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1989 70 hp E70TLCE Advice

N

nart

New member
Hello All.

I'm hoping to catch the attention of someone with some experience with the E70TLCE.

I recently inherited an 89' model on a 81' boston whaler sport 15. Here is some history on it as far as I know:

-It ran once about 4-5 years ago. It kept on blowing a fuse somewhere in the engine compartment. Since then it was sitting around in the yard.
-3-4 months ago it would not turn over, and was taken to a mechanic. They checked cylinder pressure, and determined that the power pack was bad, so it was replaced. They said it ran good on the hose.

This is when it came into my charge.

I took it out and while it did start, it soon started to die at low speed or idle, so I started to do research on this and other forums to try to fix it.

I now have it running fairly reliably (for a 22 year old machine) after buying a service manual, carb rebuild kits, spark plugs, fuel filter, fuel lines (post pump) and idle speed set screw/spring/nut from this site. But after working on it and using it for a few trips I have some questions that I think only experience will answer (perhaps I should mention we are running 50:1 premix and the oil side of the VRO has been sealed off):

-While rebuilding the carb, I noticed that the Idle Air Bleed Orifice has been replaced with just a long solid bolt and gasket to seal it off. From searching this and other forums it seems that there were at least a few versions of this carb manufactured. My question is, was the orifice ever replaced by a bolt by the factory, or is this someone else's idea? I have gotten it to idle by adjusting the mixture needle, but it seems like it is leaned out alot from the manual's suggested starting point of 2.5 turns. I am probably only out 1-1.25 turns. I am worried about not having enough oil in the cylinders at idle/low speed.

-Is the primer bulb on the gas tank supposed to stay firm or not? Initially it firms, but after starting/running it a bit it softens up. I can even pump it up while the engine is running and it will soften out again. It is my understanding that the purpose of the bulb is to fill the carb bowls/fuel lines and provide pressure to the choke solenoid. So if you push the key in during starting to choke it, pressure would drop and the bulb go soft. Is the fuel pump supposed to re-pressurize the line after it starts? I am concerned because after our first run after rebuilding carbs (about 15 minutes on plane), we then putted around for probably 5 minutes, the engine started to surge and sputter, so I pumped the bulb to see if that would help and it seemed to, but engine died out anyway. After the normal restarting process, it worked well putting around, but I would keep the bulb pumped up a little bit, and I have done that ever since to make sure it doesn't die out, which it hasn't. I guess I need to try to get some better correlation on this by trying to putt around without pumping the bulb to see if it dies again, but haven't had the opportunity. While the engine is running mid rpm or higher, everything is fine without keeping the bulb pumped up, although it is soft, and pumping it up doesn't seem to affect the behavior of the motor. I should probably also mention that we have a water separator mounted about 2' in front of the engine, then about 8-9' of fuel line to the bulb/tank. Could that much hose be putting too much resistance on the line for the pump at low speeds?

-I am worried about how much fuel this thing is using. I realize there are many, many contributing factors that determine fuel consumption, but I can easily use 4 -4.5 gallons of gas for about 12 miles of distance + low speed putting around. Does anyone have an opinion on this one way or the other?

Thanks for any advice you may have.

-Nathan
 
I have a E40ELCDE and the best thing for these engines is to get rid of the VRO, unless you have a new in package VRO and replaced it...

The primer bulb in the gas line is a check valve, it will deliver gas to the fuel pump when priming " when priming, it closes in the inlet creating pressure and exits in the outlet of the bulb, and that is why they have a direction stamped on it, it should follow the gas direction" and it should stay firm, if the bulb goes soft, check for leaks in the lines, fittings or the same bulb. Sometimes air leaks are difficult to spot. The choke solenoid gets the pressure from the fuel pump... if it is old, replace it. New gas lines, bulb, fittings are maintenance.
 
Ok thanks guys. I think I will replace the external fuel lines and bulb first to see if that does anything. Shopping around it seems like a new pump is going to be rather expensive!
 
I found an OMC premix pump that is a little bit less expensive but still 300+. Can you point me in the direction of one like you are talking about?

Thanks,

Nathan
 
Holy cow! I was thinking that these engines have fuel pump replacements but I checked and only found the VRO :S .... I was thinking my engine is a 40 and it has fuel pump replacements, hope someone will chime in and help...
 
I thought I would conclude this thread.

I am happy to say that I think I have a solution to my engine troubles.

I was given a hint that a fuel pump from the 83' model of my engine would work, and as it was much cheaper than alternatives (80 vs. new vro~380, vro rebuild kit ~150), I decided to give it a try. It is not a oil/mixing pump, just straight fuel pump driven by piston pulses, but as I am premixing anyway that is ok. It is much smaller than the vro and of course doesn't fit on to the vro bracket, but it is simple enough to make an adapter from a sheet of aluminum from home depot that mounts onto the vro bracket. There is plenty of room. The person that gave me the hint also said to remove the pulse limiter and use a plain hose fitting, which I did and it seems to work. I got a 1/8" npt to 5/8" hose fitting and the threads fit fine. I also replaced all of my fuel hose from tank to motor, and the primer bulb too (I checked the old ones and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them, now I have a backup I guess). I plumed it all up and did a pressure test with the bulb and then went down to the river today.

It started right up, but was idling really high, so I re sync and linked and adjusted the idle mixture was able to get it to idle at lower rpm than before. It also goes in and out of gear much better (no jolts). Low rpm putting-around is much better, no dying out and smooth. I also think that the engine has more 'grunt' when getting up on plane but might just be wishful thinking. The primer bulb does stay firm now. I am not sure about gas consumption yet as I could only stay out for about an hour today, but I could barely notice a drop in fuel level in the tank, and that was an hour of driving around and testing, not an hour of fishing or anything, so I think that it will be better but won't know for sure until I take it out for a full day and make my usual runs.

On a side note, when I removed the VRO, I noticed there was quite a bit of gas in the pulse line from the air chamber to the crankcase (enough to pour out), so I decided to take it apart and look around. I didn't see any cracks in the casing, or tears in the diaphragms or anything, but I was missing a big Oring, #8 here: http://www.maxrules.com/graphics/VROpics/VRO_kitparts.gif , so maybe that was the problem from the beginning? I dunno. I don't think it is normal to have gas in the air chamber/pulse line, so maybe that is why I was using alot of gas. The new pump is much simpler and new, so I am glad to be getting rid of the old worn out complicated vro.

At any rate there you go in case you are having the same problems as I was and want to know what I did to fix it. I'll update this if anything changes or the engine explodes.

Thanks for everyone's help!
 
On that 89 ---70 HP where is the hose fitting located on the block, for the water indicator ??--------There was a factory service bulletin on that, to relocate it.
 
I think that has been done already. It is coming off of the top of the exhaust manifold cover, rather than where it is shown on the part view...and I can see a bolt blocking of the hole where it was originally.
 
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