Long time reader, first time poster here! Was out on the water yesterday (God bless Texas in January) and had a little nerve racking moment when I was cruising along and suddenly lost power to a complete stop and shut down. Initially thought power loss via battery bc it took it a few minutes to allow me to crank back up. Let sit for a few and cranked back up but noticed I was running on 3 cylinders. Heard the sound of compressed air leaving the piston not firing which was a relief (sound of compression is reassuring). Started pulling plugs on port side and 95% sure I identified it being the top port side. In pulling plugs, I saw that the coil was sending spark so knew it wasn't missing bc of lack of spark. Pulled spark plug while out there on water and didn't see any issues with plug (once again, thank god).
Was getting dark so figured i'd just limp back to ramp on 3 cylinders. Hearing that compression was interesting, never heard before, but was consistent via rpm so knew it was just one cylinder. I tried giving it a little gas and... to my surprise... she slowly started picking up momentum until all of a sudden, jumped up on a plane! slowed back down in no wake zone close to ramp and heard it start missing again then clear up another minute or two later.
Thoughts - since I was hearing that noise, I was thinking it was a potential reed valve sticking and not letting air through during that cycle. Read on forums that reed valves rarely go bad but just thought sticking was possible since it was intermittent. Another later thought was a low carb jet gunked up but my hesitation with that theory would be - why did it come off a plane if it was just a low speed jet issue.
I'll notate that after putting in a new battery 2 trips back, my volts have been a little high, around 15.5, replaced rectifier which had no fix. Read though that is not totally out of the ordinary for some of these older engines. Also looked under flywheel and didn't see anything out of the ordinary with stator/trigger.
Taking it out again tomorrow to diagnose as well as go work on another boat but figured I'd see if anyone has run into this issue. Rebuilt engine last spring so have for the most part, pretty knowledgeable, just havent run into this one before...
Weston
Was getting dark so figured i'd just limp back to ramp on 3 cylinders. Hearing that compression was interesting, never heard before, but was consistent via rpm so knew it was just one cylinder. I tried giving it a little gas and... to my surprise... she slowly started picking up momentum until all of a sudden, jumped up on a plane! slowed back down in no wake zone close to ramp and heard it start missing again then clear up another minute or two later.
Thoughts - since I was hearing that noise, I was thinking it was a potential reed valve sticking and not letting air through during that cycle. Read on forums that reed valves rarely go bad but just thought sticking was possible since it was intermittent. Another later thought was a low carb jet gunked up but my hesitation with that theory would be - why did it come off a plane if it was just a low speed jet issue.
I'll notate that after putting in a new battery 2 trips back, my volts have been a little high, around 15.5, replaced rectifier which had no fix. Read though that is not totally out of the ordinary for some of these older engines. Also looked under flywheel and didn't see anything out of the ordinary with stator/trigger.
Taking it out again tomorrow to diagnose as well as go work on another boat but figured I'd see if anyone has run into this issue. Rebuilt engine last spring so have for the most part, pretty knowledgeable, just havent run into this one before...
Weston
