Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Arrgh. It only gets better.

Did I mention the leak? The other day, as I was topping off fluids, I noticed my glycol was down a fair ways and taking more than it should. I look under the boat and nothing is coming out the drain holes. What the???
After adding 2 gallons of fluid, it finally starts draining out the boat (probably had to fill the bilge a bit first). I can't see the leak by either water pump. All hoses (that I can see) look OK. I cannot see the bilge much because it is too tight. After messing around with an inspection mirror, I finally could just barely hear the dripping. So around and around I go trying to pinpoint the sound. I have terrible visions of a cracked block etc....
Once I had a good idea of the location, I took my trusty scope on a gooseneck (with LCD screen) and amazingly found it. Thank God it appeared to only be an engine drain plug that was loose.
It is so far down that I can barely touch it (by feel alone) with the exhaust riser denting bolt-prints into my forehead. With socket in hand, I fumble about and it doesn't feel right. When I pulled the socket out, the damn plug was IN IT . One wrong move and it would have dropped into the bilge never to be seen again. Several hours later the leak is fixed and I dodged a bullet....

....except...it still don't run. I got on the phone with FAST today and went round and round with their tech about why I can make spark directly from my CDI, but not from my ECU talking to my CDI. After almost yelling at them, they finally agreed to look over the ECU. So I pulled it and off it went (along with the O2 sensor). Down at least a couple of more weeks for you 'late launchers' to catch up. Craig????

Vacation starts tomorrow and I am a friggin land-lubber. What to do? What to do?

If it makes you feel better, I'm taking Haley's Comet out for Crappie Fishing today to play with the new Side Imaging Humminbird I got.....................

rancherlee wrote:If it makes you feel better, I'm taking Haley's Comet out for Crappie Fishing today to play with the new Side Imaging Humminbird I got.....................

I got yer Crappie right heah, Lee! I'm on my way to Vermillion (if that's the lake yer on). Gonna swim out, stealthily avoid your side imaging thingy, and

There. That makes me feel better

Any word from FAST...?

Blessed wrote:Any word from FAST...?

Yep The rather sad and rather long story goes like so:

After waiting about three weeks, they finally turned it around and notified me that they were sending a shiny new ECU AND O2 sensor at no charge:nana

Several days later, I slap in my O2 without problem. Then ECU....big problem
Harness plug no plug in. WRONG friggin ECU. They were very accommodating and sent me the right one overnight.

Next day, I plug in and turn the key. NO FIRE (O2 sensor coded again)....AAAARRRRGGGHHH. The fact that I had the same (O2) symptoms made me very suspicious. I had already verified the harness wires with a meter. Numerous hours later, I think I have my answer. It seems as if my O2 relay socket might have had some corrosion by my best guess. I didn't do this plug, and they may have built it without any dielectric grease.

Long story short, I have now cut the socket off and jumped the wires (no parts on a holiday weekend) I needed to get power to the heater on the O2 sensor. Turn the key and.....the birds sang, the sun shone....all that stuff. She ran extremely rough (new ECU) and died about twenty times until it heated up enough to go into learning mode. I now have a perfect idle YIPPEE!!!

Along with that, if anyone remembers my bitchin about hard starting, a cough, and suspected vacuum leak last summer, it now starts perfectly and my Idle Air Control calibrated properly for the first time ever. Signs are good that I finally have all my problems sorted. I ain't gonna celebrate too soon tho. Long story short, I got a new ECU out of the deal that may have fixed everything. Its funny that they gave it to me for a completely different reason. Not even sure if they tested the old one. It prolly was just easier for them to swap out.

Keep ur fingers crossed. I can't stand it any longer and am launching in a rainstorm about as you are reading this.

awesome Todd! we were washed out all weekend and even if we wanted to get on the lake the floating debris was everywhere...

Sounds good! Keep us posted... I hope everything goes well...

Glad its getting better Todd. We are doing a complete rebuild of the engine. Boring it out to 540ci

pond tuuunes wrote:Glad its getting better Todd. We are doing a complete rebuild of the engine. Boring it out to 540ci

That oughtta slow you right down

tuned wrote:

Blessed wrote:Any word from FAST...?

Yep The rather sad and rather long story goes like so:

After waiting about three weeks, they finally turned it around and notified me that they were sending a shiny new ECU AND O2 sensor at no charge:nana

Several days later, I slap in my O2 without problem. Then ECU....big problem
Harness plug no plug in. WRONG friggin ECU. They were very accommodating and sent me the right one overnight.

Next day, I plug in and turn the key. NO FIRE (O2 sensor coded again)....AAAARRRRGGGHHH. The fact that I had the same (O2) symptoms made me very suspicious. I had already verified the harness wires with a meter. Numerous hours later, I think I have my answer. It seems as if my O2 relay socket might have had some corrosion by my best guess. I didn't do this plug, and they may have built it without any dielectric grease.

Long story short, I have now cut the socket off and jumped the wires (no parts on a holiday weekend) I needed to get power to the heater on the O2 sensor. Turn the key and.....the birds sang, the sun shone....all that stuff. She ran extremely rough (new ECU) and died about twenty times until it heated up enough to go into learning mode. I now have a perfect idle YIPPEE!!!

Along with that, if anyone remembers my bitchin about hard starting, a cough, and suspected vacuum leak last summer, it now starts perfectly and my Idle Air Control calibrated properly for the first time ever. Signs are good that I finally have all my problems sorted. I ain't gonna celebrate too soon tho. Long story short, I got a new ECU out of the deal that may have fixed everything. Its funny that they gave it to me for a completely different reason. Not even sure if they tested the old one. It prolly was just easier for them to swap out.

Keep ur fingers crossed. I can't stand it any longer and am launching in a rainstorm about as you are reading this.

How'd it go?

Well, she's runnin' (on two safety pins and a roach clip for a bit).

I finally soldered in a new socket and relay and my problems are gone....ummm....except for the ones from last year. Hard starting and a hesitation at 1200 rpm. Otherwise it runs well.

I have fresh eyes and resolve and am hitting it hard. Double check base timing and found it 5 degrees forward. Weird. The ECU can adjust from there. Recheck for vacuum leaks with a really nice stethoscope....nothing. So out comes the can of ether . I totally douched that engine with the stuff looking for vacuum leaks. Still nothing. These are all things I tried last year, but I believe in being thorough.

Now when I get a chance, it is time to call FAST and get some advice on tuning. I have full control over timing advance curves as well as AFR curves, just not the knowledge. I am hoping one of these is the culprit.

BUT I am back on the lake
Spent a difficult night at 30 degrees with a twenty mph wind slamming waves into me broadside on a dock. The three dozen beers probably didn't help
Yep, life is GOOD

Did you buy the "fence" around the outside? Or did you weld all that up? That seems to be what the modern ones look like.

photonfanatic wrote:Did you buy the "fence" around the outside? Or did you weld all that up? That seems to be what the modern ones look like.

Hey photon. The rails were factory blems. The doors were in the wrong places etc...so I cut, brazed and re-skinned the rails. Back about 5 or more pages in this thread is a long and fairly painful description of my process. Almost more work than what it was worth, but it would have been really spendy for custom rails otherwise.


Here's my latest build. My power ladder didn't have very good grab rails for big people, so I found some stainless exhaust pipe and some heavy floor flanges. They came out pretty nice methinks.

Nice. How did you get ahold of factory blems? And how much were they? I scrolled through, but I admit I didn't read the entire thread. There is an aluminum welding and fab shop in my area. Normally they do big rig trailers, but they'll pretty much do whatever you take to them. It would be interesting to know their price on something like that.