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Engine no longer starts but cranks fine. Help please

J

jid

Contributing Member
I'm pulling my hair out with this 92 230B motor. It will no longer start. Looking for some advice on where to begin. Or more like where to go next.

history: boat was out of the water for service. Tach hadn't worked in years so I fixed it. Once back in the water, motor wouldn't rev past 3600rpm under load. Boat had a hard time starting (sounded like fuel starvation) after annual service. NOTE: marina replaced an electric fuel pump with a mechanical one during the service. It was using an automobile pump and probably a ticking time-bomb.

what happened next: Replaced the carburetor with the Weber 3236. Boat wouldn't start or start consistently. Replaced ignition coil. Replaced wires. Manually rigged up electric fuel pump. Verified fuel pressure. Replaced old gas with new fuel.

what happens now: Tinkering with the carburetor I can get the boat to start sometimes. It will rip superhigh and then the RPM drops off and it dies. I thought I had it running at one time but it died once under load. I have been tinkering with the carburetor ever cents. Including replacing plugs. I also tried resetting the 32/36.


So right now I'm stumped. Next to trying a different carburetor set up I don't know what to try.

i -did- put the old solex back on. And it didn't start with that either. But I might've had a vacuum leak then.


Speaking of, is there anyway to check for any leaks in the vacuum system? Or is it a closed system? I thought it was closed.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! I'm scratching my head!

joseph
 
The first thing we recommend is a compression test on all cylinders,followed with a open air gap spark test,lastly a proper fuel diagnosis
 
Sounds like you skipped a tooth or two on the timing belt. Do you have a repair manual it is common for the sprockets for the belt to get plugged up with rust. Go to boatinfo library and look up your engine.
 
AQ131 is the same engine the grooves in the crank sprocket are the ones that usually get plugged with crap you can get the belt at any auto part store for a volvo B230 it uses the same belt tensioner also. The cam and intermediate shaft sprockets are hard to find and can be pretty spendy. On mine the raw water pump was spraying water onto the sprocket and caused it to rust.
 
That would make sense. The water pump was replaced preventatively when the boat was out of the water.

is timing belt easy to replace?

messed up timing would totally make sense!
 
Bought a new timing belt and will rip into it this weekend. I watched a YouTube video on how to do the replacement and it doesn't look too hard.
 
Timing belt replaced. It is doing exactly the same thing. I also tried another carb. Same thing. New fuel. New pump. New wires. What is left for it to be?
 
Recheck your work,timing could still be one tooth off, Was compression ever checked,thread #2? Open air gap spark test run? Trying to help,starting with the basics>
 
Definitely have spark. Definitely have spark. Just started with the distributor cap and the coil and worked backwards. Also changed the plugs again.

Weird thing is that no matter what I do to it, it does exactly the same thing.


Did check compression today and all cylinders were within 5% of each other.

this is not my first engine. Totally have myself stumped right now.

I am going back through everything step-by-step. Definitely ghosts and gremlins.
 
jid said:
I'm pulling my hair out with this 92 230B motor. It will no longer start. Looking for some advice on where to begin. Or more like where to go next.

history: boat was out of the water for service. Tach hadn't worked in years so I fixed it. Once back in the water, motor wouldn't rev past 3600rpm under load. Boat had a hard time starting (sounded like fuel starvation) after annual service. NOTE: marina replaced an electric fuel pump with a mechanical one during the service. It was using an automobile pump and probably a ticking time-bomb.

what happened next: Replaced the carburetor with the Weber 3236. Boat wouldn't start or start consistently. Replaced ignition coil. Replaced wires. Manually rigged up electric fuel pump. Verified fuel pressure. Replaced old gas with new fuel.

what happens now: Tinkering with the carburetor I can get the boat to start sometimes. It will rip superhigh and then the RPM drops off and it dies. I thought I had it running at one time but it died once under load. I have been tinkering with the carburetor ever cents. Including replacing plugs. I also tried resetting the 32/36.


So right now I'm stumped. Next to trying a different carburetor set up I don't know what to try.

i -did- put the old solex back on. And it didn't start with that either. But I might've had a vacuum leak then.


Speaking of, is there anyway to check for any leaks in the vacuum system? Or is it a closed system? I thought it was closed.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! I'm scratching my head!

joseph
Click to expand...

Check the camshaft pully which on my boat had a rollerpin that had sheared/bent on the holding nut - probably from not oiling the camshaft adequately after a new head was installed. Sounds like a timing issue - my old Solex twin carb setup is often thought to be a problem but they are really very simple things I reckon and reliable mostly if tuned by the manual -or from someone on this forum who helped
 
Put the timing light on the #1 plug wire and see if it is in time 6 degrees at cranking speed with the starter. Is your battery fully charged?
 
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