1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

[Starcraft5834]

bought this boat this year, was tuned up at a marine shop before I bought it, compression good,,,has it out twice, last run three weeks ago,,hard starting, flooded carb,, got her going,,ran perfect rest of day,4500 WOT with 4 blade on my 19.6 cuddy,, every key turn,, boom,, started up first flick..today, would not start, tried,, would not make it,,, I dropped it off at a local marine shop and was asked if I put stable in tank,, nope was my answer... got scolded for that...apparently running unleaded gas causes problems in these carbs,, why?? ethonoyl? does that gum up the carb?

the initial tune up and fluid change performed by a marine shop in the area I purchased this boat,,plugs, dist cap, fluids, filters,, all normal stuff was done,, cleaning and checking carb? probably not... the marine tech I spoke to today said he was going to first test the gas,,said he had something other than stable to straighten out the gas if needed,,, then was going to "boil" the carb in cleaning it,,

why is stable so important? Im learning the hard way on this one,, thanks for input guys..

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

The further north you go the longer the layup period. Ethonal really likes water, kind of a mistress for gas (They should never mix but they want each other LOL). During the winter there are warm and cold days and each time the temp changes air goes in and out of the tank. Air has mosture in it and the Ethanol absorbes the mosture in the air. Products like Sta-Bil are known as oxidation inhibitors. Their objective is to slow the degradation of the fuel molecule by keeping the fuel and oxygen from reacting. This type of protective stabiliser will generally last for up to two years depending on the environment the fuel is stored. Humid areas don't last nearly as long as arid environments due to moisture. So think of the stabiliser as putting a protective barrier around the fuel molecule to keep it away from the air.

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

well explained,,,,thanks,,, so carbs especially dont like extra moisture and ethonal?

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

well explained,,,,thanks,,, so carbs especially dont like extra moisture and ethonal?

No engine likes ethonal but carbs are open to the air, so for the most part yes. Suggest when you put it away for the winter either drain the carb or shut the fuel off and run it till it dies.

 

[NHGuy]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

So twice it was hard starting & then ran OK once you got it going. Sounds like a cold starting issue to me. I'd have thought your mechanic would have checked your choke. Or did he test the gas before he told you to treat it? If the gas IS is bad it will mess up your carb though, so he may be on to something. On the other hand why didn't the starting problem show up when he had it before? Perhaps he noticed the carb problem while working on it before. Did he say anything like that?
By the way, you don't need stabilizer in the middle of the season, just for storage.
And you are correct, carb motors (and all engines) don't run well with moisture or contaminated fuel. Moisture can be removed from a good carburetor by a qualified person ,but must also be removed from the supply. If the fuel had water in it for a longer period it reacts with the ethanol as stated above and becomes bad stuff that needs to be removed from the tank to avoid plugging up your carb after the carb is fixed.
Maybe he wants to do the carb to eliminate it as a cause of trouble.

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

Yes Lt.. both,, the tech at my local well respected Merc shop, said exactly that,, was going to test the fuel and see if phase separation occured, if so, was going to add something to fix that.. he also said was going to take the choke out and "boil it",, adjust and check. I agree completly, a cold starting issue, combined with moisture likely, the initial tune up performed from another marine shop 2 hrs north of me did not include carb work.. The first shop I took it to for the initial check out and tune up before I bought it, returned it to me with all winterization out of the boat. This was in mid March in the north east,,, fortunately when I got it home I quicky pumped 5 gallons of RV anti-freeze back into her... for the record Mid march around the north east is COLD!!,, we had 3 nights in a row around 20 degrees. the engine is fine thanks to me taking care of his lack of wizdom. what an idiot!! thanks all......

 

[Maclin]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

"returned it to me with all winterization out of the boat"

If this means he drained all water/coolant out then in my opinion that is a good and proper state to return it in during cold weather, just sayin'...

 

[PeterB26]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

There is some good advice here but a lot of confusion too.

First of all the ehtanol doesn't harm the motor one bit. But it does eat some rubber gaskets and fuel lines. So if the boat is older there might be isues with that. And those are BIG problems waiting to get you. However if the boat is newer then all the gaskets and hoses should be "type A approved," in other words OK with alcohol.

NEXT: ethanol is an agressive cleaner. So if there was crud in the fuel system, like in an old gas tank, often the first several tanks of E-10 scour out that crud and it goes forth into your carb and clogs it up. This would result in no idle or maybe rough running, or unable to get RPM up under load. In other words fuel starvation symptoms. But this would not cause running perfectly one day, and then after sitting, not starting at all.

Now if you have a vintage Bertram with a fiberglass tank, you have a special case. The E-10 eats the tank resin and some of that stuff will get in to your motor and form a balck goo. The goo seems to be just a PITA when running, causing rough running and so on, but when you shut down and the engines cool off, it hardens. This has caused the untilmely death of more than one Bertram motor! If you don't have an old a Bertram, you proably don't have a fiberglass tank, so we could eliminate that as the root of your problem. Newer polyester fibergalss resins are OK with ethanol, BTW. So new polyester fibergalss tanks are fine. Epoxy, though is like cotton candy with ethanol. If you have a home built epoxy tank, it will be toast in a matter of weeks. Also the ethanol vapors will permeate thorugh plastic tanks. They won't leak, but they might introduce some oder in your bilge if they are internally mounted.

