Flynny
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2011
- Messages
- 86
My first post here 
, my dad and I have goggled various problems and were often led to posts here, but I decided it was finally time to make an account. I'm 16 and I love tinkering with and fixing stuff; I repair and build computers and I do a lot of the maintenance on our boat.
You don't have to read this now, skip to last few posts:
1. This problem has us baffled. Sorry for the long write-up, I tried to keep it short but their are multiple symptoms. We were out tubing with some of my friends a week ago when the warning buzzer started going off after about 3 hours out on the water. It was not a consistent beep like the engine was overheating, but I checked anyways and a steady stream of water was coming out of the engine, but our temperature gauge does not work, so I could not be sure. We were headed back in for the day anyways, so we didn't worry too much about it at that moment.
The beep was strange, as if their was a loose connection with the buzzer or something, because it was not the oil low beep (I've heard that before), or rapid beeps like the "no oil" error. The best way I can describe is if you took the buzzer wires and ran them across the terminals of a battery quickly, like a bad connection. I checked the battery connections and they were/are tight. We decided to take it out the next day to see if we would get the same beeps, and we did, almost as soon as we were on plane. But this time, the buzzer stayed on even was we idled back to the ramp.
When we got home, I went to start the motor to flush it, but when I turned the key I did not get the short beep that always happens when the key is turned to the
"on" position (that beep is almost religious to me, it marks the beginning of a fun day on the water.). So I turned the key off, then back on. Now the buzzer stayed on, but the engine could not possibly be overheating because it was not running and had not been running for a half hour. So I turned the key back to off, then back on again. Now I got the regular beep and I continued with flushing.
Since then we have not been on the water in case something is wrong with the VRO or something else, but we have not been able to re-create the beeping in our driveway either. Any ideas as to what could cause an in-consistent beep? I'm thinking of checking the VRO with this method, if you guys think that is a good idea. It got to 102 degrees in Boston today so we would like to be back on the water ASAP!
If you have time, we have two more much smaller problems:
Second problem, our automatic choke does not work. Try as hard as you might, you cannot start the engine without lifting off the cover and turning that little red level on the choke solenoid. As soon as you do that, the engine starts faster than you can take your hand off the key. This problem is more of a PITA than an actual problem, but how hard is it to replace the solenoid? Should we just let a mechanic do it?
Third, the mechanic who transferred our engine from the boat we bought it with (a decaying Larson) never hooked up the tachometer or engine temperature gauge :facepalm:. The engine that was originally on this boat ('98 Sea Ray 17ft bowrider) was a Mercury, so I understand the connections may be a little different, but I also understand temperature gauges and tachometers work in pretty much the same way across all engines. Would I be able to hook these up if I can trace the wires? It looks like some has put electrical tape on every wire bundle in the engine (or does it come from the factory like this?), which makes it much harder to trace wires but I might be able to do it with a wiring diagram. EDIT: I did some more research and finally found out what the mysterious female plug on the control box is. Now I just have to find out where I can buy that three prong tach cable and splice it in the existing tach.
Thank you!
, my dad and I have goggled various problems and were often led to posts here, but I decided it was finally time to make an account. I'm 16 and I love tinkering with and fixing stuff; I repair and build computers and I do a lot of the maintenance on our boat. You don't have to read this now, skip to last few posts:
1. This problem has us baffled. Sorry for the long write-up, I tried to keep it short but their are multiple symptoms. We were out tubing with some of my friends a week ago when the warning buzzer started going off after about 3 hours out on the water. It was not a consistent beep like the engine was overheating, but I checked anyways and a steady stream of water was coming out of the engine, but our temperature gauge does not work, so I could not be sure. We were headed back in for the day anyways, so we didn't worry too much about it at that moment.
The beep was strange, as if their was a loose connection with the buzzer or something, because it was not the oil low beep (I've heard that before
), or rapid beeps like the "no oil" error. The best way I can describe is if you took the buzzer wires and ran them across the terminals of a battery quickly, like a bad connection. I checked the battery connections and they were/are tight. We decided to take it out the next day to see if we would get the same beeps, and we did, almost as soon as we were on plane. But this time, the buzzer stayed on even was we idled back to the ramp.When we got home, I went to start the motor to flush it, but when I turned the key I did not get the short beep that always happens when the key is turned to the
"on" position (that beep is almost religious to me, it marks the beginning of a fun day on the water.
). So I turned the key off, then back on. Now the buzzer stayed on, but the engine could not possibly be overheating because it was not running and had not been running for a half hour. So I turned the key back to off, then back on again. Now I got the regular beep and I continued with flushing. Since then we have not been on the water in case something is wrong with the VRO or something else, but we have not been able to re-create the beeping in our driveway either. Any ideas as to what could cause an in-consistent beep? I'm thinking of checking the VRO with this method, if you guys think that is a good idea. It got to 102 degrees in Boston today so we would like to be back on the water ASAP!
If you have time, we have two more much smaller problems:
Second problem, our automatic choke does not work. Try as hard as you might, you cannot start the engine without lifting off the cover and turning that little red level on the choke solenoid. As soon as you do that, the engine starts faster than you can take your hand off the key. This problem is more of a PITA than an actual problem, but how hard is it to replace the solenoid? Should we just let a mechanic do it?
Third, the mechanic who transferred our engine from the boat we bought it with (a decaying Larson) never hooked up the tachometer or engine temperature gauge :facepalm:. The engine that was originally on this boat ('98 Sea Ray 17ft bowrider) was a Mercury, so I understand the connections may be a little different, but I also understand temperature gauges and tachometers work in pretty much the same way across all engines. Would I be able to hook these up if I can trace the wires? It looks like some has put electrical tape on every wire bundle in the engine (or does it come from the factory like this?), which makes it much harder to trace wires but I might be able to do it with a wiring diagram. EDIT: I did some more research and finally found out what the mysterious female plug on the control box is.
Now I just have to find out where I can buy that three prong tach cable and splice it in the existing tach. Thank you!
