meanwhile at Iowaboy1's shop

Iowaboy1 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Denny O wrote:</div>
As I recall talking to you about this particular boat and it’s issues, isn’t it about a 22 year old boat?

I’ll see you again in about a month to look into the steering cable?

SAMS
Sheldon’s Auto and Marine Service!
Ya might be able to do better, BUT,,, Ya got to go a long way to find it!

blush blush!! thanks Denny !! looking forward to seeing that wonderful Lund and the captain who got me back to safety after being on LOTW in six foot rollers !!

somewhere out there in IDO land is another member whos boat I repowered with a brand spanking new Suzuki and all new gauges ! without ever going for a ride in that boat I could almost be convinced to repower my own with a Zuki after hearing that baby fire the first time !!
and that is coming from a diehard Merc man of forty three plus years !!
I am betting he is either headed south a ways for open water or dreaming of it everyday !!

He hasn’t taken it south to open water yet but he sure would like to!! Looking forward to Spring.
Anybody need a boat repowered or worked on it would be worth your xtra time to make the trip to SAMS! He did an awesome job!

so the last few weeks have been the usual stuff, cleaning carbs, installing impellers, rebuilding/resealing lower units blah blah blah.

At the beginning of this week a fellow brought in a 3.6 Merc, this little guy has no neutral or reverse, when its running you are moving even at idle.
He is going to put it on a canoe and use it on the rivers around here, um, ahem, alrighty then.

I go about the usual stuff, replace the impeller which is the easiest one I have ever done, two nuts and off she comes, no digging around trying to disconnect a shift shaft, speedo tube, etc.
take the carb off to clean it and find the usual suspects when a motor has sat for years on end and I see this mess hidden behind the carb.
mind you, I fired this motor to see what ailed it first and honestly it sounded very good except for this tiny little lean sneeze out of the carb that I couldnt adjust out of with the idle mix screw.

I looked at the reeds as I have heard that lean sneeze before, UGG!!! rusted reeds !!!my mind at that instant thought, well, there goes a bunch of time wasted replacing the impeller and stuff as I just knew the crank and other internals would be rusted to hell wouldnt have it, but I got lucky this time.
the reeds held whatever moisture at bay for a long time before it finally rusted out the tiny little gap you see in the bottom of one of the reeds.

I was glad to find reeds readily available for this 1982 model, a whopping nine bucks each plus freight.
I have built reeds for my own stuff before but this belongs to a customer and I wasnt going to attempt saving this one if that was required, instead I would of cut my losses and told the customer it was a no go which I hate doing but it does happen once in a while.

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If I ever have a major problem with my motor I’m coming to see you Sheldon. Don’t care how far the drive is. An honest mechanic is worth it’s weight in gold. Of course I’ll bring down a bottle of something nice for us to enjoy too

Maybe even a few smoked bullheads

crappie55369 wrote:

If I ever have a major problem with my motor I’m coming to see you Sheldon. Don’t care how far the drive is. An honest mechanic is worth it’s weight in gold. Of course I’ll bring down a bottle of something nice for us to enjoy too

Maybe even a few smoked bullheads

Oh Lord don’t do it!! Don’t do it! Not if you ever want to get it back! Wait till you pick it up!!
Just a jousting ya know.

so today was interesting enough I thought I would show you guys some of the sh!t that I get the pleasure to work on.
an owner calls me and says, one of my trolling motor batteries has a draw on it and is always dead even after the charger has been on it all night.
24 volt trolling motor where each battery is jumpered at the plug in to make 24 volts,and sure enough one is dead and I mean graveyard dead.
The other one is reading 11.6 volts,same as dead.
Not only that the main battery is dead every morning.

So I go to check the charger leads to see if the charger is putting out 12 DC volts, one set of leads is dead, the other?? meh, 12 volts along with 4 AC volts!!
And I see this puddle of tar on the bottom of the boat, GOOD LORD!!
Its a wonder the boat didnt burn to the ground !! the rectifier in the charger took a permanent trip south and didnt come back!
the tar is all of the sealing gel on the backside of the charger!
It fried both batteries with AC input before cooking itself to death.
the main battery?? lets just say the owner is fairly new to owning a boat and has been forgetting to shut the main power switch off on the dash.
3 new batteries later and a new Noco three bank charger and lets go fishing !!
( the main battery had been drained dead too many times and wont recover is why its being replaced )

Next two pics, no, Iowaboy1 is not drinking at work !!!!!!! thats for friday and saturday nights after working on this stuff all week!! can ya blame a guy??

