I recently purchased a '76 SeaCraft Sceptre with a 2000 225 Ficht E225FPXSSH 390hrs. I am a complete noob to outboards and ended up with one of the most finicky outboards ever made. May as well jump in the deep end! The person I bought it from was the original owner. All paperwork and maintenance records came with it and go back to 1976 on the boat and 2000 on the motor. The boat and motor have been babied. The first voyage she idled into open water fine. I hit the throttle and it sputtered to a stop but didn't die. I hit it again and then it died. Would only fire up with throttle wide open. Towed it back.
Got it home and put it on the muffs using an external tank with fresh fuel. The boat also has 2 brand new fuel filters. New indexed plugs and new t-stats. I Connected the fuel pressure gauge and fired it up. No alarms no codes per Ev software. EMM good with water flowing. EMM was repaired and updated in 2014 per paperwork that came with the boat. No historic fault codes popped up.
The high pressure pump started at 20psi (which I think is already a bit low) and within a minute starts slowly dropping. Gets down to 15psi then you can here the fuel pump spin up loudly and the pressure hits 30psi. The fuel pump whine stops and it slowly drops to 10psi in about 2 minutes. The pump spins up and whines loudly again and then hits 30psi again. The whine stops and the pressure starts to slowly fall again. But this time the fuel pump didn't spin up to where I could hear it and the pressure slowly dropped down to zero before dying. The lift pump appears to be OK. I applied vacuum to both pulse hoses and no fuel or air coming through. Could the HP pump be working intermittently? Or could something else be causing the pump to spin up like that and then quit? Fuel primer bulb stayed stiff the entire time. I am thinking I have a bad high pressure fuel pump...any other things I should check before I spend $$$ on a new pump? If I can even find one....
Got it home and put it on the muffs using an external tank with fresh fuel. The boat also has 2 brand new fuel filters. New indexed plugs and new t-stats. I Connected the fuel pressure gauge and fired it up. No alarms no codes per Ev software. EMM good with water flowing. EMM was repaired and updated in 2014 per paperwork that came with the boat. No historic fault codes popped up.
The high pressure pump started at 20psi (which I think is already a bit low) and within a minute starts slowly dropping. Gets down to 15psi then you can here the fuel pump spin up loudly and the pressure hits 30psi. The fuel pump whine stops and it slowly drops to 10psi in about 2 minutes. The pump spins up and whines loudly again and then hits 30psi again. The whine stops and the pressure starts to slowly fall again. But this time the fuel pump didn't spin up to where I could hear it and the pressure slowly dropped down to zero before dying. The lift pump appears to be OK. I applied vacuum to both pulse hoses and no fuel or air coming through. Could the HP pump be working intermittently? Or could something else be causing the pump to spin up like that and then quit? Fuel primer bulb stayed stiff the entire time. I am thinking I have a bad high pressure fuel pump...any other things I should check before I spend $$$ on a new pump? If I can even find one....
