1999 BF130 - Not Running Properly

Hi,

Been working on my mates engine. He was out the other day and thought the motor went into limp mode and wasnt reving very high. Checked the check engine light for codes and nothing thrown up.

Started up and noticed tell-tale wasnt flowing well and engine was hot to touch. Checked tell-tale piping and was full of **** so cleaned out. Engine temp reduced.

On applying throttle the engine would not pick up revs and wouldnt not hit full throttle.

So turned off and ran some tests below.

Started by doing a compression test - 200psi all cyclinders.
Spark plugs - Black not the the dark brown/tan colour i expected.
Spark plug test - all firing.
Fuel pressure - Satisfactory.
Injectors Test - Okay.

Noticed that after running the engine that there were pieces of salt/corrision coming out the exhaust. See photo...

Could these pieces of salt/corrision but blocking up the exhaust outlet causing the motor to run poorly. After running the engine for a few minutes and knocking the leg a significant amount of this crud was expelled.

Plan is to check the thermostat tonight and then possibly run some SaltX through the cooling system a few times to break this crud up...
After running the engine and the crud becoming less he was able to hit WOT again.

Should we take the propeller off and clean up the exhaust pipe?
Or would you suggest dropping the gearbox etc to get to the exhaust pipe and check the outlet out?

Have you seen this before and do you think that we are heading in the right direction with this?

I've never seen anything like that come out of a boat's water passages. It looks like small pieces of volcanic rock.

I don't know much about the 130, but looking at all of that crude, I would suggest that you need to flush the water passages thoroughly with the lower unit removed. Typically, the best place the flush is from the thermostat posts. Flush the passages in the lower unit separately. Furthermore, if that stuff got into the water pump impeller, it likely damaged it, so replace that, also.

Once completed, take the boat out on the water with the engine cover off and use and IR heat gun to check out the entire engine for hot spots.

I have serviced a lot of the early 130's. Take a look at the head gasket on the port side of the engine, If the gasket is pushing out (you will see it) get a new engine.

Thanks for the quick replies!
It does look like volcanic rock or road base...
But i was able to break it up with some pressure applied to it and had a lick of it and it's definelty salt that's been covered with exhaust fumes at a guess?

Dropping the lower unit will be next i think...will inspect thr impeller and go from there.
What is an average temp we should be looking at with IR?

Will look at the port side gasket today. Would the compression test not of shown a problem with the head gasket?

Cheers.

Also is it worth opening the water jacket cover and taking a look at the anodes inside? And possibly replacing them?

Yep, being a '99 and running in saltwater, I would suspect that the exhaust anodes are pretty well deteriorated. On my 225 they were an aluminum-alloy anode. I suspect that yours are the same.

The aluminum alloy surprised me. If you read about the different types of anodes you often come across the recommendation to never mix the type of anode. Yet on the Hondas you have zinc alloy anodes on the outside and aluminum anodes on the inside. Seems a bit strange to me.

Where are the anodes located on the BF130?

Hi,
you have two on the exhaust side...you need to remove the cover and hope that no bolts are stuck from galvanic corrosion.
On the starboard side there are another two which are screwed onto the air intake manifold.
You have to remove the manifold completely.

In my case I found both on the exhaust side in poor condition.
Unfortunately 3 bolts were galvanically corroded and broke, so I used heli coils and got the problem fixed.
On the starboard side I removed the intake manifold,the lower anode area was sealed solid with salt.
I replaced the anodes and put back the manifold after cleaning the salt with vinegar and strong descaler.
I cleaned the idle air control valve and throttle body which made a big difference in the way the engine starts and runs.
I then proceeded the remove the lower unit, connected a bilge pump to the water intake pipe with a hose , and proceeded to run 12 liters of vinegar (removed t-stat) for 48 hrs.
Needless to say I removed allot of salt and scale.
The engine pees incredibly better now.
I hope this helps.
(BF130 1999, about 850 hrs).

Thanks Heligeorge. Mine is a 2003 with about 400 hrs. Run in mid Chesapeake Bay where the salinity is fairly low. Will check them out next season.

There's another anode under the oil cooler water jacket cover #3 http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/Outboard Engine/2003/BF130A3 XA/CYLINDER BLOCK/parts.html
The oil cooler water jacket won't flush unless the engine is running at over approx 2500-3000 rpm due to the poppet valve #17 and #18, so consequently the water cavity blocks up with deposits, rendering the oil cooler useless.
I suggest cleaning out the oil cooler water cavity and discarding #17 and #18. That way the oil cooler flushes at idle.

