this boat may drive me to drinking...

In the past five weeks, I have been paying lots of attention to her:

rechecked timing and advance

Took her out on the river today and she ran great for about 90 minutes. While cruising back to the marina at about 30 mph, the engine just stopped - like the throttle had been completely cut and the ignition switch turned off.

Was thinking perhaps the fuel tank pickup tube had gotten clogged so, when I got home, I disconnected the fuel line from the tank and put it into a 5 gal. can of fuel and ran it on the hose. Ran fine once the fuel pump got fuel to the carb.

Reconnected the fuel line to the tank and it ran fine there, too, for about five minutes.

Am wondering if there's debris in the tank that got sucked up into the fuel tank pickup tube and fell out during the drive home. Or if the fuel filter cartridge got clogged somehow. Or if the anti-siphon valve malfunctioned. 

Any other ideas?

The boat is equipped with a Prestolite distributor and Pertronix electronic ignition conversion kit.

Thanks

I am currently fixing a boat with only 2-3 year old gas that plugged up the injectors.  I did see you installed mostly the entire new fuel system but I did not see Drained the old fuel on your list.  

Old fuel does usually show up slowly with a lot of sputtering, yours seemed to be an instant crash so maybe the fuel was not your issue.

I did drain the old fuel about six weeks ago.

The fuel in the boat tank is fresh.

Thanks

Wasn't on the list, but I did check it about six weeks ago and will check it again.

Instructions for ground and voltage checks:


Did a ground check and it was perfect. Zero resistance.

Yes

Just to make sure we know which one you have, since it gets confusing, here are a couple of pictures  

The 91589 kit you mention is as good as any other Pertronix kit.

If you were to install the original cam for the points, you'd need kit number 91582 but there's no difference in performance.

You mentioned that you have the original points stuff, now Pete's gonna get all hot and bothered and say to put them back in. 

You could do that and see how it runs for troubleshooting purposes.

You have to be careful that the points cam doesn't get installed 180 degrees out if you were to reinstall it. There's a little clip under that felt pad in the center of the shaft that will drive you to drinking, swearing and throwing things all at the same time. You have to get the clip off to remove the reluctor wheel and put the points cam in it's place........and then you have to get it back on all without destroying or losing the clip.

Sounds like a reasonable plan 

Put down the bottle Buck 

You don't say whether you've adjusted the timing at all, but since the light doesn't light up, I doubt it.

Having installed "a few" Pertronix units, I've most always had to adjust the timing some on the Prestolite distributors.

If you make a mark down where the distributor seats on the block so you know it's original starting point, you will probably have to rotate the distributor a little at a time and see if it starts and runs any better.

I'd start by advancing it a little (turning housing clockwise).

Keep in mind that if you move the distributor 10 degrees, that gives you 20 degrees of engine timing advance, so small adjustments are better than big ones

If no luck, go back to the original marks you made and go counter clockwise.

If nothing works you at least have the marks you made to get back to the original distributor location and put the Prestolite module back in.and recheck your timing.