Hello. I would greatly appreciate anyones help. I have a 1988 Searay, 4.3l, 175hp. I havent owned the boat long. It ran fine the first few (4-5) trips although there was some black smoke. So I went to take it out today (4 days later) and it was hard to start and ran rough at the landing so I pulled it out of the water before even taking it off the trailer. I noticed some black stuff that floated on the water and while it is not slick or sticky it does adhere to the skin quickly as well as the back of the boat and obviously cant be good for the water...it was almost "dry feeling". So anyway im in the driveway now..the boat is still hard to start and I have to give it some throttle to get it running and then it is not smooth at all. If I take it up to 3000rpms for 5 seconds or so it sound like it is trying to smooth out a little. The same black stuff is in the drive way now. With the motor off, I took the flame arrestor off and looked into the carb, it appeared as if there were a couple of drips of fuel going into the bottom on the left side. I was thinking it may be running really rich, the choke sticking (in/out?), Im really dont have a clue. I dont know any history on the boat as I bought it at an auction pretty cheap...hopefully I wont be sorry. Thank you if you have any ideas.
