I have a feeling I had a run in with that dreaded E-10 this weekend...
Now I've been running the Glastron nearly every weekend, and last weekend the engine hiccuped once when I accelerated but was fine the rest of the time.
Saturday morning I went to fill up at Lou's and before fueling put some stabilizer in the tank (nowadays both Merc and Volvo are saying to do it with every fillup!). Well no sooner do I get past the breakwater than the engine starts bogging down like hell, and running like its either (a) got water in the gas, or (b) having a condenser breakdown. I got turned around and back into the creek, with the boat running worse and worse, and made it to Certified. The degradation of power and very uneven RPMs was getting rather bad by that point - the tach was all over the place. Since I have a Ford engine and they are notorious for Condenser probs which do exactly the above symptoms when the engine is hot, especially with Mallory distributors, I tried replacing that first. Nope. Then I changed the coil. Nope. Put carb cleaner in. Nope. Limped back to the Anchorage and changed the water separator. That seemed to make a difference, so I took it down by that Feeney junkyard and tried some trial runs at full speed. It backfired, spit, and then started running better. But now, though running consistently at even RPM, it was running on 6 or 7 cylinders and shaking me all over the place. This AM I went and got some new spark plugs, and BINGO, the boat was now fine, except that I had to readjust the carburetor quite a bit. I dunno what happened, except that I think whatever got into my fuel system fouled those spark plugs very badly, perhaps after I put that additive in there. My buddies at Mahopac Marina have replaced many more carburetors than in past years, mostly on boats that sit awhile before being used. But I use this boat every weekend. Perhaps all that idling in and out of the creek (some 30 plus minutes each way) had something to do with it...
We had a good day today with the boat, ran it to Norrie Point for a picnic and back. Now its on a trailer, getting ready for our vacation in 2 weeks. I sure hope it runs OK then. Meanwhile something tells me I'd better stock up on spare parts, especially fuel filters and spark plugs...
I told everyone awhile ago that this gas mixture thing was going to be really bad. I hate to be proven right on my own damn boat!!!
PS - service bulletins from Merc and Volvo say the gas degradation with E-10 can occur after only 2 weeks of sitting idle. I think it was Merc that said to pull off the water separator and fill it with StaBil, and then run it for about 15 minutes if you're not using the boat for a couple of weeks...
Now I've been running the Glastron nearly every weekend, and last weekend the engine hiccuped once when I accelerated but was fine the rest of the time.
Saturday morning I went to fill up at Lou's and before fueling put some stabilizer in the tank (nowadays both Merc and Volvo are saying to do it with every fillup!). Well no sooner do I get past the breakwater than the engine starts bogging down like hell, and running like its either (a) got water in the gas, or (b) having a condenser breakdown. I got turned around and back into the creek, with the boat running worse and worse, and made it to Certified. The degradation of power and very uneven RPMs was getting rather bad by that point - the tach was all over the place. Since I have a Ford engine and they are notorious for Condenser probs which do exactly the above symptoms when the engine is hot, especially with Mallory distributors, I tried replacing that first. Nope. Then I changed the coil. Nope. Put carb cleaner in. Nope. Limped back to the Anchorage and changed the water separator. That seemed to make a difference, so I took it down by that Feeney junkyard and tried some trial runs at full speed. It backfired, spit, and then started running better. But now, though running consistently at even RPM, it was running on 6 or 7 cylinders and shaking me all over the place. This AM I went and got some new spark plugs, and BINGO, the boat was now fine, except that I had to readjust the carburetor quite a bit. I dunno what happened, except that I think whatever got into my fuel system fouled those spark plugs very badly, perhaps after I put that additive in there. My buddies at Mahopac Marina have replaced many more carburetors than in past years, mostly on boats that sit awhile before being used. But I use this boat every weekend. Perhaps all that idling in and out of the creek (some 30 plus minutes each way) had something to do with it...
We had a good day today with the boat, ran it to Norrie Point for a picnic and back. Now its on a trailer, getting ready for our vacation in 2 weeks. I sure hope it runs OK then. Meanwhile something tells me I'd better stock up on spare parts, especially fuel filters and spark plugs...
I told everyone awhile ago that this gas mixture thing was going to be really bad. I hate to be proven right on my own damn boat!!!
PS - service bulletins from Merc and Volvo say the gas degradation with E-10 can occur after only 2 weeks of sitting idle. I think it was Merc that said to pull off the water separator and fill it with StaBil, and then run it for about 15 minutes if you're not using the boat for a couple of weeks...