70 VRO ran with no oil and/or fuel problem

[rwiens]

I have a mid-80's vintage 70 Evinrude VRO that started to die at WOT after some skiing and tubing. Would start fine and idle with a little choke. I let it cool down and took it out for another spin (a minute or two at most). Same thing. Checked the oil tank to discover it was completely dry (I had been getting weird intermittent alarms - constant beep - which I thought was a flaky overtemp sensor so was ignoring...I would get it on start up but after a minute or so it would stop).

So my question is, what are the symptoms of an engine running without oil and would my WOT problem be explained by this or is it unrelated? I know that running without oil for long enough would cause a full blown seize but the engine seemed to turn over just fine.

I didn't have any more oil with me at the cottage so just left the boat in the water. Anything else special I need to do after I refill the tank, other than give the bulb a few squeezes?

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: 70 VRO ran with no oil and/or fuel problem

remove the oil line at the pump and make sure oil gets there. squirt some oil in each cylinder before starting, it has no lubrication right now. start motor, then, i would then do a compression check, before running it far. never ignore an alarm, can be expensive mistake.

J/E Alarms

low oil alarm is a beep every 30 seconds. beep......................beep...................

no oil alarm is a beep every 1/2 second or so.beep,beep,beep

overheat and fuel restriction alarm is a constant beep.beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

 

[rwiens]

Re: 70 VRO ran with no oil and/or fuel problem

Thanks. I'm assuming you get oil into the head by taking the plugs out?

So you confirmed that the alarm I was hearing was the overheat...but it didn't make sense that I would get it on startup after the engine had been sitting cold for days or weeks or months. I didn't realize that it also signalled fuel restriction, although that wouldn't make sense for the same reasons.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: 70 VRO ran with no oil and/or fuel problem

take the plugs out, tilt the motor up, put some oil in, let the oil sit in there for a little while, then with plugs out, turn the motor over. do not stand behind it, as it is going to spray oil out the plug holes. put plugs back in and start the motor.

the beep you hear, when you turn the key, is the system checking itself.