NEXT: ethanol and water mix. So when your E-10 fuel gets water in it from whatever source, the water stays in suspension in the fuel with the ethanol and passes through to your engine where it doesn't do any harm. In fact it probably cleans your carbon deposits out. (An old mechanics trick to de-carbon combustion chambers was to mist a little water into the intake with the engine running. Don't try this yourself because too much water is a disaster.)

NEXT: phase seperation ONLY occurs when the water in the fuel reaches a critical level. Then ALL the water and ALL the ETHANOL drop out of the fuel together to puddle in the bottom of the tank. BUT you can't just drain this puddle out like you used to drain water out of the old gas... because when you remove it you also remove all the ehtanol. Now what remains in your tank is out of spec gas to the low octane side. That can do violent damage to your motor! Low octane gas causes knock and knock can blow holes in your pistions, among other things.

Now in old style gas the water would puddle in the bottom and you could draw that off and what was left was fine. This characteristic was used to create water separating fuel filters. Someone described the water separating fuel filter as "a roll of toilet paper sitting on top of a coffee mug." and it is a pretty good description. The inlet is through the center of the TP roll. The water sinks to the bottom of the coffee mug where you draw it off daily or as needed. The outlet is on the outside of the TP roll so it sucks the gas through the TP to filter it. Fair enough.... but the filter isn't magical. It will happily filter water and ethanol just as well as gasoline. And since you now know that in E-10 the water is in suspension in the gas, and never sinks ot the bottom until phase separation occurs, you can see that water separating fuel filters are a waste of time with E-10. They can not and do not separate out the water from E-10. Fortunatley they don't have to.

SO when phase separation occurs you have a couple of choices to deal with it.
One is to drain off the ethanol and water, dispose of it somehow, and put more ethanol back into your tank to bring the remaining gas into spec.
Two is to just add more ethanol and the water and old ethanol will go back into suspension in the gasoline, but now you will have E-12 or something or other. Probably harmless to your motor though unless you have some of those tender fuel lines or seals. In which case you had better get after them anyway.
Third is if the tank is mostly empty you can top up with fresh fuel. The load of ethanol in the new batch of fuel probably will bring the entire tank close to spec and it will definately add enough ethanol to put the water and old ethanol back into suspension. If it doesn't add a can of DriGas.

NEXT: ethanol evaporates quickly. If the boat sits for a long time, like over the winter in the NE.... then a lot of the ethanol will evaporate out of your gas through the open vent. (Cars no longer have fuel tanks with open vents. Boats still do.) You will have to add more ethanol in the spring.... But how much? You would have test a sample of your fuel to figure it out... so better yet, store the boat with the tanks almost empty and top up before you commission for the first time in the spring.

OK...now I can just about guarantee that you do not have phase separation in your tank because you wouldn't have gotten the motor to run at all on the puddle of ethanol and water that would have been at the fuel pick up in your tank. And in fact if you do the math it takes a heck of alot of condensation before you are in any danger of getting phase separation from the boat just sitting. Not impossible, but not likely. A more likely culprit is if the fuel filler cap leaks a bit. Anyway phase separation is easily cured with a can of Dri-Gas or just by adding more fresh gas into the tank if there is room for it. But phase separation can't be your problem because the boat ran fine the last time you were out,.... unless you got a load of water in the tank somehow.... like you left the filler cap loose in the rain.

Also consider that the water in the gas is constantly being consumed with the fuel since the water is throughout the gasoline and it doesn't sit on the bottom and collect like it used to. So any water in, goes right back out, up untill phase separation takes place. So saying something like: "It's been 5 seasons since anyone drained water off the bottom of the tank, so maybe there is a buildup" is utter nonsense. There is either NO water (the usual situation) or there is phase separation. Nothing in between.

So back at your problem with no start: It isn't phase separation unless water somehow got into your tank since the last time the boat ran. Unlikley. And it isn't water in the carb because of the same thinking. There is no place for water to come from to collect in the carb because there is no water puddle in the tank. And it probably isn't a clogged carb because that would act like fuel starvation, not running great one day and no start the next.

BUT it could be your automatic choke. Or your needle and seat in the float bowl. OR much more likely.....it could be an ignition problem, and have nothing to do with the fuel at all. And oft times that has to do with the ignition cut out on the shifter.....

There is a little switch that shuts off the ignition for a fraction of a second as you shift. If that switch is mal-adjusted it can cause your motor to not start. (Or to stop entierly when you least expect it.) But here is the bugger.... If the shift lever is a little out of place it can activate that switch and the motor won't start! So the first thing to do is to wiggle your shifter around a bit and see if that changes things.

Sometimes it is the stupid simlpe stuff that gets ya!

Peter

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

Capt Maclin.... the shop was in Utica NY, they ran the engine and tested it, removing ALL winterization and left WATER only in the engine.... I asked the owner why would you not put antifreeze back into the engine considering all the cold weather yet to come, he said, you will be fine..... what an idiot........

