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'92 OMC 4.3 Won't Turn Over

J

Johng28

New member
Hi everyone, new to the forum here but not so new to boats or engines. My family has an older boat that we use at our family camp in the Adirondacks during the summer months and I recently ran into an issue that has be stumped. I was using the boat this past weekend and it died on the water and hasn't turned over since. I had started it up and let it warm up at the dock, ran fine. Took it out on the water, idled up the lake a ways and then opened it up and cruised around a few minutes, full throttle then somewhere around half throttle another few minutes. As I was coming back down off plane I got down to a high idle speed, then pulled back to just idle, but in gear, to drop the nose down and come to trolling speed. Just as I pulled from high idle to low the engine stalled out, more like just died. Something with the way it cut out left me with a feeling it wasn't going to start back up, which turned out to be the case. After a tow back in I did some troubleshooting and am a bit of a loss still. The engine will turn but doesn't even try to kick over. Drained fuel filter, some gunk but not bad and seems to be getting fuel. I also poured a little gas down the carb barrels at one point and still got nothing. Spark arrestor pulled, dirty but even off still the same. So fuel and air seem to be out. Messing around with the dash I noted that for some reason the kill switch/lanyard appears to be working backwards. With lanyard pulled, dash comes alive. In place, dash dead. I tried to bypass the switch altogether but still same result. This year the ignition key/switch was replaced as well as the trigger wire from ignition to coil as it shorted out first time boat went it, rendering a similar issue but it would at least try to turn over, unlike now. I'm not sure to test the coil to see if it's providing spark, aside from pulling a plug and grounding to metal while cranking, but haven't had 2 sets of hards to try that method as of yet, although I gather that isn't likely the best way to do so on this engine either. Any ideas on what avenue I might want to go from here would be appreciated. I can generally figure out most anything given some direction, but not sure what way to go in. Thanks in advance, looking forward to doing some reading here and hopefully being of some help myself as well!
 
Ok, finally had a chance to get back up to have a look at it. Open air spark test reveals no spark, so that seems to be the issue. I pulled the coil and tested with multimeter as I had seen in a video on YouTube, coil appears to be within normal/good range on low and high sides, so not that. I also pulled out the lanyard kill switch and tested with the neter, and it appears to also be working normally, which leaves me more confused now as it is functioning opposite of normal installed. I'm thinking this may be pointing towards a short somewhere within the ignition/dash wiring causing the kill switch to work backwards for some reason. The boat is a '92 Sunbird, it it makes any difference. Anyone heard of any kind of issue similar to this which could cause this condition? Or know a way I can bypass to test?
 
Got back up to have another go at it yesterday. Reinstalled the coil and the lanyard kill switch, then used a jumper from battery (+) to the coil (+). Same result as before. Removed the jumper and checked for power at coil. Using only the coil (+) and (-) terminals shows nothing, but there is power to the coil (+), verified by grounding other test lead to the engine. So now it seems as if it's an issue with the negative side of the coil. I tried using the jumper from battery (-) to coil (-) and still wouldn't fire, which looks like it points to the ESA module then. I did try disconnecting the interrupter as well in the process but no luck as well, which again points to the ESA module I'm thinking. Any way to test this before replacing??
 
So now it seems as if it's an issue with the negative side of the coil.
Click to expand...

Ayuh,..... From the negative side of the coil, a wire goes to the distributor, which has points or electronic trigger, which fires the coil,......
 
bondo said:
Ayuh,..... From the negative side of the coil, a wire goes to the distributor, which has points or electronic trigger, which fires the coil,......
Click to expand...

If there's no ground at the coil is it likely that the ground is bad at/in the distributor then? I had seen this in wiring diagram as well and on the engine but was thinking this was only for the firing circuit and therefore wouldn't provide ground to energize the coil??
 
Last edited:
Johng28 said:
If there's no ground at the coil is it likely that the ground is bad at/in the distributor then? I had seen this in wiring diagram as well and on the engine but was thinking this was only for the firing circuit and therefore wouldn't provide ground to energize the coil??
Click to expand...

Ayuh,..... It means the points are open,.....

If the coil's (-) terminal is grounded, the entire ignition is grounded, 'n won't work,....
 
bondo said:
Ayuh,..... It means the points are open,.....

If the coil's (-) terminal is grounded, the entire ignition is grounded, 'n won't work,....
Click to expand...

Ok, that makes sense. I guess I was thinking of it in a different sense. One more question, will/should the engine run with the ESA module disconnected? Just as a means of testing it? The way it died while running perfect and throttling down to just above neutral has me thinking it has to be related to the ESA still, although I may be wrong. And thanks for all the imput!
 
Well I believe I finally figured out the issue. After some more research into the electronics and wiring it appears that the engine should run with the ESA disconnected, but it still would not so I was able to rule that out. So next I loosened up the distributor up to check the gap between the pickup and the wheel, gap (dwell) was ok. Energized the coil and rotated distributor past the wheel and got no clicks or snaps, however. So it looks like the electronic pickup is toast. From what I've found this is a NLA part, so an electronic ignition conversion is route to go to fix. I see the Pertronics kit mentioned a lot, but also that there are some issues with the ESA which seems to need to be replaced or modified to work with this kit, correct? Searches here seem to mention this need. Would it make most sense to just replace the ESA to an updated module? Thinking I'm going to do a new cap and rotor at the same time also. Is a coil upgrade best idea while I'm at it as well? As always I appreciate any input. Thanks!
 
One more question here as well: at the start of the season when we cirst put the boat in we had a starting issue. Took it back to the shop that de-winterized it and they traced the issue to a bad wire from the ignition switch to coil. Wire was replaced with a piece of regular wire from the switch to coil (+). Should this have been a resistor wire though? And if so, could this have toasted the electronic pickup? Thanks again!
 
Ok, so it's been a while since I posted on this and figured I'd give an update. I ended up going with a Pertronix electronic ignition conversion for this distributor setup. Went with the Ignitor 2 and also a Flame Thrower 2 coil. I got it all installed and started up instantly without hesitation after 3+ weeks sitting, unheard of for this boat. So it appears that is now all worked out. I had found a Q/A section for an updated ESA module stating that for this particular original distributor an update was not needed, ao tried to give it a run as is. It seemed to work fine, but shifting from forward to neutral was very difficult as the ESA wouldn't kick in due to the overstroke switch appearing to be pressed until way too much force was used to get it disabled then the ESA coming in. Shortly after that it seemed to stop working all together too. So I decided to bypass the ESA altogether and wire it like a Merc as has been mentioned in a bunch of threads. Wired one side of intermittent switch to ground and the other to coil (-). This worked great...once. Since then the intermittent switch seems to stick on open in forward, shorting out the coil and killing the engine. Sooooo, I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers now on how to properly adjust this system to only engage the intermittent switch as the boat shifts?? As always, any insight is appreciated! Thanks.
 
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