Bob

Yes bobmech you are right about the anode in the cooler.
In the case of mine the anode was okay and the poppet does have the tendency to block up.
Here in the Eastern Meditterranean the water is extremely salty.
The head of my engine must have been completely blocked.
The vinegar trick has removed a lot of deposits.

Back again...

So i finally got around to working on my boat again and I took the thermostat cover off and found the following..

[URL="http://i63.tinypic.com/karyaa.jpg%5b/IMG"]http://i63.tinypic.com/karyaa.jpg[/IMG[/URL]]

Pretty bad! Tested the thermostat and it was really slow to open, so replaced that.

Opened the water jacket cover after snapping multiple bolts due to heavy corrosion and then having to drill and helicoil! Argh fun. Found that the inside of that was full of scaling so gave a good clean out with vinegar and brush. The anode bolts are corroded in very well so didn't attempt to remove the anodes.

Took apart the oil jacket under the manifold and found a build up of scaling again but anodes okay so cleaned with vinegar.

Started up again and after 30 seconds approximately overheat light came on again... It only happens when its being run out of water or briefly when at idle or just above idle in the water...After getting up and going the light goes off and buzzing stops.

I haven't taken this out since because I want to sort it out now instead of using other peoples boats!

My next train of thought is this...Feedback???

1. Run engine for few seconds with thermostat housing removed. I'm guessing the water should shoot up out of the thermostat housing??? Possible blockage or faulty impeller/water pump if not shooting.

2. Blast water down from thermostat housing into cooling internals to hopefully remove what ever is causing the blockage...

3. Check water intake screens for clogging.

4. Water Pressure Gauge and measure pressure...Any rough ideas on expected PSI? If the pressure is to low then not enough water is getting through the impeller or there is a blockage before the port??? If it's high would indicate that there is a blockage further on from the port???

5. Can you connect directly to water tube that runs to the tell tale and blast water back through the water that way with thermostat off and you would get a large amount of water out the thermostat. Proving the flow from that way is good???

6. I'm going to drop the leg and change the impeller/gaskets/o-rings as part of maintenance...

7. After i fix this as I know will be very soon, would you recommended running the engine in a big garbage bin with a solution of diluted vinegar and water for a period of time to hopefully clean out the other scaling and crude that is in the parts of the engine that can't be opened easily.

I also found another problem...

Checked the MIL indicator and found that we were getting 3 blinks which indicated something wrong with the MAP sensor as well as multiple blinks indicating an O/C in sensor ground wire. I looked at wiring diagram and determined what was common to each sensor and found that the if there was a faulty ground that it would cause a problem on multiple sensors due to it being common. The MAP sensor ground was common with another sensors so shouldn't that sensors fault code be showing if there was really a problem with the ground??? Anyway belled out all the grounds and all the sensors and cleaned with contact cleaner and found no problems. Reset the fault codes.

Any thoughts on this? Or should i wait to get the overheating issue sorted and run the boat on the water and see if these appear again???

Much appreciated,

Thanks from down under again!!!

Also bobmech is that the normal to remove that poppet? No adverse effects because i want that to be flushed at idle because it did have salt build up inside but will this start cooling the oil and provide less lubrication because it's cooling the oil at idle now???

Also should mention that I checked all the valves and are in specification and also replaced all fuel filters and cleaned out the VST and replaced the low pressure fuel pump because i found significant portions of rust cleaning out the fuel hoses as well as the water hoses.

[FONT=Verdana][IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/mrd5xi.jpg[/FONT]


Thanks!

Another thought....

Looked at the manual and saw that the intake manifold has 2 anodes inside...Before I take this off and inspect it...is it possible to tell if the blockage is inside this passage as opening up the intake manifold becomes a large job with the possibility to break the studs....I'm pretty competent mechanically and know to heat and cool the bolts and tapping the tool to shock the bolt free of corrosion etc but I would rather try and avoid taking it off....

Thanks

Is that the head gasket in the picture. The white stuff coming out next to the water jacket?

That is the head gasket.
With regard to the salt I would recommend (at your own risk) that you remove the leg and thermostat, connect a bilge pump to a hose and into the water intake tube.
Place a large box with about 25 cm height (Ikea) and run vinegar through the engine.
I did so for 2 days non stop.
For the manifold,there is no worry with regard to breaking the manifold to head studs.
Its not so hard to remove the manifold.
In my case the lower anode was totally covered in salt and the hole blocked.
Your primary issue is that the engine won't power up to full power.
Removing salt and cleaning the water passages I would recommend.
But with regard to not getting full performance, it's either a fuel issue or air issue or ignition problem.

