going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

[SkiDad]

my dad has a '88 force 125. He's never had a lick of trouble with it in the 20 years he has had it. last time we were out at the end of the year it was running weird and it wouldn't idle at a normal speed ... more like 2000 rpm or around there. I'm guessing something came loose on the linkage or carb. I think it will be obvious when we pull the cover, but anything to look out for ? Just trying to save some time tomorrow if it's an easy thing to look for.

 

[foodfisher]

Re: going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

20 yrs? Need some kind of history of maintenance. Running weird and normal speed are a bit vague.

 

[SkiDad]

Re: going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

sorry I was't more clear. Long day yesterday. It runs fine other than it won't idle at the normal 800 prm in gear. It will be like 2000 rpm in gear, 2500 out of gear or around there.. Nothing as far as idle or carb settings has been changed for years, so something is stuck or came out of adjustment. needless to say that day didn't last too long b/c it slammed like crazy going into gear. Something is keeping it from going back to normal idle. I'm guessing one of the carb butterflys is sticking open or something. As for maintenace, just plugs, gear oil and stabil in gas. A little oil in the cylinders before winter. I changed the starter 3 years ago. Been a great engine really.

 

[foodfisher]

Re: going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

Lock nut on the idle speed adjustment screw on the timing tower may have vibrated loose. May have air leaks in the old hoses.

 

[Jiggz]

Re: going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

Compression test is your first course of action to see if one of the cylinders is losing compression. I would speculate this to be the more likely cause of unstable idling, especially after 20 years! Trying to continue running the engine at 2K RPM idle will only worsen the situation until you can prove the compression is OK.

 

[SkiDad]

Re: going to help my dad tomorrow - force 125

thanks for the advice guys. I had some misunderstanding on the issue - I wasn't driving that day - i had my boat out too. Here's the deal - the shifter wasn't allowing him to go out of gear (strait up), something was jammed. So it was in gear and at a higher rpm and wouldn't pull all the way back. My dad wasn't aware that you could pull out the lever and go into neutral and start that way. So I was showing him that and he thinks that maybe the shifter was stuck somewhere between in and out. He said it felt similar. I guess he never used the neutral pull and forward method b/c it's always be a good starter.

I did look at it and everything looked good on the linkage, etc. The hoses are rock hard though and I think he will look at replacing those at some point here. Unfortunately the battery was dead from the winter and we didn't get enough charge in it to start. So he is going to test it another day. He seemed pretty convinced the shifter was not all the way in and somewhere between neutral and regular.