boater2018
Member
- Feb 26, 2018
- 146
- Boat Info
- 2000 Sea Ray 210 Sundeck
- Engines
- Mercruiser 5.0 EFI
2000 Sea Ray Sundeck 210 5.0 EFI, 340 hours
I've been having an issue on and off this summer, and I have a plan to deal with it, but I would like to have anyone's mechanically inclined opinion on the matter, especially if you have experienced this same issue before.
I'll try to keep this as short as possible. The Thursday evening before July 4th, we drove our boat to our favorite swimming spot, anchored, and swam for 1.5 hours or so. We then started the boat to run and grab a pizza at the marina for supper. When I started the boat, the idle surged up and down, beeped twice, then died. It would start, but immediately die, then after doing that a few times, I could not get it to start without pushing the throttle, but still would not stay running, and the idle would surge. After waiting stranded for another hour or so on my brother to tow us, I tried to crank it again and it started fine and ran like nothing ever happened. After this issue, the next morning, I had it scanned for an alarm code that started after getting it on plane. The scan showed the knock sensor was unplugged (unrelated), but didn't show any other codes from when it beeped twice the evening before when we had the issue. I plugged the knock sensor in and no alarm since. Also, I changed the iac since we had the issue that we had, although the current iac was only 3 years old.
Since then, we took it out 4 days the weekend of the 4th and day trips the following 2 Saturdays with no issues at all. It does have an occasional hard start, but is fine once it starts.
Weekend before last, on that Friday afternoon, we had the exact same issue occur after driving a short loop and stopping for supper. This time, it started and I put the throttle down and it was probably running around 3000 rpm and almost to plane when it stalled to idle, idle surged for a few seconds, then beeped twice and died and we could not get it to restart and were towed. After sitting overnight, the boat started and ran fine like nothing ever happened. I drove it to the shop at the marina and left it for them to test out.
After they checked into it, they contacted me and said that they felt like that if the fuel pump were bad, more issues would be occuring. No codes showed when they scanned it. They feel like it could be vapor lock causing the issue because this is the first year of the 5 we have owned the boat that we have had these issues and also the first year I have ran ethanol fuel. I did run a tank of ethanol free fuel as well, and it's possible that's what I was using the times that we didn't have issues, but I have fueled it up several times with ethanol and I can't be 100 percent sure about timeframe.
We came up with the plan to siphon the fuel out and replace it with non-ethanol fuel with octane booster and see if the problem persist. If it does, then it's either time to replace the fuel pump or add the Mercruiser secondary fuel pump anti-vapor lock kit.
Does this sound like vapor lock? Or fuel pump? The only thing that makes me question vapor lock, is that the most recent incident happened when it was almost on plane and probably running in the 3000 rpm range. I always thought that if you were having vapor lock issues, that once you got it running, you were good to go. Also, I changed the fuel water separator last year, but haven't done that this season. I hear the fuel pump engage when I turn the key, so just trying to figure out if vapor lock could be causing all of this, or if the fuel pump is randomly cutting out when it's hot.
Thank you
I've been having an issue on and off this summer, and I have a plan to deal with it, but I would like to have anyone's mechanically inclined opinion on the matter, especially if you have experienced this same issue before.
I'll try to keep this as short as possible. The Thursday evening before July 4th, we drove our boat to our favorite swimming spot, anchored, and swam for 1.5 hours or so. We then started the boat to run and grab a pizza at the marina for supper. When I started the boat, the idle surged up and down, beeped twice, then died. It would start, but immediately die, then after doing that a few times, I could not get it to start without pushing the throttle, but still would not stay running, and the idle would surge. After waiting stranded for another hour or so on my brother to tow us, I tried to crank it again and it started fine and ran like nothing ever happened. After this issue, the next morning, I had it scanned for an alarm code that started after getting it on plane. The scan showed the knock sensor was unplugged (unrelated), but didn't show any other codes from when it beeped twice the evening before when we had the issue. I plugged the knock sensor in and no alarm since. Also, I changed the iac since we had the issue that we had, although the current iac was only 3 years old.
Since then, we took it out 4 days the weekend of the 4th and day trips the following 2 Saturdays with no issues at all. It does have an occasional hard start, but is fine once it starts.
Weekend before last, on that Friday afternoon, we had the exact same issue occur after driving a short loop and stopping for supper. This time, it started and I put the throttle down and it was probably running around 3000 rpm and almost to plane when it stalled to idle, idle surged for a few seconds, then beeped twice and died and we could not get it to restart and were towed. After sitting overnight, the boat started and ran fine like nothing ever happened. I drove it to the shop at the marina and left it for them to test out.
After they checked into it, they contacted me and said that they felt like that if the fuel pump were bad, more issues would be occuring. No codes showed when they scanned it. They feel like it could be vapor lock causing the issue because this is the first year of the 5 we have owned the boat that we have had these issues and also the first year I have ran ethanol fuel. I did run a tank of ethanol free fuel as well, and it's possible that's what I was using the times that we didn't have issues, but I have fueled it up several times with ethanol and I can't be 100 percent sure about timeframe.
We came up with the plan to siphon the fuel out and replace it with non-ethanol fuel with octane booster and see if the problem persist. If it does, then it's either time to replace the fuel pump or add the Mercruiser secondary fuel pump anti-vapor lock kit.
Does this sound like vapor lock? Or fuel pump? The only thing that makes me question vapor lock, is that the most recent incident happened when it was almost on plane and probably running in the 3000 rpm range. I always thought that if you were having vapor lock issues, that once you got it running, you were good to go. Also, I changed the fuel water separator last year, but haven't done that this season. I hear the fuel pump engage when I turn the key, so just trying to figure out if vapor lock could be causing all of this, or if the fuel pump is randomly cutting out when it's hot.
Thank you
