Ready to scream

Hi all,

I recently purchased a 1972 Sear Ray SRV 190.

I have been out a few times this year, and this issue of bogging down just started. It ran fine on Saturday and then Sunday (after a fill up) I had this same issue.

It sounds like I need to repalce the fuel lines? Could it be somethig in the gas tank clogging the anti-siphon filter?

Did you ever find the smoking gun?

Thanks,

Jake
 
I talked to a guy yesterday at a NAPA auto parts. He said he had the same problem, it ended up being a chunk of sludge in the gas tank. Probably build up from the gas ring around the edge, he said it was like a slug. SO it made since that at idle it would run fine, but when it needed more gas it would suck the "slug" up and block the fuel. SO tonight I am going to replace the anti-siphon valve and drain the gas tank and hopefully find the culprit.

If that isnt it, I may be replacing the all the gas tubing and then on down the line....

Very frustrating.
 
I posted this to another thread but you might find it useful.

I, like so many other, have experienced the dreaded power down after 30-45 minutes of tubing. It happened again this weekend.
I was pulling at 4800-5000 rpm when the throttle started backing off. It would only do about 3000 rpm (blower running the whole time).

We went into a cove and swam for an hour and a half then decide to tube some more. The first 20 minute went fine then it happened again. By chance my son opened the engine bay lid to look at the engine while we were running. It didn’t take more than a few seconds and the engine came alive. The thing shot to 5300 rpm like a rocket. It nearly yanked the person off the tube.

We ran with the cover up for a few minute then continued tubing for another 30 minutes with no problem. I looks like there is not enough air displacement in my engine bay. I thouth it was fuel related but never considered air flow. Dah.:wow: I’ll need to increase the blower or add some type of better venting.

Going out again on the 5th so I’ll keep you posted.

Well the 5th came and went with no RPM loose issue. As long as I had air flowing into the engine bay the thing ran great.
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I thought I would give everyone an update!

We (hopefully) have resolved the problem once and for all. We took the boat to a different marina and had a fresh set of eyes on the problem. We had the mechanic go over the fuel system from top to bottom – from the vent on the back all the way back to the carb. Everything inspected, filters were replaced and there were NO issues found there with the boat. :huh:
They left the boat on the trailer, backed her down into the lake and let it run for about an hour (to warm up really good) and then they throttled it up & the motor bogged down for them. :grin: Once they could catch the boat in the act of having the loss of power they quickly determined that the problem was in the distributor. The flyweights were rusted and stuck, full time in advance. They also found that the points were not opening fully. Once they did the repairs, they took the boat out for a ride & she ran just fine. :thumbsup:
So … rusted flyweights were the problem with our boat. We plan on putting the hours on her this weekend – if she acts up again, we will report back.
 
:smt013:smt013:smt089:smt100:smt089:smt013:smt013

Had her back in the water this weekend .... still doing the bogging down. Had to creep home in a down-pour because we couldn't get the boat to throttle up!

Dropped ANOTHER $491.00 into the boat Saturday .... I'm starting to really hate friggin' "mechanics".

Took the boat back to the marina this morning - put it in the lake where the marina is, ran the boat until it acted up (45 minutes) .... then got the mechanic out on the boat.

Now he thinks it is in the points and its electrical .... :smt021

We are not happy campers.

I'm a second-generation Sea Ray owner. My father always had nice SR in Florida that we would play on out in the gulf. They have always been so dependable. Why is it so hard to find someone who can fix one?

Still - ready to scream.
The saga continues ...............
 
He did not fix the problem. You should get credit for the hours spent not fixing the problem.

Is all the wiring original?

Have you run it on an outboard tank as suggested?
 
I thought they addressed the electrical in a previous post.
Lets do something completely irrational. Take a table spoon of gas only. Do not dump a can into the carb. Get the thing up to where it won't run. Dump the table spoon right into the carb and see if it comes alive. If it does then there is no electrical issue and it is in the fuel delivery like so many have stated.

If this isn't appealing then use the can method as I previously posted.
 
Are you sure it's not vapor locking. The fact that you open the engine compartment and when it cools down and everything's fine. Mine was doing this before I made sure I kept the blowers running when stopping after running it pretty hard.
 
I presume that the mechanic actually set the timing with a light after fixing the mechanical advance ("flyweights"), and remembered to lock the distributor back in place when he was done? He should also have adjusted the dwell...

