'97 Ski restoration - a few issues!

Hi all,
Masters Edition 97 restoration nearly finished; hope to get it in the water next week.

A few small queries.

1st, even when warm, the engine still needs a bit of throttle to start then it will idle fine when you throttle back. I thought that when warm they should start on the turn of the key with the lever at idle. Wondered about choke adjustment but shouldn't be that when engine is warm surely. Any ideas folks? Eng is 285hp HO carb 351W. Maybe idle set too slow? (can't tell speed due to issue No 3 - see below!) Mixture screws?

2nd. We've had the tank out and now fuel gauge has no indications but worked before.. Any suggestions for what I have dislodged or forgotten to reconnect properly? Duff sender?

3rd Tacho has some power (though maybe poor) as needle flicks sometimes but no indications. What should I look at first for this? Bad earth? Boat has Perfect Pass in case that makes a difference. N§ew coil fitted.

4th Not a problem as such - Screen aluminium surround needs painting so going to remove screen and get frame painted but am sh*tting myself about breaking the glass. Any advice on how to avoid that catastrophe would be very welcome!!!

Many thanks guys!
Calum

Go to the back of the tach,you should find a 3 position switch. Turn that several times and try it.That is a switch that changes the tach to work on 4-6-8 cylinders and seems to get dirty contacts and then make a poor connection. Turning it cleans the contacts

Goldcup101 wrote: Great! What would I do without CCFan? Where does the tank earth usually attach?

There should be a ground wire typically from the engine block back there. Besides supplying a ground to the tank, it should also go to the aft navigation light and also grounding the fuel fill.

That post/stud on the tank should be the grounding point. You can confirm it with the VOM (volt Ohm meter) set on the Ohm scale. The other grounding location typical for the tank is one of the sender mounting screws or some senders even have a quick connect tab spot welded to the sender base plate

While you have the VOM out, check between the ground wire that's back under the aft deck and the engine block. You should get a near zero Ohm reading. Sounds like you need to clean up all the electric connections in the boat. Also, have you run any better + and - wiring up to the dash yet?

For the warm start problem, it might be dripping fuel after shutdown. You might want to look down carb right after a shutdown to verify.

Thanks to all thos ewho recommended an earth busbar. That has solved a number of issues. Tacho seems to be working but can't be sure until monday. Horn now working fine, fuel gauge no longer fluctuating and Perfect Pass alarm issue seems to have been solved. A remaining bit of weirdness is that blipping the horn with the engine off resets the Perfect Pass, almost like a power interrupt. Will find out monday if the same happens with engine running.

Figured out why the choke isn't working - the bimetallic coil had become detached inside. I've glued it but still not convinced it is working though I'm not sure whether the coil should be tensioned one way or another before catching it on the tang. If I just put it on straight, rotating the choke cap has no effect on the choke plate position so something isn't right. Have got 10V at the cap so not sure what's going on there. Have ordered a new choke cap for next week. Voltemeter showing 11v with a new earth, shoudl I have been expecting 12v?

Carb seems to have some issues which could be down to errors in my Dad rebuilding it. The idle is too high, closing the starboard mixture adjustment still allows the engine to run when I know that it should stall and when exceeding around 2200rpm in gear, the engine bogs down (too much or too little fuel) and won't recover until you back off the throttle opening. Seems to rev out of gear ok but haven't held sustained revs out of gear so not certain. Since the carb is way outside my comfort zone, I'm giving the boat to a marine engineer on monday. Figured I could chase my tail for weeks looking for the issues when he should get it sorted, along with timing check etc, pretty quickly and then we can start actually using the boat.

Stern decals now reapplied, screen back on, rubrail back on, interior being reinstalled today, one side of hull buffed and polished and other side on the agenda for today or tomorrow. Gold pinstripe lines and 'Ski Nautique decals' going on tomorrow but don't want to rush them since they're $100 each! Will try to get some photos up in case anyone is interested.

Also noticed that the hours meter counts with the ignition on rather than just with the engine running. Is this normal? if not, where should the feed to the hours meter come from? At the moment it is powered with the ignition switch. Not sure this is correct.

The engine is idling at around 900rpm which is obviously too high. At that engine speed I think the idle circuit is bypassed isn't it? If I reduce the idle towards 700 it stalls at even at 900 it nearly stalls when putting it in gear. It is pretty clear that something isn't quite right somewhere and I'm pretty certain it is the carb but I am far from expert on these matters!

Thanks for the confirmation on the hours meter - wasn't sure about that.

Wow, really looks nice!

As far as your perfect pass voltage issues, you'll probably need to do a little more beefing besides just the ground (earth) busbar. You'll have to run a new ground wire from either your battery negative, or your engine block to the busbar. It's ok to keep the original ground in place. This should help things in general.

For the Perfect Pass though, you'll want to also run (probably do this at the same time) a new red positive feed from the protected side of your breaker, to the input side of your ignition pushbutton on the dash.

That will help a lot, but if it doesn't, you can do a busbar for the feed coming out of your ignition breaker and going into the input side of the other breakers and the key.

If your Perfect Pass is the only thing giving your low voltage issues at this point, another way to handle that, which might be easier, is to give the PP its own relay.

This works by getting a power feed for the PP, directly off of the battery positive terminal for the switched power portion of the relay. Then, the ignition switch (or an accessory switch) just switches the relay, instead of having to power the PP. This takes the electrical load off the more delicate dash wiring.

Joel explained this method here:
http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21539

Can't be the same boat as the 'before' pictures!

Boat looks great, I know how much work it takes to get one all polished up.
Enjoy your boat.

You did a great job on the restoration, Calum!

Aha, thank you! I thought that the water pressure was converted to air pressure in the balance tube but obviously it must take water pressure all the way to the gauge.

I've got a spare AirGuide so I'll put that in and get to work on the knackered one. Cheers, you've just spared me from ordering a balance tube for no reason!
Calum

Thanks Gary, that makes sense now. I'm slowly getting wiser. They say every day is a school day!

Anyone got any advice re the carb? And if I go the Quick Fuel route, does anyone know of a better deal than the standard $495? (This is presuming that the M600 is an OK replacement for the 4160 Holley 650 original? Price seems to jump if I want the QF M-650) And I'm sure I read somewhere that a new fuel feed connector of some sort is required? Potentially a new carb isn't required but I'm running short of ideas!

A weird issue I forgot to mention before is a petrol smell when decellerating, seems worse in a left hand turn. No leaks around engine, carb, fuel pump. No obvious signs of fuel around fuel tank, from filler hose, fuel tank vent or fuel feed. Where the hell is it coming from????

Thanks Mark, As it happens, I do have a leak that I cannot find! Bilge pump copes fine but I replaced the leaky rudder packing and tightened the driveshaft gland this season so those two suspects are off the list.
One of the balance tubes doesn't have any tubing attached as the boat has PP fitted (not that it works mind) so there is every possibility that the other balance tube is the culprit! Will check at the end of the season; I can't face getting the back seat and tank out at the moment.

I live in a ski resort so it very much freezes around here!

Don't know what I'd do without this forum; thanks all!