Logo
FULL SITE MENU

'03 225hp

B

baytro23

Regular Contributor
I've got a pr of 225's that I bought a few months ago. They have been running perfect. This past weekend the starboard motor alarmed 2 times. Running at about 3800 the buzzer came on steady and the rpm's dropped way down and I immediately brought them both to idle. Buzzer stayed on. I cut the engine off for a few seconds and restarted. All seemed fine. I ran for 5 minutes at around 3400 and all was fine. I bumped them up to 4000 and pretty soon I got the buzzer again and power drop. I cut it off and when I tried to restart it wouldn't crank. I pulled the cover and checked the oil, it was fine. I don't have oil or temp gauges (only lights). No lights came on, only the buzzer. I have water pressure gauges and both were reading 20psi and had very strong pee streams when the problem occurred.

What are the lights supposed to do during the start procedure? When I turn the key on, both red lights come on, then one goes out. After the engine is running the other red light goes off. These are the 2 red lights away from the key. I can't say for sure if I've ever seen the other 2 lights come on (the ones mounted on the metal plate with the key switch).

After sitting for a few minutes I was able to restart the engine and ran back to the dock at around 3300 rpm's with no more alarms.

Is this a temperature alarm?

engines have 900 hrs and were serviced before I bought them with new water pumps etc.
 
Last edited:
May be an overheat.

The two red lights are the check engine light and the charge light.

When you turn the key to on, all four lights should come on for about two seconds and you should hear two beeps of the warning horn.

Then the charge light will stay on until the engine starts running.

Once the engine starts running, the green light (by the key switch) should come on and burn as the motor runs. The light next to the green light is a red over heat light.

If the green light does not stay on, it is an oil pressure issue (assuming it came on when you turned the key on .....it may not be working). If the red light next to it comes on, you have an overheat.

It is possible that the impeller was not installed properly or the thermostat may be stuck closed.

Mike
 
Thanks for that explanation. I will check the lights operation this weekend. I think I'm going to find a few burned out. I'll get all 4 lights working and report back with findings when it alarms again.
 
Ok, I got to the boat this weekend. All 4 lights work normally when key is turned on and the green light stays on then it's running.

I removed both thermostats and one had a chunk of green corrosion on it. I cleaned both thermostats real good and put them in a pot of hot water and monitored them as it got hotter. They both opened at the same rate as the water got hotter and they both closed at same rate when I removed them from the water. I believe they started opening around 160 degrees and appeared to be fully open maybe around 175ish.

I put them back in and started up on muffs and checked for leaks and checked the lights operation. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to run the boat. After I run it I will post an update (hopefully with news of no alarms).
 
The thermostats on that engine should start to open at 140 F and be fully open at 160 F.

If you send me an e-mail at [email protected], I will send you the procedure for pulling fault codes using a paper clip. That way you can better pinpoint the problem.
 
Is this the correct water flow direction: water flows up into the bottom of the block, up to the 2 open thermostats, out the top of the thermostat housings and into their respective exhaust manifolds then out the bottom???

If cleaning the thermostats doesn't do it I may connect a water hose to the top of each exhaust manifold and see how freely water flows thru and out. Does that sound like a viable plan of attach?

Can I get to the poppet valves pretty easily? How do they work? Exactly where are they? There are 2, correct?
 
I believe that your description of the water flow is correct. Never really got that far in the weeds.

As for flushing out the water passages, yes. I typically attach a restrictor on the end of the hose, stick it down in the thermostat hole, stuff rags around it to get a good seal and let her rip. Put a large bucket under your engine to see what comes out. It's best to do this with the lower unit removed, but that can be a pain. Make sure that your intakes are free of debris.

Can't answer about the poppet valves.

Did you pull the fault codes?
 
