I bought a 16' Bayliner Cobra with a 85 hp Force engine this last weekend. I had it out and was following a friend in his boat (tri-hull with 140 Johnson). We were in a no wake zone for around 2 miles, and our over heat alarms went off at the exact same time. We sat it out for 30 minutes before trying to restart. My boat started, his did not. I towed him back through the no wake zone, and my alarm never went off. Once we got through, I ran a thousand or so more RPM's through it. About a mile later, he got his boat going, so we were on our way. We dropped his boat off, and I took him skiing through a pretty weedy area. This went on for about a half an hour. When I went to pick him up, I shut the engine down. It was off for around 5 minutes. When I went to start it again, it would only start if I put it in neutral and gave it full throttle and tap the choke. When I would throttle back to engage the gear, it would die out before it would "click" into nuetral. He went and grabbed his boat and towed me to his dock. It sat for around 1.5 hours since it smelled pretty loaded up, I thought I would let it sit. When I tried to start it again, it acted the same way. I could only start it in neutral with full throttle. I let it run for about 5 minutes like that, thinking to burn out any extra fuel. (???) I dropped it into gear, it stayed running, so I took off. It was not running even close to full potential. When I got about 1/4 of a mile from the dock, it sputtered and died and the over heat alarm came on again. <br />1. At an idle, the water was just barely spitting water out of the vent holes on the back of the engine. I changed the impeller, the old one had one torn fin, and the others had flat spots worn into them.<br />2. I changed the plugs. It had Champions, I replaced with NGK's. The bottom cylinder's plug was pretty clean. The middle was fairly gummed and the top one was very gummed.<br />Since doing the work, I have not had a chance to test it. Any thoughts on what happened and did I take the correct course?<br />Also, where is the heat sensor suppose to go?<br />Thanks for your help, James
