OMC 43L Cobra IO Four Winns Horizon 200 caTHUNK when key is turned

"Thanks Jim. I'll pick up

"Thanks Jim. I'll pick up a dwell meter and measure that.

Hey one strange thing that has occurred a few times... Things have been going fine, been able to start the motor up right away. However, a few times when I've gone and put the ignition switch to ON, none of the fuel guages, etc come alive. It's like I didn't turn the key at all.

I started probing around with the multimeter and didn't find anything strange. However, at one point, after poking around, I went back to the dash and turned it on and the guages came on.

So do you think that could be a faulty ignition switch on the blink, or I was wondering if there's a condition where the ground gets messed up (and was then corrected by my probing). I'm not sure, just guessing here. It's just strange, everything is dead when it happens. And then you seemingly do nothing and it's OK again. Just hoping I find the source and never have the same problem on the water.

Thanks for any thoughts you have on this.

Doug

(The ground cable looks pretty snug and secure and clean on the back of the engine. I didn't want to disturb it. Do you think I need to pull it off and clean it?)"

"Next time the gauges don'

"Next time the gauges don't come on, mess with the safety switch. If the lanyard stays on there for a long time, it will sometimes relax or the switch gets kind of gunked up and needs better contact.

Look at the ignition switch and see if anything is loose."

"Hi Jim,

It looks like the

"Hi Jim,

It looks like the intermittent electrical problem may have been more corrosion at the fuse block terminals. I think the fuse for the ignition wasn't getting good contact sometimes. Found this out by accident when trying to figure out why the nav lights were doing the same thing, and the blower, etc... the whole fuse block needed to be cleaned. (Probably it's the first thing I should have checked.

So now I'm trying to make sure I've gone over everything that absolutely needs to be gone over before trying it out in the water... it starts right up every time now and sounds good. I replaced the impeller because it had a tear in one of the "spokes". I resealed the impeller housing with gasket sealer.

One very strange thing that I'm not sure if it's a problem or not... when I put the muffs on the engine and turn the water on to about low-medium pressure from the garden hose, when I idle the engine, no water shoots out of the exhaust ports, nor out the very end of the propeller. Is this OK or is something blocked or not working? It doesn't appear to shoot out from anywhere except around the muffs.

I thought maybe it was just because it was in neutral so I started the propeller moving a little bit on slow, and no water shot out the end of the prop nor the exhaust ports still.

Does it take a long time for the engine to fill up with water when you first run it or something? Could the water output just be not getting enough time to get to the point where it overflows out the engine?

Or are there some water knobs or something that might be turned off to prevent flow? I have no idea...

Thanks!!!
Doug"

"Jim,

The water was all com

"Jim,

The water was all coming out of the bottom of the transom bracket and I didn't realize it, so I think it's OK now.

Also, we launched the boat for the very first time in the ocean on Sunday. The wind was howling, and it was raining like a madman, and the seas were pretty rough, but the boat went like a rocket after I figured out the trim was off.

Thank you so much for all of your help.

Doug"