Hello,
I am new to these forums and have read quite a few threads in the past and found them to be most helpful. I am an amateur grease monkey and helping a friend with an engine problem as follows: He has twin Volvo Penta 5L GXIEF EP engines and I/O drives in his 31'Larson. The port engine intermittently gives off an audible alarm, engine RPM drops to near zero, then the engine fires up again and continues running. The problem started several weeks ago and is getting worse (the condition occurs more frequently now and sometimes occurs multiple times in close succession forcing him to have to shut it down for fear of damaging something because of the erratic engine RPM). Oil pressure and temp gauges are normal and do not fluctuate. I attempted to replicate the problem by shorting what I thought might be the water temp switch (one of two sensors located near the thermostat housing water outlet from the engine - one has a single wire on it, the other has two wires - I assumed the single wire sensor was the gauge sender and the two wire sensor was the hi temp switch. Shorting and open-circuiting the two wires on the plug attached to the two-wire sensor did not produce an alarm, nor did it cause the temp gauge to fluctuate = ??? I'm a bit puzzled by that.). I read in the Owners Manual about the Engine Protection Mode but the system does not appear to be going into that state as any engine RPM is possible immediately after this intermittent condition occurs. Since the alarm beep occurs first and then the engine nearly stalls, I thought the condition could be caused by a sensor (If I'm not mistaken there should be three protection sensors/switches: oil pressure, coolant temp and exhaust temp) but any suggestions anyone has out there would be greatly appreciated. If it was simply loss of ignition, there wouldn't be any cause for an audible alarm to occur first, would there?
LeoQ
I am new to these forums and have read quite a few threads in the past and found them to be most helpful. I am an amateur grease monkey and helping a friend with an engine problem as follows: He has twin Volvo Penta 5L GXIEF EP engines and I/O drives in his 31'Larson. The port engine intermittently gives off an audible alarm, engine RPM drops to near zero, then the engine fires up again and continues running. The problem started several weeks ago and is getting worse (the condition occurs more frequently now and sometimes occurs multiple times in close succession forcing him to have to shut it down for fear of damaging something because of the erratic engine RPM). Oil pressure and temp gauges are normal and do not fluctuate. I attempted to replicate the problem by shorting what I thought might be the water temp switch (one of two sensors located near the thermostat housing water outlet from the engine - one has a single wire on it, the other has two wires - I assumed the single wire sensor was the gauge sender and the two wire sensor was the hi temp switch. Shorting and open-circuiting the two wires on the plug attached to the two-wire sensor did not produce an alarm, nor did it cause the temp gauge to fluctuate = ??? I'm a bit puzzled by that.). I read in the Owners Manual about the Engine Protection Mode but the system does not appear to be going into that state as any engine RPM is possible immediately after this intermittent condition occurs. Since the alarm beep occurs first and then the engine nearly stalls, I thought the condition could be caused by a sensor (If I'm not mistaken there should be three protection sensors/switches: oil pressure, coolant temp and exhaust temp) but any suggestions anyone has out there would be greatly appreciated. If it was simply loss of ignition, there wouldn't be any cause for an audible alarm to occur first, would there?
LeoQ