similar to the ones you are having.

So that breaker tripped and took out the power to your radio and everything electrical as well? Never would have thought that but I will check it out. Thanks

Sounds like it might be a vapor lock issue to me. Very common on those engines around that year. Same thing used to happen to us all the time when we had our Eclipse. We got into the habit of always lifting the cover and letting the boat idle for a couple minutes before we shut it off, and then leaving the cover up while parked to let it cool off as much as possible. Some people also say they run the blower for a couple minutes before shutting down and before starting back up. One other thing you can do if you absolutely have to, on one of the fuel rails there is a valve (schrader?) that looks like the stem for a bicycle tire. It’s there so you can hook a gauge to it and see what your fuel pressure is. If you pull the cap off of it and push in on the valve stem, you will more than likely get a lot of air to shoot out of there. That will help clear the fuel rails out so you can get fuel back in them. Just be careful if you do that because that air/gas comes out of there pretty quick and can make a mess, also can be dangerous if something happens to spark right after you do it, that’s why I say only do that if you’ve tried everything else. It helps to hold a cup or something in front of it to try and catch any gas that comes out. I now have a 98 elite which has the 350 mag mpi, and haven’t had any issues with it vapor locking yet. One thing I’ve done different with this boat is running nothing but non-ethanol has in it. I read somewhere that this helps a ton but I really don’t know why. Worth a shot though if you have some available near you.

When I look it up using your serial number I see it as part number 807757T for the idler puller. The other part number you listed is the tensioner pulley. I just replaced the tensioner pulley on mine which happens to be the same part number as your idler pulley, and I just took the old one to NAPA and they were able to find me a replacement by looking up pulleys for trucks that use the same engine. Here is what I used to look up parts https://www.marineengine.com/parts/mercury_marine_parts/sn/0M310293/33500089S/8184_20

Thanks for the replies. I’m thinking it has to be the battery connections. What else would cause EVERYTHING to stop working all at once? I couldn’t even open the back hatch...blower wouldn’t work, lights out, no radio, nothing After it shut off, I tried cycling the key a few times and when I realized it was totally dead, I went back and checked the battery connections. What I can’t remember is if it started right after I did that or if it still didn’t start and then started when I tried again a couple minutes later. I’m thinking it fired back up on the first try after I messed with the battery connections. I’ll ask my wife and see if she remembers.

Got it, thanks for the info. I’ll have to go get me a test light tomorrow and try to figure this out. Where should I look to find the starter solenoid? Never had to deal with one of those before

Hey guys, long time forum lurker here needing some help with my new (to me) boat. It runs great but has a “whining” sound that I can’t figure out. It only makes the noise while engine is running (not when key is “on”) and doesn’t seem to be effected by rpm. The only thing I have noticed is it getting higher pitched as the battery voltage climbs after starting up. I thought it might be the alternator so I swapped it out but that didn’t change anything. Anyone have any ideas? I have short video on YouTube and will include the link. Thanks!

Here’s the only picture I could get. Not easy to get a phone camera down in there. The stud on the right it the one that keeps coming out.

I was thinking about that stud last night and I’m starting to think that it was glued in to that hole from the start. When it came out I noticed it had a bunch of grime/corrosion on it that I cleaned off, but now I’m thinking that was the adhesive they used at the manufacturer. I’m thinking I’ll just put some jb weld on it or some other kind of high temp adhesive and that should work.

Just got new pump installed and this issue has been fixed. Thanks everyone for the help. Only thing I’m having a problem with now is getting the bracket bolted back on the the fuel pump/cooler. The bracket also acts as a heat sink to remove heat from the fuel. It is secured with 2 nuts that thread on to some “studs”, which are somehow connected to the cool fuel housing. When I try to tighten down the bracket, the stud closest to the front pulls out of the hole that it sits in. I’ll work on that some more tomorrow and hopefully have this thing back 100%. I took a picture but it’s too big to upload.

New pump showed up today and one of the wires was cut in half. I was going to put it back together but I have to wait on the o rings I ordered to come in so I am just getting a replacement pump. Hopefully I’ll have it all back together by Thursday.

Fuel pump has been removed and new one will be here tomorrow. So far it hasn’t been too bad. Removed the alternator to give me a little more space. Opened up the cool fuel housing, removed one bracket and the whole cool fuel/fuel pump assembly slides far enough out of the plastic box to disconnect it from the fuel cooler. Unhooked the wiring and then was able to pull the pump all the way out to the port side locker to get a wrench on it. Only thing I’m not sure about is the two o-rings that are on the current pump. They look a little worn and I don’t think the new pump comes with any. Going to go to the parts store tomorrow and hope they have a kit with some replacements in it.

Good suggestion, I’ll do that for sure

I really don’t know about a vacuum leak, never had to deal with anything like that before. I really feel like it’s the fuel pump. 99% sure it’s electrical because of the way the noise pitch changes as the voltage gauge climbs. I got my head in there as far as I could while it was running and the sound is definitely coming from down low on the engine and on the starboard side. If this fuel pump doesn’t fix it I’ll start looking at how to diagnose a vacuum leak. Thanks for the suggestion.

This is the external pump the sits way down low on the starboard side, in the same box as the cool fuel unit. I had my wife cycle the key in and off so I could listen to it. I got another one for 100 bucks that I’ll hopefully be able to throw on there tomorrow. It does look like a pain to get to but I’m hoping it won’t be as bad as it looks.