Great way to ruin a 4th of July weekend

[2biguns]

We had our weekend all lined up with precision-laid plans on how to be make our proper appearances at all large family gatherings and yet still get to enjoy the lake (I wore my beeper and Amy kept my cell phone and when the family love got too thick or if Amy had one more old biddy tell her, "honey, I wish I had been brave enough to wear a bikini when I was pregnant", she would discretely page me and I would use the incoming beep as an excuse to leave to pick someone up from the dock).

Only flaw in the plan: GOT TO HAVE A BOAT THAT AIN'T BROKE :mad:

SYMPTOMS: Port engine perfect. Starboard engine has no fire. Not a spark. Crank and crank and crank to no avail.

On Wednesday I had a hard time getting the sick engine (330 hp carbureted 454) to crank. Once it did, I ran down the lake to make sure all ok. Hit trim switch and engine died. Limped back home on one engine (of course, the one without power steering). After an hour, I got the sick one cranked and it ran flawlessly.

Thursday, it never cranked. Tried everything we could come up with Friday and Saturday. Sunday: put on trailer and took to mechanic.

Engine acts like someone pulled the kill switch. Turns over fine, plenty of gas, just no spark anywhere.

I hate boats.

Any thoughts?

[boldts]

Steve,

Sounds an awful lot like what I had happen to me on our 22 Classic. After coming off a wave, the engine completely shut off. Checked the kill switch, made sure she was in neutral when trying to start, checked the batteries and connections. Engine turned over, had fuel in the carb, but no fire. Next checked all the wire conections going to the coil and the distributor. All looked OK. Frustrated to the MAX, as a last ditch effort, I crawled under the dash to see if maybe there were any lose wires.

Wha Laa! I had some sort of power lead from the ignition switch that had seperated from it's crimpted round end that then was screwed to a side of the switch. Put the wire back into the sleeve and tried the key. She started like there had never been a problem.

We continued on to where we were heading and I made repairs. (Note to Donzi: Please use a longer screw on this ignition outlet when your going to add 6 of these round ends to the ignition switch.)

Anyway, once a longer screw was found and the wire was re-attached, no further problems were had. :)

[HyperDonzi]

Check wires, the wire behind the kill switch has gotten us a good time. Boldts, Thought that was an EFI motor?

[boldts]

Hyper, No EFI on my Classic.

2 Bigones, another item that shut down my Classic at it's first AOTH last year was a cracked coil. Didn't see the crack in the side until I pulled the coil out of it's holder. Had the same symptoms.

[kk89z33]

Mercury had problems with the wiring harness being rubbed thru at the back of the intake where the harness hits the intake as it bends down the back of the engine. I had a 330 hp 87 merc that left me stranded on the mississippi river for this same thing. Check for wires worn thru, if remember right, it was on the starboard side of the carb. Hope this helps... Kurt

[2biguns]

Thanks for the ideas. Luckily, the ignition switches have a single plate that is separate from the dash so it will be easy to check and see if a wire has worn through or disconnected.

The coil was my final thought and on Sunday I almost swapped coils between the engines to see if I could get the sick one to crank...then I saw Amy's eyes roll back in her head when she thought she was going to have to sit on the dock and watch me work on the boat some more. Erring on the side of caution, I promptly trailered the boat to the mechanic and took her to Huntsville for dinner.

I'll also check the wiring harness again. I crawled around the engine compartment the best I could but there's just not a lot of maneuvering room for a sweaty fat guy back there :D