Thought so.
Still have good compression but....haven't done a leak down test yet.
We have changed all the the fuel filters and the low pressure pump and it seems to run better now but we havent been able to in water test due to this overheating issue.
We ran the cooling water off a better tap in our home and got better water pressure and no alarm sounded..
Was your pisser putting out water when your cooling system was blocked?
And when you ran the vinegar through did you remove.the thermostat so it does the whole system?

Thanks for the reply!

Also what is the relief valves purpose and if it wasnt opening would problems would arise?

The pisser was never really impressive.
It always barely dribbled.
Now after the vinegar clean it makes a hole on the ground!
I removed the thermostat while the vinegar was going through.
Since the water pumped from the impeller is directly proportional to the rpm of the shaft...water flow increases at WOT therefore the purpose of the relief valve is to bypass the full cooling channels to prevent high pressure and damage.

So took it out for a run today after replacing all the fuel filters and getting the tell tale to run nicely...

And it stills got the same problem were it won't rev out and get up to speed. I put it to full throttle and it sounds like it's trying to go but doesn't...

Video ...

https://youtu.be/yRI1QOtByfE

I must mentioned briefly that as we were leaving the wharf and put it to full throttle it picked up and was about to run as normal but we had to slow down because maritime police were there and it was an under 5 km/h zone and after we backed off and tried to run again it wouldn't go to full throttle...

Here is a video at home out of the water...

https://youtu.be/IVWR8wUiNJA

I'm stumped...If it was the HP fuel pump does it either work or doesn't? Or could it run degraded? I haven't got a fuel gauge on the line but i thought that if the HP fuel pump wasnt working properly it would affect the idle too?

I feel like it's fuel restriction and its the motor is running hot because its leaning out due to lack of fuel...
What sensor's control the fuel injection or the motors fuel delivery??? If one of these weren't working properly I would be getting a fault code hypothetically???

Any ideas? Thanks!!!

I should mention that we couldn't get the primer bulb hard and that we put a piece if clear hose between the water separator and the fuel tank hose and we weren't getting a solid stream of fuel...

There is a new low pressure pump installed aswell...

Do you have a copy of the service manual?
You can google it and download it for free.
Is the valve timing set correctly?
Is your prop spun?
Since the compression is good, it can not I hope be a case of cracked cylinder head or block.

Yep got the manual!
The valves and timing are in spec...
If the prop was spun I would still be able to rev out past 2000 RPM but i wouldn't be going anywhere...
It won't let me rev out above 2000-3000 RPM depending on what day i take it out. The last time this happened we clicked it in and out of fwd and reverse and were goin full throttle and it eventually went away and ran the whole day trolling fine....

Just another thought.
Is the fuel pressure regulating valve (on the fuel rail at the top) working correctly?
As rpm go up, the vacuum inside the intake manifold decreases, which in turn steadily closes the poppet valve which maintains pressure on the rail and injectors.
Is the regulator/ hose to manifold intact and ok?

You mentioned something about engine might be running lean.
The fuel pressure regulator works as follows.
During idle engine needs less fuel vacuum is high in intake manifold.
At high rpm or under load, throttle body is more open, therefore the vacuum in the intake manifold decreases, therefore the pressure regulating valve will decrease the fuel return (to VST) aperture which will keep the fuel and it will be sprayed through the injectors.
The electric pump has a constant debit regardless to the state of the running engine.
It is the duty of the regulator (which is controlled by the vacuum in the manifold and connected through a hose) to make it so that the pressure is kept constant throughout the rpm range and so that the engine does not lean out at high rpm.
You can test the regulator as follows.
Engine idling.
REMOVE the thin hose on the manifold (which should close the return to the VST) and you should get a (rich mixture) which will increase you idle speed.
Check if the valve is working as it should or if you have a leak or blockage somewhere.

I will test the pressure regulating valve today...
Even if my engine was leaning out I should still be able to get over 2000 - 3000 RPM?
Yesterday in the water and out of the water, putting it to full throttle we were only getting a maximum of 2000 RPM.
In the video you can see it sounds like it wants to get going and then dies away...

Pulled the spark plugs and they were BLACK!! It musn't be running lean but actually very rich and bogging down at higher RPM.

Also a strong smell of fuel on the oil dipstick!

Can anyone tell me what sensors control the air/fuel intake?

Read the manual you have

MAP and TPS...

Measured the TPS resistance and its doing funny things. Can anyone else with a BF 130 measure their resistance of their TPS at different throttle positions and compare to my readings that i will post later...