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07 BF50 throttles up fine in neutral but not in gear

TooTall92

New member
I'm rather new to boats so yall might have to dumb down some things haha

Bought a 2007 Smoker Craft with a Honda BF50 that unfortunately has been sitting for the last 3yrs due to previous owners health. I've replaced the water impeller, fuel filter and thermostat so far. Finally got it fired up and cooling right in a tub but when I went to do a test run on the lake, it maxed out at 1100rpm in gear. When in neutral it will run great up to 3000rpm (haven't tried any higher than that yet) for a few solid minutes. The primer bulb isn't really hard but it don't collapse either.

I've looked through the other posts trying to find clues to look at but no luck so was hoping someone might have delt with it before and able to give me a few leads.
 
IMHO, you got off on the right foot by replacing the impeller, fuel filter and thermostat. Next step in my shop would be to go through the carbs.
 
It's not hard work, but you have to be thorough. These 07 motors add to the challenge with a lot of vacuum/vent hoses that absolutely must be reinstalled as you found them. Not my favorite setup for this reason (I refer to them as a plumbers nightmare), though they do work nice when they're right. You may find pictures taken prior to disassembly a valuable reference later. Of particular interest is the vent line exiting the top of each carb. It MUST be angled up!

I generally will unbolt the intake manifold and pull that entire assembly off as one piece (manifold with carbs still attached). Remove the muffler/intake silencer and the part that holds it place. At that point, you can remove one carb at a time for cleaning, then put it back in place and reconnect it to all the lines before going to the next one. This will help assure no confusion regarding what line went where, or how it was routed.....

Guys doing this the first time around (and myself, STILL, on occasion) most frequently screw up in 2 places. The first is a passage that's only found in the top carb. It feeds the warm up circuit in play when the engine is cold. It's located in the very bottom of the float bowl and leads over to warm up circuit reservoir. Make SURE that passage is open - but don't try to shove a piece of wire through it. There's a jet in the way. You'll need to clear/check it using carb cleaner and/or compressed air.

The other place is in the bottom of a brass tube located right in the middle of the carb - don't worry, you can't miss it. What you can miss is the tiny jet located in the bottom of it. You HAVE to visually confirm that thing is clear by sighting through that tube lengthwise. This jet is REALLY tiny, not much bigger than a whisker hair, so again, don't be trying to shove a piece of wire through it. That jet feeds the low speed circuit of the carb. If it's not clear, that motor is not going to idle right - no ifs to it. If you put this all back together, and it still isn't running right, plan on pulling all of this back down so you can inspect/clean this jet a little better.

The anti tamper lock on the idle mixture screw WILL break off, leaving you with a mess sure to try your patience, if you try to remove it without heat. Enough heat to melt the epoxy holding it place. Probably not worth the trouble....
 
Check for parts before you break anything. For my Honda 9.9 common carburetor parts like the idle mixture screw mentioned above and commonly discarded gaskets and orings are up to a 2 month wait in Canada.
 
Check for parts before you break anything. For my Honda 9.9 common carburetor parts like the idle mixture screw mentioned above and commonly discarded gaskets and orings are up to a 2 month wait in Canada.

Have you tried boats.net? They're generally very good about having the common stuff in stock, but even worst case, they've had anything I've needed shipped within a week or 10 days.
 
Have you tried boats.net? They're generally very good about having the common stuff in stock, but even worst case, they've had anything I've needed shipped within a week or 10 days.

Yes I have, just bought a carburetor from them, the idle mixture screw I was looking for said 2-3 days on the website, called them and they told me end of June maybe. They couldn’t tell me when they would have carburetor gaskets either. Was in Texas explained my situation and pricing in Canada ended up paying $143US and shipping $7.95 for 3 day delivery. VERY happy with their customer service.
 
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