steve on the water
Member
Hi everybody,
This site has been a great source of information for me over the last year. We bought a 97 Challenger 1800 last July but it has never run consistently. The first thing I found was a melted piston cap on the Rave valve on the aft starboard cylinder. Not knowing better, I just replaced the parts, so it happened again. Yesterday I replaced the Rave Valve and housing. We took it out on the lake with my in-laws and it ran like a champ. I was a little worried since the boat has never run that great. We ran the length of the lake at varying speeds from puttering along to 5500 RPMs for about an hour and a half. I had stopped once about 20 minutes in to check the new housing. It looked perfect! We stopped for about 30 minutes to run ashore. After about 20 minutes of slow cruising on the way back, we went to pick up the pace to head back to the ramp. The starboard engine started to race and bog down in pretty quick succession, then it suddenly quit. I started the engine and took a quick look and it seemed like there was good water flow. It would run smooth at idle, so we limped back home and made it to the ramp just before sunset. I had a lot of time to think about the situation and talk it out with my wife and father-in-law. I know it has to be fuel, air, electrical, or cooling water. I think the cooling was working ok. I was wondering if the all the slow speed puttering for the day had gunked the plugs of carbs. The oiler had been removed before we purchased the boat and it is running on 40:1 premix. I was hoping to rebuild the cabs over the winter, but never got around to it. This was the first time out for the year and it was winterized with about 1/2 tank of gas. We had topped it off earlier in the day. I have run regular gas in it all along. Is this an issue? It looks like the starboard engine may have been worked on in the past based on paint chips along the seams. Does anyone have any ideas on where to start the diagnosis? I am looking to borrow a compression tester from a friend to check the compression. Unfortunately I haven't even found time to pull the plugs and look at them yet. Thanks for any and all suggestions.
Steve
This site has been a great source of information for me over the last year. We bought a 97 Challenger 1800 last July but it has never run consistently. The first thing I found was a melted piston cap on the Rave valve on the aft starboard cylinder. Not knowing better, I just replaced the parts, so it happened again. Yesterday I replaced the Rave Valve and housing. We took it out on the lake with my in-laws and it ran like a champ. I was a little worried since the boat has never run that great. We ran the length of the lake at varying speeds from puttering along to 5500 RPMs for about an hour and a half. I had stopped once about 20 minutes in to check the new housing. It looked perfect! We stopped for about 30 minutes to run ashore. After about 20 minutes of slow cruising on the way back, we went to pick up the pace to head back to the ramp. The starboard engine started to race and bog down in pretty quick succession, then it suddenly quit. I started the engine and took a quick look and it seemed like there was good water flow. It would run smooth at idle, so we limped back home and made it to the ramp just before sunset. I had a lot of time to think about the situation and talk it out with my wife and father-in-law. I know it has to be fuel, air, electrical, or cooling water. I think the cooling was working ok. I was wondering if the all the slow speed puttering for the day had gunked the plugs of carbs. The oiler had been removed before we purchased the boat and it is running on 40:1 premix. I was hoping to rebuild the cabs over the winter, but never got around to it. This was the first time out for the year and it was winterized with about 1/2 tank of gas. We had topped it off earlier in the day. I have run regular gas in it all along. Is this an issue? It looks like the starboard engine may have been worked on in the past based on paint chips along the seams. Does anyone have any ideas on where to start the diagnosis? I am looking to borrow a compression tester from a friend to check the compression. Unfortunately I haven't even found time to pull the plugs and look at them yet. Thanks for any and all suggestions.
Steve