Ok - not temp alarm - it's low oil pressure alarm - green lite goes out when I get the constant buzzer and reduced rpms - there are no codes when I paper clip it - mil lite stays on - I even checked good engine to make sure I was doing it correctly - I was able to get to low oil switch connector and check it to ground - it doesn't read zero as expected - it reads about 2.5 ohms - I was on a good ground and other grounds read zero - do you think my low oil switch is bad? How do you get to it? Remove intake manifold?
 
There are two oil pressure switches - a high pressure and a low pressure. It looks like both pressure switches feed into a 6-pin connector. Unfortunately, the shop manual says that you need to remove the cylinder heads to get to them.

Go to this site: Online shop manual: http://boatinfo.no/lib/honda/manuals/bf200.html#/0

Go to page 201 by going to the bottom of the manual and between the blue arrows type in "201" then [RETURN].

That will show you the procedure.

However, I would first try to locate the wiring harness coming from those switches and check it out thoroughly.
 
More info: When the motor alarmed today I disconnected the pink wire between the low oil switch and the ecm. The buzzer quit and the green light came on. I listened very carefully to the bad engine and compared it's sound to the good engine. They sound exactly the same. I ran the boat a few minutes and all seemed fine. I cut the engine off to see if it would restart with the sensor disconnected. It starts normally only the green light stays on all the time (even with engine not running). I left the pink wire off and ran the boat for another 45 minutes at various speeds up to 4500 rpm's. No buzzer or any other lights and everything runs and sounds great.

Next question: Since the low oil switch is so hard to get to can I leave the old one disconnected and connect a new one to the oil pressure test port? What is the smaller, hex head plug just forward of the large oil pressure test plug? Can I connect a oil pressure sending unit or oil pressure switch to that smaller port?

Hondadude, can you confirm what has to come off to get to the low oil pressure switch? My bro in law (long time Honda auto mechanic) looked at the shop manual and believes just the intake manifold has to come off. It that correct? Also, can you post a parts list needed for the low oil pressure switch replacement? Thank you very much. I'm relieved to at least know what the problem is.
 
Kiss your brother in law. He is right.

You still have to take a lot of stuff off to get to it. The part number is 35490-ZW9-004.

I do not know about moving the location.

Have you had your brother in law check the real oil pressure. You may be assuming that the sensor is bad, but it may not be.

The oil pressure should be about 80 psi at 3000 rpm.

If you do change it out, be sure to clean out its hole. It might be gooed up.

Also, a worn crankshaft thrust washer or #3 main bearing could also cause an actual oil pressure problem.

So check the pressure to see what you really have....then you can go from there.

Mike
 
hondadude said:
Kiss your brother in law. He is right.
Click to expand...

Aw damn, his head is already swollen up, lol.

Will do (get actual oil pressure) - thanks for the info.

I will report back with actual oil pressure readings and if we can rig a oil pressure switch or gauge to the port beside the large oil pressure test port.

With a name like that I knew you were a good guy

Thanks again
Mike
 
Ok, I removed the block plug and screwed the Honda special tool into the oil pressure check port high on the starboard side of the block. I ordered the low oil pressure switch also and couldn't quickly come up with an oil pressure gauge to hook to the special tool...but, the oil pressure switch screwed right into the tool. So, I screwed the switch into the tool and hooked the wire from the ecu to the switch and went for a test run. Everything worked normally for over 2 hrs. We were just joy riding but later on I decided to run a little faster and went up to 4500rpm's for maybe 2-3 minutes. I backed down to around 3200 and all seemed fine. A minute or 2 later I got the constant alarm and the green light went off. I bought it back to idle and the alarm stayed on. I forgot to rev it in neutral to see if the alarm would go away. I cut the engine off, checked the oil level (normal) put cover back on, and it started up normally and ran at various speeds for 30 more minutes with no alarm.

Next order of business is to get an actual, analog oil pressure gauge that will connect to the tool and just verify once and for all if I've got a pressure problem or a lying ecu.

I'll report back later.

Good news, port engine just sits there minding it's own business never bothering anybody and runs like a dream.
 
Back
Top