I left my raw water intake valve closed today...and THEN...

[Prodigal Son]

So I drove off the dock today all psyched because today was the first day with my new pin stripe, my outriggers redone and and my tower folds and attaches with one person (quite excited)...forgot to open the raw water intake and about 5 minutes from the dock, all idling, coolant EXPLODED from under the console (full inboard, engine is in my console).

Scared the bejezzus out of me because I had no idea what was going on and thought there was an electrical fire.

Figured out the problem, added back our entire case of bottled water to the system and tentatively fired her up...never passed 160deg. So far so good.

Kept putting on out (we were fishing a tournament; no turning back for petty mechanical problems). Throttled on up just to find that as soon as the carb hit the secondaries we would bog out. Problem #2. Kept it under 2500 RPM and kept on keeping on (my TowBoatUS is paid up).

This continued throughout the day while we checked the spark arrestor, dist. cap, etc to no avail. Finally, I pull the fuel filter to find that it is full of what looks like varnish. Nasty looking stuff. Never fixed the problem, but I'll bet that's got something to do with it.

This week I'll screw with it and see where I end up. Crappy part is that the boat ran fine all day without a load on it, so I'll never know if I've fixed it until I put her in the water and run her up to 3000RPM in gear...



Morals: We lost the tournament, Ethanol sucks, boats eat money like it grows on trees...and houndfish are picky eaters. We had 4 different houndfish ignore everything would could throw at them.

[Capt. Fred]

Bummer. Hopefully it's nothing huge. Have you been burning ethanol for a while?

[Prodigal Son]

Yep, no choice around here. All the pumps have the "may contain up to 10% Ethanol" stickers on them.

I'm ready to sell my boat and just charter every third weekend for the same overall cost...

Something I failed to mention: the impeller didn't kill itself. I find that amazing.

[surffishn]

There are additives to help with the ethanol problems.Yes it sucks but it can be controled.For the varnish looking stuff try a can of "Seafoam". You can find it at Marinas or Auto parts.I think Advanced auto may carry it.Stabil has a new product for the Ethonal,And Startron has a enzyme additive.I used the Seafoam in my pickup and then switched to the startron.My vehicle now runs better and milage improved a bit.No magic but I am happy as this truck got over 100,000 now running like new again.Don't let the corn juice get you down!Good Luck!