Forum | High speed miss!!!

Well, the miss is gone, but I'm not 100% sure what solved the problem as I did three things.

I re-gapped all six sparkplugs to the correct 0.30 gap.

I changed the cracked fuel line from the primer bulb to the outboard.  The filter I didn't replace as it was VERY clean.

And, after this morning, I changed the starting battery.  I tried to launch it yesterday morning, only to find the starting battery was dead.  So, I took it home and checked the battery.  It was reading low, and I thought maybe the onboard charger wasn't doing it's job.  So I put on my automatic charger onto the Optima battery and it started charging.  By this morning, it was totally charged and raring to go.

So, once again, I headed to Paris Landing, boat in tow.  I got to the landing on Kentucky Lake, readied the boat and backed it down to the water.  Thinking ahead, I put it in only far enough for the motor to be started, but not so far that the boat would slide off the trailer.

Climbing in, I hit the key and absolutely NOTHING happened, again!!! 

I stopped at a friend's place in Paris, TN and looked up Optima Battery's website.  I found four dealers in Paris and started calling.  ALL of them said the same thing.  "If you want it replaced under warranty, take it back to the place you bought it!" 

I explained that I bought the battery in northern Wisconsin and that it would "only" take 14 hours of high speed driving one way in order to do that.  They ALL said, "Well, you should have thought of that when you bought the battery."  Even after I explained that I LIVED there at the time and didn't know I was going to be living in Tennessee, they didn't cut me any slack and refused to honor the six months remaining on the warranty.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a marine starting battery.  And have sent a very polite "Nasty-Gram" to Optima.

But, I did go back to the lake and tried out the boat.  It started perfectly, and ran perfectly smooth throughout the entire power range.  So maybe it was just a very weak battery??? 

On another note, my bow locator had been giving me trouble lately.  Every time I stepped on the trolling motor power switch, the screen would fuzz out.  And the digital temperature wasn't reading exactly correct.  It showed that the water was -0.6 degrees farenheit! 

So while I was farting with the multi-meter yesterday, I unscrewed the bow panel and discovered the power cord had a crack in the insulation.  I wrapped that up in electrical tape and now not only does my locator screen remain clear, it showed me that the surface temperature of Kentucky Lake is 83.6 degrees.  So it's cooling down nicely.

I'm thinking that a trip to Hole # 179 might be in order soon! 

Well, if that's the problem, then I'll know who to come to for a coil! 

That's a good idea!  If this "fix" doesn't work, I'll see about giving that a try….

Heck, I'm going to do something, now let's just see if it's right…

Yesterday, when I was running hither and yon all over the lake, and heading back to the ramp, I noticed that my 1998 Evinrude 225 Vindicator was missing whenever I got the rpms over 4,000.  It didn't do that any other time during the day and idled fine coming into Paris Landing.

When I got home, I pulled the cowl and checked the spark plugs.  They're supposed to have 0.30 gaps.  All of them were above, at 0.38 to 0.45.  But the plugs themselves looked fine, with a light coat of brown/tan.  So, I regapped the plugs and set them all back to 0.30 (as per the sticker on the motor).

Then I noticed that my fuel line leading from the bulb to the motor had a couple cracks.  So thinking back, if my boat sat for a week, I needed to pump up the primer bulb.  But the boat ran fine.

Well, today I replaced the bulb and the fuel line, and while I was at it, I checked the fuel filter.  It's nice and clean, and I can easily blow through it.

Can you guys think of anything else that might cause the motor to miss that I should check???