Old No7
Member
Short story that ended well, but could have been oh so much worse.............
Five Nautical Miles out to sea on Sunday afternoon, cruising along with my yellow lab & bride in my 19' Arima Sea Ranger in light ocean swells at ~4k rpm, and I powered the Honda BF130 up to cross before a ferry crossed in front of me (plenty of room, no worries). And then I remember throttling back down again to cross a large lobster boat's wake that had "square waves"... (As he was running quite a load on his boat.)
Anyway, I throttled back up and -- "Uh oh -- I'm limited to only 3.2k rpm..." -- just about 10 or 11 mph based on the sea state and trim. Shifting into neutral when it was safe, I found "no resistance" and "no response" to the Neutral Throttle lever, so I was thinking either something in the control (late 1999 boat & motor) or engine side had broken or loosened up.
In hindsight, if there was something broken, I should not have shifted into neutral but should have kept power to the engine as long as it was in gear and I had some throttle control. (But that's a "Tuesday Afternoon Quarterback" type of comment for sure...)
The wind had picked up some, so there was no way I was looking under the hood when out to sea, adrift; so as long as I still had some power and it wasn't getting any worse, we reversed course and powered back to the ramp -- just staying on plane, but with no extra power to zig and zag. So as a result, I did have to zig & zag to steer clear of any crossing vessels that I couldn't get in front of easily.
I'm man enough to admit that I had never checked the tightness of the nuts holding the Throttle Linkage in position.
Maybe the shop loosened it up in prior years when valves were adjusted, or maybe they loosened it up last year when I had some extensive head work done, but I'll admit -- it's my mistake; it's all on me as the Captain and Maintenance Chief...
Turns out the "Open End" of the throttle linkage loosened up and popped out of position, so that put slack into the cable and cut my throttle response by 50%. You can see the top (Open) cable end had moved off the throttle bracket in this picture:
The money I paid for the Helm Repair Manual more than paid for itself late on Sunday afternoon, as I had it repaired in just 5 minutes after I found the issue and checked the specs for cable length on both the Open and Closed sides of the cable. Now the Neutral Throttle Lever works just as it should and it "feels right" again; and with the engine off and it shifted into gear, the throttle cable advances all the way to the end stop as it should.
I think it's "Good To Go" now -- but it's also "Good To Know". So this coming weekend, I'll carry the small wrench and a photocopy of the Helm pages with me "just in case". But for sure -- before we head out, I'll be checking all the other fasteners under the cover for tightness -- and also do a check at the start of every season.
I feel like I dodged a bullet on this one, but I'm sharing my story to "Kick Myself in the A**" and learn from this event, and to maybe help somebody else avoid having this issue.
Oh! I'm also glad we didn't go 15 miles out looking for whales liked we'd thought about....................
So... Have you checked your throttle linkages lately?!?!
Old No7
Five Nautical Miles out to sea on Sunday afternoon, cruising along with my yellow lab & bride in my 19' Arima Sea Ranger in light ocean swells at ~4k rpm, and I powered the Honda BF130 up to cross before a ferry crossed in front of me (plenty of room, no worries). And then I remember throttling back down again to cross a large lobster boat's wake that had "square waves"... (As he was running quite a load on his boat.)
Anyway, I throttled back up and -- "Uh oh -- I'm limited to only 3.2k rpm..." -- just about 10 or 11 mph based on the sea state and trim. Shifting into neutral when it was safe, I found "no resistance" and "no response" to the Neutral Throttle lever, so I was thinking either something in the control (late 1999 boat & motor) or engine side had broken or loosened up.
In hindsight, if there was something broken, I should not have shifted into neutral but should have kept power to the engine as long as it was in gear and I had some throttle control. (But that's a "Tuesday Afternoon Quarterback" type of comment for sure...)
The wind had picked up some, so there was no way I was looking under the hood when out to sea, adrift; so as long as I still had some power and it wasn't getting any worse, we reversed course and powered back to the ramp -- just staying on plane, but with no extra power to zig and zag. So as a result, I did have to zig & zag to steer clear of any crossing vessels that I couldn't get in front of easily.
I'm man enough to admit that I had never checked the tightness of the nuts holding the Throttle Linkage in position.
Maybe the shop loosened it up in prior years when valves were adjusted, or maybe they loosened it up last year when I had some extensive head work done, but I'll admit -- it's my mistake; it's all on me as the Captain and Maintenance Chief...
Turns out the "Open End" of the throttle linkage loosened up and popped out of position, so that put slack into the cable and cut my throttle response by 50%. You can see the top (Open) cable end had moved off the throttle bracket in this picture:
The money I paid for the Helm Repair Manual more than paid for itself late on Sunday afternoon, as I had it repaired in just 5 minutes after I found the issue and checked the specs for cable length on both the Open and Closed sides of the cable. Now the Neutral Throttle Lever works just as it should and it "feels right" again; and with the engine off and it shifted into gear, the throttle cable advances all the way to the end stop as it should.
I think it's "Good To Go" now -- but it's also "Good To Know". So this coming weekend, I'll carry the small wrench and a photocopy of the Helm pages with me "just in case". But for sure -- before we head out, I'll be checking all the other fasteners under the cover for tightness -- and also do a check at the start of every season.
I feel like I dodged a bullet on this one, but I'm sharing my story to "Kick Myself in the A**" and learn from this event, and to maybe help somebody else avoid having this issue.
Oh! I'm also glad we didn't go 15 miles out looking for whales liked we'd thought about....................
So... Have you checked your throttle linkages lately?!?!
Old No7