Colinkris1
Member
I am piecing together a 1997 Sea Ray Express Cruiser 215. It came with no engine or stern drive. I got a 1994 Crown-line with a bad hull, cracked bulging block, but a purportedly good outdrive for FREE. As I disassembled the Crownline for parts, it looked to me like they failed to winterize it and the block froze and cracked. The intake, and water manifolds looked ok. I found a reportedly good mercruiser 5.7 for the right price. I sand blasted, painted, rebuilt carburetor and assembled. The other day was “cross my finders” test day. I had put all new gaskets, thermostat, engine water pump, outdrive water pump and a mess of other new parts. I hooked up the water ears and started it up. It fired up immediately and ran great at about 700 rpm. I revved up to 1500-2000 a few seconds a couple times just to see how it sounded. It sounded great. After everything seemed to warm up (maybe ten mins mostly at idle), I shut it down. Now the oil pressure sender was working and op was great. Voltmeter seemed low and temp had no reading at all. I have to investigate wiring. Likely a bad connection. Anyway, back on point. While it was off, I checked the oil. It looked great. Brand new still and right where it should be on the stick. I started it up again, and ran at idle for about 20 minutes and this time I brought it to about 1800 RPMs for about a minute possibly two. I KNOW YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO RUN ABOVE IDLE ON MUFFS. I was paying close attention to how hot the water manifolds were. I needed some assurances before I dragged it to the lake for further testing. AND IM GLAD I DID! After a minute or possible two, the orange alternator wire stated getting very hot and melted the single layer of electrical tape I had wrapped around the alternator bundle! I killed the engine and began investigating. All the while the ear muffs were still connected and water still running. I ended up pulling the alternator out and disconnecting the wiring and checking all the wires for short to ground or bad connections. I didn’t expect any as I am an electrician and had gone through all of this already. Battery cables are HUGE and mint. One new battery one 2 1/2 years old that took a charge ok. I took the alternator apart and everything looked ok inside too. It was newer when I took it off the other boat. I am wondering if possibly the field and sense wires got mixed up since they were both the same plug (wish they made them opposite connections so it couldn’t get mixed up). Anyway, too much time gone by and had to pack it in for the night. Got out of the boat shut the water ears off. Put the boat away. Got in the boat this am. Put the alternator back together. Reconnected the wiring being sure to have the purple on field and the purple red on S per the mercruiser manual. My plan was to run the boat and check voltage at varying points. My problem with the wire seemed rpm related so suspect voltage regulator failure. Was going to investigate voltage at different RPMs. Also was going to put the Amp clamp on orange wire and see what kind of amperage was coming out. Never got that far. Hooked up water ears. Got in the boat. Had fully charged batteries. Cranked over and it sputtered and coughed but did not start. I tried a few more times - wanted to catch but wouldn’t run. I thought - hmm “ I only put like 3 gallons in an empty 50 gallon tank. I did run it a few times yesterday with the last run at higher RPMs for a couple minutes. So I went and got five gallons of gas. Put it in turned water ears on and tried again. This time after a few cranks it started to slow and get hard cranking. I figured batteries took a hit. I hit the battery disconnect switch and began charging them up. All the while the water ears running. After a half an hour, I tried again. This time a couple cranks in and it didn’t want to crank. Now I was worried. I pulled plugs and disconnected and grounded coil lead. I cranked over and water came spouting out spark plug holes all over. Seemingly all of them though I couldn’t watch every cylinder at once. OKAY THAT WAS A LONG STORY TO GET TO MY QUESTION. Can water ears left running with the engine off flood a motor? I mean they may have run for 2-3 hours between yesterday and today before I started trying to crank it. I know you can’t do that on Seadoos. It’s start first then turn on water. Shut off water then shut off motor. My experience has always been the opposite on boats. Water first then motor on. Motor off then water off. It didn’t occur to me that extended pressurized water could possibly get into the motor if the motor wasn’t running. I figured you needed the engine water pump to complete the circulation before any would be up in the motor. IS THIS POSSIBLE? I sure hope it is! I would rather be called an idiot or lazy for not shutting off the water than to have some other problem like a cracked head, intake, or water manifold that I just didn’t see previously. I blew all the water out of the cylinders by cranking a bunch of times with coil lead grounded. I don’t see any on the dipstick. If this is all just getting into the cylinders through the water manifolds and open exhaust valves or something, then I will just run it again (CAREFULLY CONTROLLING THE WATER SUPPLY!) and probably change the oil just for good measure. I still need to investigate my over-amperage situation, but it seems a minute problem in comparison now. I might as well ask. If the sense and field wires were reversed, could that have caused my over heating orange wire? I don’t think they were reversed, but I paid more attention putting together than taking apart. I didn’t see anything else wrong. I had planned to isolate older battery to see if it were causing excessive draw. REALLY I WANT TO KNOW IF THE MUFFS COULD FLOOD THE MOTOR!
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