Hello all. I am new to the site, but have already found a lot of useful info. I have a 1986 Freedom 160, with a Mecrusier 140 3.0 I/O. I just recently purchased the boat and have already made a lot of repairs to it, and I have it just about right. I took it out over the 4th weekend, and the engine was dying, after tinkering with it for a while I did finally manage to get it going for a while, and then of course as soon as we were leaving it started acting up up again, and had to be towed in. Anyway, I rebuilt the carb and found that my problem was most likely an accelerator pump. (It was leaking gas into the carb at idle threw the main jets.) I got it tuned out pretty decent but after the test run after the carb rebuild I went ahead with a tune up. I replaced the plugs, wire, cap, coil, and went to replace the points, but the kit I ordered I guess had a bad condenser, so I put the old one back in. Then I took the boat out again. I did make a minor adjustment to the carb, setting the float a bit higher, (it was bogging a bit) and rechecked my measurements for the accelerator pump rod. I then took it out and ran it for about 2 hours.
Here are the issues I am having now...
When I hammer the throttle it accelerates great, as soon as I go from stop to full, it jumps up on plane with no bogging or hesitation. The acceleration isn't instant but is steady, and takes a few second to get to full after the throttle is in full. Now when I ease the throttle on to full there is a bit of a bog at about half throttle, while moving threw to full. Obviously with a 4 cylinder I want as much performance as possible, so I would like it to be smooth all the time, even easeing into the throttle. I'm thinking I may have to tweak the carb a little more...but we'll get back to that one...right now it's doing pretty good.
Secondly after running on plane trimmed out it's turning right at 4500 to 4600 rpms...but then after running a bit, or after turning sharply the rpms drop off to about 4100 and never come back up unless I stop, and wait for a few minutes then start over. Now I may be wrong but it seems like the problem occurs after the engine heats up under load. I'm pretty sure it's a it's an issue with the coil, plugs, wires. I did here a ticking, from the engine but couldn't tell exactly were it was coming from. I probably should have done some more troubleshooting on it while I was out, but I was by myself and didn't really want to take a chance of something going wrong and having to paddle in.
The other thing I noticed is that my gauges fluctuate sometimes, and the alternator is reading in between 12 and 13 volts, and at speed it increases to almost 14. I noticed that yesterday the temp gauge went up to about 180, so I stopped and it hung there for a sec and then went back down, and never jumped up again. I'm thinking the alternator may be having some issues to...I guess I'll check it out too while I'm at it.
I know I am pretty close to getting everything set up to my liking and just wanted to pick you brains to see what you guy think about my situation. I am going to check the gap on the points, and re-check all the plugs and wires. (I'll probably order another points set) It's raining now but as soon as I can I am going to go back to work on it, but any input is appreciated! Thanks!
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