ckuhtz
New Member
- Oct 6, 2019
- 16
- Boat Info
- 185 Sport
- Engines
- 262 Mercruiser w/ Alpha I Gen 2 Drive
‘04 185 Sport with 4.3 carb tks, serial 0W011342. Boat only has ~150 hours on it.
Hoping somebody can help me with diagnosis and has seen this before.
At the end of the last season, engine stalled on me at full song. Cranked but no start for a few minutes without stalling almost immediately. Eventually i got the motor fired and I limped back to dock at idle. Anything more would stall engine.
current symptoms:
Engine starts almost immediately. Runs maybe 20-30s at idle, stalls. The higher the rpm, the faster the engine stalls. When the engine runs, it does run very smoothly.
Feels like the pump initially gets some gas into carb and then eventually the engine consumes more than it gets and stalls?
Not a carb engine guy, I grew up with various kinds of mfi/efi.
things checked:
Fuel in tank is ok (clean, stabilized and not separated, no water)
I’ve swapped fuel filter several times, no difference. No indication of dirt or water.
Pump runs, don’t have correct adapter for my fuel pressure gauge to check pressure.
cleaned carb barrels and anything I could reach without disassembly from top with carb cleaner, looked pretty clean beforehand, even more so now. Squirting carb cleaner into vent slot(?) at the top made the engine run for quite a while, but I’m now wondering if that might’ve been just on carb cleaner or mostly on carb cleaner.
Flushed out flame arrestor with brake cleaner. Pretty filthy, weighed about half of before cleaning.
questions:
I suppose a fuel pump can get weak rather than die outright. But is that a common failure mode for these low pressure pumps?
If pump is bad, where can I source a reliable pump that doesn’t quite cost what mercury wants for it. Model, brand, source. What is a reasonable price?
Does it make sense to remove fuel line from carb and check the filter basket? I suppose a pump could spit crap out in failure mode?
What else should I be looking at? Do I need to pull carb apart? Not experienced with carbs, so, would love to avoid that if possible. Or is this non issue and straight forward rebuild? Can I clean the insides without having rebuild kit on hand?
Please help. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
thanks,
Christian
PS: I have the SELOC manual for this engine but I really would like to get my hands on the correct mercury shop manuals for this. Which one(s) do I need and from what yr? Where from?
Hoping somebody can help me with diagnosis and has seen this before.
At the end of the last season, engine stalled on me at full song. Cranked but no start for a few minutes without stalling almost immediately. Eventually i got the motor fired and I limped back to dock at idle. Anything more would stall engine.
current symptoms:
Engine starts almost immediately. Runs maybe 20-30s at idle, stalls. The higher the rpm, the faster the engine stalls. When the engine runs, it does run very smoothly.
Feels like the pump initially gets some gas into carb and then eventually the engine consumes more than it gets and stalls?
Not a carb engine guy, I grew up with various kinds of mfi/efi.
things checked:
Fuel in tank is ok (clean, stabilized and not separated, no water)
I’ve swapped fuel filter several times, no difference. No indication of dirt or water.
Pump runs, don’t have correct adapter for my fuel pressure gauge to check pressure.
cleaned carb barrels and anything I could reach without disassembly from top with carb cleaner, looked pretty clean beforehand, even more so now. Squirting carb cleaner into vent slot(?) at the top made the engine run for quite a while, but I’m now wondering if that might’ve been just on carb cleaner or mostly on carb cleaner.
Flushed out flame arrestor with brake cleaner. Pretty filthy, weighed about half of before cleaning.
questions:
I suppose a fuel pump can get weak rather than die outright. But is that a common failure mode for these low pressure pumps?
If pump is bad, where can I source a reliable pump that doesn’t quite cost what mercury wants for it. Model, brand, source. What is a reasonable price?
Does it make sense to remove fuel line from carb and check the filter basket? I suppose a pump could spit crap out in failure mode?
What else should I be looking at? Do I need to pull carb apart? Not experienced with carbs, so, would love to avoid that if possible. Or is this non issue and straight forward rebuild? Can I clean the insides without having rebuild kit on hand?
Please help. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
thanks,
Christian
PS: I have the SELOC manual for this engine but I really would like to get my hands on the correct mercury shop manuals for this. Which one(s) do I need and from what yr? Where from?