1997 Nitro that has been sitting for 5 years as it has been running worse every year and the owners got tired of fighting it until this year and for some unknown reason?? ( hahaha ) the urge to get out of Dodge has overwhelmed them and its time to get it running again.
I wont go into the long story of how the entire charging and ignition system got fried as it directly relates to my battery thread here and is the eleventh one I have seen in the last year and a half.

this is the fuel as I pumped it out of the tank and the owner had the balls ( no, not greased ones that I know of ) to ask me why I threw away six year old gas, ya’all can see why I hope!!
the bottle of gas is sitting ahead of a white cup, kind of reminds you of bourbon dont it??? thats why its clearer than what you see in the bucket.
three gallons of fresh non oxy and an entire bottle of Schaffer’s Neutra, let it sit for an hour, pump it out and viola!! clean tank !!

That old 90 HP Merc is ready to tear up the lake now !! I would hope so 2200 dollars later.
Thanks for stopping by the shop again guys ! hope I am keeping you informed and entertained.

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Good god that’s some nasty looking chit in the bucket.

Schaffer’s Neutra? Is this what you add in to a dirty fuel tank to clean it out?

131 Neutra™ Fuel Stabilizer

Neutra™ Fuel Stabilizer is a highly concentrated, multi-functional, ashless fuel stabilizer formulated for use in all grades of gasoline including ethanol-blended gasoline, all types of diesel fuel and biodiesel blends.

Blended with an enhanced detergency package, Neutra™ provides impressive cleanliness to fuel lines, tanks, pumps, injectors and carburetors. Neutra™ disperses existing deposits throughout the fuel system, safely removing them to the combustion chamber where they can be burned cleanly and completely. Additionally, Neutra™ can be used as a flushing fluid to purge and remove varnish and carbon deposits present in equipment.

Neutra™ is suitable and meets the US EPA requirements for blending into low sulfur diesel fuels. Contains more than 15PPM sulfur.

Performance Benefits
Optimizes performance and fuel economy up to 5%.
Lowers the freeze point of any water that may be present in the fuel.
Increases lubricity.
Reduces emissions, exhaust smoke and particulates.
Keeps injectors free from varnish, deposits and gum that cause inefficient operation.
Protects against rust and corrosion.
Stabilizes fuel during storage.
Strong wear protection for injectors, fuel pumps, compressor ring, upper cylinder, valve seats and guides.

Lubricity, what’s next, tribology?

Good stuff, as always great info!

Might be.

I love reading your repair stories, IB1, but I’m grateful that I’m not picking up the bills! That said, I’m sure I’m saving tons buying a new boat every 3 – 4 years….

Sheldon you need to take on a couple 13-14 apprentices so at least a little bit of your wealth of information and experience gets handed down! I figure if you have 13-14 of them, and they each take away a little bit that should be enough to cover half of what you know.

BigWerm wrote:

Sheldon you need to take on a couple 13-14 apprentices so at least a little bit of your wealth of information and experience gets handed down! I figure if you have 13-14 of them, and they each take away a little bit that should be enough to cover half of what you know.

X2

I’m in -X3

Been very busy at the shop the last few weeks!!
anything from trailer wiring to complete charging/ignition systems, carb rebuilds and I finally got to use my CDI electronics MEDS unit !! sure wish my new dyno would get here, I could really use it lately!!
Especially when you get a giant four stroke in that only misses near full throttle, I figured it out the hard way and dang neart melted my Fluke meter down checking about every dang thing that could be tested !!
I found two bad coils that I had to heat up with a hair dryer to get to act up,,all right you chicken thieves, no hair jokes about my bald head and why I need a hair dryer !!

to begin with, blown fuel pump gasket, what would cause that????
2010 Merc, poor thing only gets used about five hours a year, the owner when quizzed said this,, I dont use any fuel treatment and I run the tank low every year, and,, I add to it the next year for my fishing trip and last time out I didnt think I was going to make it back to the dock.
and, it has sat since that time last year and I am headed to LOW next week can ya fixer Doc??
so I drained the carbs, yep, all three full of water, how inhell they didnt freeze bust is beyond my old noggin but it did get the fuel pump and blew the gasket out of place as you see.
cleaned the carbs, rebuilt the pump and the owner and I had a long talk about fuel, fuel tanks, and ya’ll know the rest.

booster venturi, can ya see whats wrong?? and this is after another shop rebuilt the carb and had the balls to charge the guy four hundred smackeroons !!! even though it still didnt run right when done!! WTH????
not only did they miss the plugged transition tube they missed the fact that the cold start enrichener had failed !! and are ya ready for this??
the dang idle circuit was plugged tight !!
I received an email from the owner that his boat hasnt ran that well in years after I was done with it and was grateful for our little shop.