The original mechanics owe you a bunch of time or money for missing a rusted mechanical advance mechanism and misadjusted points after working on the boat for so long.

Do you also have a condensor, which is a little metal can that's screwed on the outside of the distributor and has a single wire going to the points? If you have one, do yourself a favor and change it out. They are cheap and easy to replace (DIY if you can remove the distributor cap and loosen a couple of screws). The condensor is a capacitor that charges and discharges every time the points open and close (RPMs X 8). They do go bad. Sometimes the engine won't run when they do, but they often work OK until the RPMs get high. Replacing it is cheap insurance. You might also want to replace the points. They aren't too expensive.

Finally, the first "mechanics" did a whole lot of carb tuning with the basic engine mechanical settings all wrong. After the points are adjusted, the dwell needs to be set and then the timing should be set. They need to be done in that order. Changing the point gap will change the dwell, and changing the dwell will change the timing. Changing timing does not affect either of the others (someone fact check that for me - its been a while since I tuned up a point system). Once all 3 of the above settings are correct, they should redo the basic carburator settings.
 
Well Skibum is mostly correct. Changing the point gap is actually changing the dwell but it will not affect timing but of course that should be checked and set to specs any time you mess with a distributor. I have a cobia with a 4 cyl with some what of a similiar prob. It keeps burning up the ignition coil after about 30-40 mins of running, an easy way to tell if this is what your problem is, run the boat til it acts up, shut it down and swap in a new coil, if it runs good again that is the problem. Mine is from an overvoltage problem but since I got my Sea Ray I haven;t bothered going back and figuring out exactly why. Hope this helps.
 
Between the two mechanics it "sounds" like everything electric and fuel related has been replaced, rebuilt or gone through.

Something, the same exact thing, is still amiss.

Having the boat in the water where mechanic #2 is really helps. If #1 was a dud and #2 is good then #2 may be having to come behind and do damage control. Like re-rebuild the card or re-reset the timing etc. Were either of them over 40? over 50?

While you may not get money back for parts, once you do find the culprit you can take that info back to mechanic #1 and see if he will compromise with you.

I share your frustration. At least with vehicles I can road test. With the boat its either at my shop and away from the water or on the water and away from my shop - neither are condusive to adequate trouble shooting and water trials...
 
Roadrash said:
Well Skibum is mostly correct. Changing the point gap is actually changing the dwell but it will not affect timing but of course that should be checked and set to specs any time you mess with a distributor. I have a cobia with a 4 cyl with some what of a similiar prob. It keeps burning up the ignition coil after about 30-40 mins of running, an easy way to tell if this is what your problem is, run the boat til it acts up, shut it down and swap in a new coil, if it runs good again that is the problem. Mine is from an overvoltage problem but since I got my Sea Ray I haven;t bothered going back and figuring out exactly why. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...


i had the same problem many years ago with the ignition coil, the engine would bog down after a while when the coil got hot, changing the coil cured the problem
 
We've changed out the coil a couple times in the last year ... and it's not that. (We have two extra coils now in our collection now ...)

Tomorrow we go back to the marina and take her out for a spin again - see if the problem has been solved. We are not bringing her home this time until they fix the problem.
 
It could be you had more than 1 problem.

I just got done chasing that situation myself. Started out with a bad carb, replaced, new carb had what seemed like same problem. Months later found I had a bad coil. Idled fine but wouldn't run at mid-throttle. Looked like a carb problem because if I parked it with the throttle wide open it would run like a raped ape......for a while and then bog down and I would idle back. The coil finally died and after changing it I have a great running boat again. Put the old carb back on and it still sucked as well.

Moral of my story is that you could have had fuel problem, sticking weights, but I would put money on the coil having heat soak problems as well. You can check the resistance on your two coil windings when the coil is cold, and then check again after it heats up and they should be fairly consistent. Just remember to flip the battery disconnect before testing the windings with your mutlimeter.
 
Now the mechanic is thinking that we have 2 valves sticking when she heats up. :huh: Two tested good, the other two didn't pressure test well when the engine is warm.

The valve cleaner treatment has been poured into the carb, and tomorrow out on the lake we go again to run her .... say a prayer for us that this cleans the sticky buggers up - if not, it's time to pull the head & off to the machine shop. :smt089

This has been nuts ....
 
Eve though it is 10 years old, Question - does this motor have a fuel cooler? I know it doesn't have the Gen 3, but does it have one?
 
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