Firstly, my thoughts are with Jon Jordan tonight, for those reading this, please keep him and his family in your prayers.
I am always humbled when someone takes the time to write up something like this, especially when the way I look at it is this, I did what I was paid to do and I did it to the best of my given abilities.
Thank you John, it is deeply appreciated and it was my pleasure working for you.
Man what a mess, I had taken my boat to EPG’s house last year so that there wasnt any chance John was going to miss out on his trip to Kab incase his boat wasnt done at the body shop on time, it was, and the troubles began shortly there after.
As he said, I walked Al through a few things to give me an idea of what was going on, a few very simple tests gave me an idea but the soot fouled plugs was part of the answer, the thought was bad fuel or a fuel issue and soon enough it was at my shop.
Like John stated he left it with me all winter, I was able to check a few things the day he dropped it off, no codes,pressures were correct,injectors were so so but nothing jumped out, hhhmm, this wasnt going to be easy.
Here and there I was able to do some testing and run it on the dyno, several little issues showed up, air bubbles in the fuel line, long story short, the body shop I am guessing had stood the fuel tank on end when they had it out and the tygon syphon was curled up against the tank wall and hardened in its now dry environment, it was at fuel top level with a quarter of a tank!
I went after it and discovered some more things, impermeable liner was in pieces, a chunk of it was stuck in the suction side primer bulb valve, nah, it cant be this easy!!
And wtf??? the above deck fuel line was directly attached to the under deck line,,,, under the deck, this isnt right, the dang thru hull transition was never rigged right at the factory but they used that fitting to hook the two together!!, you bet, I drilled a hole in the splash well and did it right.
Check that fitting out, the corrosion was allowing fuel to drip into the bilge!! and,, it was sucking air when the pulse pump when it was pumping fuel, AHA!! new fuel line, primer bulb and gave her a blast on the dyno,,,,,,, and crap!! it would lay down on me.
When you lose pressures under load,and there is no fuel in the air side, it is a compressor problem, so I pulled the head off of the compressor to discover a blown head gasket, you can see the dark area on the cylinder where it was blown and I remembered Al saying it was spitting a bit of moisture out when I had him looking for fuel indicating a bad diaphragm, now moisture is normal with air compressors, many of you have drained tanks on humid days, same deal only in a smaller package.
Two new gaskets, and give her another pull on the dyno, great two times, laid down once, ran great, and laid down again, by now I am whizzed off, wth is going on???!!
So while still being tortured on the dyno I removed the compressor suction line and nodda, no suction, no pressure bleeding back, so while still very warm to the touch I ripped the head off so I could see if somehow heat was causing a problem with the reeds, nothing obvious I will get back to it as I had other work that was pressing.
Two nights of wrestling with what was going on in my no sleep nights I went in early one morning and stared at that reed plate and it hit me, the center reed was missing its reed stop, got it !!!! but how in the world was that causing the problem?
I took the air pressure regulator apart, tucked the pressure line in my cupped hand and with the other hand holding a blow gun, I blew 160 PSI shop air backwards through the fuel rail and I felt it hit my hand, that little piece had been bouncing around in the fuel rail occasionally blocking air off to the regulator!!!!!!!! SON OF A !!!!!!!
Now here is the stupid part, I looked back at my pictures of the reed plate when I had the compressor head off and there it was but I missed it, I saw the blown gasket and didnt catch the obvious, insert Yosemite Sam cursing here….
New compressor and belt in place, fire up the motor and pressures where they should be, once it had some heat in the motor I pinned the throttle at high load on the dyno, I wanted this biatch to work!!!!
The pressures never bobbled, Thank you God !!!!
And so after buttoning it up,, the voices in my head that scream away my mental health had an idea, lets see how long it takes for John to find several floats, let me tell you, I was disappointed, it didnt take a week!!
I did several other little things to give it my personal touch, including a silly note in my MEDS report….. you will have to ask John about that hahahah.
And yes, I took another leap of faith, a five month process of securing everything I needed to secure my Suzuki marine dealership, I might do a write up on that journey this weekend.
Thanks all for the kind words everyone, yours truly, Sheldon.
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