the busted to F!!! starter,, even I can fall once in a while and I am not afraid to admit it at all.
but I had help thanks to a reaction from glycol that caused my color blindness to sit in, Denny O has personally witnessed this when I worked on his boat.
anyhoo, why ITF anyone would color code wires with colors in this order, orange/violet, orange blue, and orange, these colors are ignition coil wires on a 225 Johnson Venom series motor.

in my head when I was wiring the coils up I switched two of the wires thanks to color blindness at that moment and when I attempted to bring this motor back to life it backfired in a most convincing manner !!!!!!
it blew the top of the starter off launching it ten feet across the shop and landing at sparkles feet!!
to make matters worse it was a 350 dollar starter that I had installed ten minutes prior !!!!
anyone got any unused stimulus money to help out a fellow American?? LOL !! JK!

thanks for stopping by the shop once again guys,, and I gotta tell ya, Sparkles is a huge asset, I dont know how I could get anything done without her!!

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Just remember the fine line between being successful and working yourself to death. All the money in the world just creates a problem for those you leave behind when the day comes.

I enjoy reading the issues you have to diagnose and solve. You are among a shrinking breed of “real” mechanics as opposed to those who can only read a engine testing computer.

Keep up the good work.

Fun to read your escapades being an X auto mechanic. Have a question for you I have a 2000 Optimax the throttle cable is kind of stiff not real bad am I better off to just replace the cable or pull it and try and relube it. Have roughly 1100 hours on my Opti with only one hiccup a bad fuel injector.

Have to agree if I ever repower my old 2000 T185 Crestliner it would be a Suzuki, but my Opti just keeps ticking along..

You do get some dandie problems at your place Sheldon.I bet that starter made some noise coming apart.

Sheldon,

You continue to amaze me (and everyone else on this site) !!!!

Pete

The chaos continues !!
Thanks to our new CDI MEDS unit we are getting more work on the computerized outboards, we have always worked on them but now we can read codes, reset maintenance data, read real live time data and the like.
Dang it sure makes life easy when you can plug into something and immediately go to the source of trouble instead of using volt/ohm, DVA, meters, fuel pressure gauges and the like spending a lot of time troubleshooting stuff !
Cant wait for the new dyno to show up in the very near future!!!!

So what kind of repairs have we ran into lately that I thought would be of interest to ya this week??
lets start with a water pump impeller, dang its nasty what a few seconds of being in heavy sand can do to a pump!! the impeller from what I was told was only two years old.
I had to flush the entire motor as well as the thermostat area to clear it out, got about 2-3 cups of sand out of the thing, 30 HP Honda.

Next is from a Holley carb from a ’79 Corvette, the pic shows a fuel pump cover that was severely warped from an improper pump actuator bolt adjustment that allowed over stroking when at full throttle, I am surprised it wasnt cracked!!
it was warped bad enough it would squirt fuel clean across the drivers side of the motor, how a fire didnt start is beyond me.
Several minutes and many figure eights on 400 grit sandpaper got it back flat.

Other pics,,,, all I can say is WOW!! fuel contamination out of a water/fuel separator on an Ebbtide with a 4.3, the shot of the filter reveals some kind of sand like looking stuff but when you rubbed it between your fingers it turned to some kind of greasy crap and gasoline wouldnt dissolve, still scratching my head on this stuff.
the other pic is what it looked like in the fuel bowl of the carb.

We have been very blessed with business from all around the state and we have repaired two rigs from Wis. ( thanks Chuck100 ) and third one from there scheduled for this week.
Another one showed up this Fri from MN, SHEESH! how far out is our little shop going to reach???

So I am a glutton for punishment, I took on a deal that goes like this,
the kids want grandpa’s 1972 fishing boat running again, it has a 1982 120 HP Chrysler on it, it has been sitting in a storage unit since 2004!!
The last time it ran was that year and it supposedly ran very well and was pickled for long storage.
The owner said the wiring has degraded to a point it needs a complete harness and all charging/ignition system parts, and yes, they are available.
And I wonder why my head hurts,,,,, lets just say I have to find a new part of my building to bang it on.

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Stir up a Jack and contemplate this.

You can be honest and good and get business from damn near anywhere and stay busy for a long time.

Or, you can grab the fast buck and blow smoke up everybody’s ass and enjoy short term success.

Seems you have made the correct choice and are being rewarded.

I’ve got to agree with Dutchy on this one.Keep up the quality work Sheldon but like DB said,don’t let it send you to an early grave.