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

that's a lot of info Peter.. will see what the "experts" come up with. it's a 1987 Imperial VC 200, stored in a garage over winters,, ran like a champ across one of the NYS fingerlakes several weeks ago, trailered and stored at my home, does not sit on water.. ran at 4500 WOT 33mph with 4 blade Solas 15P 14.7 inch,,with 5 adults in the boat.. thermostat reading good,, new impeller installed by the first shop,, problems starting,, once going and take that first rip out of gate... starts with a flick of key everytime... teleflex throttle,, pull it out to take it out of gear at intial start up, pump it a bit,,,flood.......... tried to start without any pumping, nothing,,,, got to be carburator adjustment,, electrical components replaced during tune up.. carb was likely not touched....

 

[PeterB26]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

teleflex throttle,, pull it out to take it out of gear at intial start up

So when you pull the lever out to disconnect it form the shift cable you no longer move the shift control cable when you pump the throttle. So you don't move the shift linkages at the motor either. If the shift mechinsim is not in the "sweet spot" and has engaged the cut out switch you won't change things moving the lever withit pulled out. Push it in to engage the shifter mechanism. Wiggle it; cycle it through from forward to reverse and back to neutral; try moving it just a wee bit this way and that in neutral as you try the key. I'm betting the ignition cut out shift switch is engaged, and now that you tell me about the type of control you have it seems even more likely to me. You only have to have the shift mechinism a little off "the sweet spot" or the shift switch a little mis-adjusted and it will do exactly as you describe. And you certainly wouldn't be the first person to get stung by this little trick.

But don't count on a mechanic telling you to just wiggle the shifter when he can charge you a fat fee for "rebuilding your carb".... even though once started the boat runs like a champ so there can be nothing wrong with your carb other than perhaps a minor adjustment of the automatic choke..... If he is really clever he will also drain the tank and put in fresh gas. The old gas, which is perfectly fine, will go straight into his boat or car. A common trick of the trade.

Do you know how to start a carburated motor with a manual choke once it is flooded? You open the choke (shut it off) and open the throttle and the flooded motor starts right up. Of course you have to be ready to snatch the trottle back once it catches. You can do something similar with an automatic choke by pushing the choke butterfly open with a stick, but this is for advanced users only. Don't use your fingers or be looking straight into the carb when you try to start the motor because poorly adjusted motors can backfire through the carb and blow flames at you! But likley it isn't your choke because the motor probably would have snorted or popped or something before it flooded.

Check the shift switch. If nothing else you can tell your mechanic "I already checked the shift switch" and impress him that you are not clueless.

Peter

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

thanks for busting my balls, I think..................learing as we go,,,,,,,,,,,at my expense

 

[PeterB26]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

thanks for busting my balls, I think..................learing as we go,,,,,,,,,,,at my expense

I am most DEFINATELY NOT busting your balls.
Seriously, I'm not!
And I am trying to SAVE you expense.

The shift switch is a much more common fault than you might imagine. Many a Merc boater has been burned by the shift switch. It is one of those odd little nuances you need to learn about Mercruisers. And how do you learn if someone doesn't tell you? The hard way...that's how.

None of us were born knowing that Mercruiser has a stupid switch that shuts off the motor when you shift it. Where else in the world do people shut off the motor for a moment to shift gears? It isn't intuitive. So I'm not busting your balls.

As far as the long post about the E-10: I figure lots of people will come to read these posts in the future. A lot of what I put into that post is meant to be helpful to future readers who may find it because they are researching similar problems.

I think a lot of "experts" and professional mechanics are still confused on the ethanol issues, so they are not intending to be dishonest when they give you advice based on years of experience with the "old" style gasoline. That doesn't mean that they are correct though. Ethanol is a game changer for fuel management. We can't apply our grandpa's wisdom about fuel systems to the new ethanol laced gasoline. We have to adjust our thinking. And unless you put all the factoids together in one explanation it isn't easy to figure it out.

Anyway it COULD be that your choke needs service... but before you go ripping into the carb just try wiggling the shifter... it doesn't cost you a penny to try it. I might very well be wrong about your particular situation, but I could also be right about it for some future reader of this thread.

Good luck.

Peter

 

[Starcraft5834]

Re: 1987 Mercruiser 3.0 liter FLOODING...wont start- STABLE?? help

Thanks Peter,, like I said, the boat is at the marine shop now, I suppose I could haul it out of there...and try the wiggle.. I did send a message via their website to check the shift switch first. I will be calling monday to make sure they get the message I want the obvious ruled out before any major carb work,, on the other hand,,one should not have to "wiggle" anything, its like kicking the fender to start the motor,, will see what they tell me, I certainly will keep what you said in mind,, I am an expert in my own profession,, boat engines are NOT included . thanks much for input.. this also is a test to see the character of the marine shop too.. If the shift switch needs adjustment and the carb needs adjustment too, I want it fixed and dont want to wiggle anything to make it work....I had no idea there was a switch that might be causing this issue... thanks again for your input...