Yep, back already !! Ya gotta see this one.
2000 Merc 200 HP, wont run above 1500 revs, primer bulb is new and wont stay pumped up, the thing is fuel injected and I am surprised all six pistons dont have holes burnt through them as the guy has ran almost a gallon of seapoop through it !!! not only that its running lean from not enough fuel, GRRR!

Guys,,,,, when an issue shows up especially a power issue, STOP AND FIND OUT WHY!! for crying out loud there aint no such thing as mechanic in a can, well, ya got me in a forum but thats different lol.

This crap was spilling out of the new primer bulb when I removed it, it fouled the mechanical pulse pump as well.
How did the guy who installed the bulb not see this?????

If you have the gray hose with the impermeable liner in it and you use ethanol fuels or gobs of additives beyond the recommended dose replace that hose if its over three years old !!

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I sure do enjoy these posts.
Thanks for taking the time to write them up.

ib1 you found gold in that hose!!!

Alright bud I seen in an old post you helped a guy with a similar problem that I seem to be plagued with. Its a 1984 50hp mercury 4 cyl and it’s cutting in and out like a fuel prob and was wondering if you could help me out?
New reeds
Newfuel connections and bulb
Carb cleaning
Float needles and adjustments
Fuel pumps
Power head gasket kit
Still can’t figure it out. Any imput?

Eric there is no bud on here just Sheldon or Mr.Thompson.

chuck100 wrote:

Eric there is no bud on here just Sheldon or Mr.Thompson.

You forgot “ole number 7”
An Mister Bullhead.

Eric, I will help you out anyway I can !
I need some more info and it starts with, what is the compression on each cylinder?
spark quality, I dont care how blue it is at the plug, I need to know will each coil jump a 3/8 gap and look like lightening bolts, if it wont jump that gap it wont fire a plug under compression period.

are any of the bearing case drain hoses cracked/broken?
are the yellow wire connectors at the voltage regulator burnt looking where they connect to the wires from the stator?, does the back side of the regulator look blistered from excess heat?? if so, it is shot and will affect the ignition side of things including the trigger and the switch box.
to test these you will need a volt/ohm meter and a DVA adapter.

lets see what ya got after telling me these things and we will go from there.
you can also call me at the shop at 1-641-526-3060 Please bear in mind I have a lot of work to do during the day and may ask you to call me at a time when I am not so busy, if that dont work I will give you my cell number and you can call me after hours.

please remit one bottle,,,,ah, we better wait until you get the thing running right first lol

That guy I tried to help out a month ago, must not of been for real?? he never replied to my Pm or this thread, hopefully he figured it out.

In the last month since I updated this I have come across a few things you might like to see, hmm, where do I start??
How about a water pump impeller?? this is for those who believe an impeller will right itself when installed wrong, in other words the legs will not reverse themselves.
I have to give the young man credit he tried his best to change this one out and had no clue, nope, didnt even youtube it.
This is on a cobra outdrive, wouldnt pump at all, not so much for the impellor being effed up on install but the fact that it got hot enough to melt and transfer all of the plastic to the opposite side effectively plugging it tight, I shouldve taken a pic of the impellor on the bench, it was torn to shreds in less than thirty seconds.

Moving onto the charge coil out of a 25 Merc, uhm, do not hook directly to a dead battery at the starter solenoid positive post to see if your system is working, especially when you have said battery hooked up backwards!!

The hose clamp, see where its located??? yup, up under the flywheel right next to the ignition trigger.
the magnets sucked the clamp off of the fuel line when the owner disconnected the filter after it plugged up on the water.
( the hose had a bit of spring to it and when unhooked placed the clamp very close to the magnets )
This motor had the strangest ignition issue I have seen in a long time, the two cylinder motor was firing like it as a 60 cylinder engine and I had thought my timing light was lying to me, my timing light basically wouldnt flash but when it did it was crazy!!
the cheap stainless coated clamp had become magnetized and the spiral cuts were fooling the trigger when the clamp spun!!

The sight tube on the oil tank, see whats wrong?? no, its not light weight oil that refuses to sit on the bottom of the tank!!
That folks is rainwater !!! the guy had just bought the boat believing it was water ready and it quit on him fifty feet from the dock.
Dang good thing too !! there was zero lubrication !! I removed the tank, flushed it and all of the oil injection parts, hoses, pump, check valve, etc.

I ran it on my shop tank with a 50-1 blend until I could see the system was working properly and was supplying the carbs with oil as it should.
I still shake my head at how that motor wasnt seized up or had scored cylinders!
I can only say some folks have all of the luck, motor was a 1996 Mariner 50 HP.
Someone had left the oil fill cap loose and during a rain storm the tank filled with about a quart and a half of water.

Thats if for the moment, hope you learned something !!

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