09 60 hp Mercury motor problem

[Tom7227]

I started the motor with the muffs on at the house and all was well. Launched it and my son got it to run for about 5 minutes and it bogged down and died. It started, died. Now when you turn the key you can hear the solenoid click but nothing happens. Tried it with another battery and same thing. Gassed the boat up last fall and put in Stabil. Safety switch is in the proper position. Manual has things in it about the Engine Guardian and beeps. No beeps. Put the throttle all the way down into neutral, the further into reverse to try and reset the Guardian as per the instructions. Same thing.

Any clues will be appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Tom

[BoxMN]

Do you hear the beep when you first turn the key? You should, at least on my '12 you do. Silly question, but are both batts charged fully?

oh yeah, and obviously, you tried and doubled and triple checked the kill switch, right? And quadruple checked it?

[Tom7227]

Check, beep. Check, batteries. Check, kill switch. Check, Kill Switch. Check, Kill Switch.

If any of these things were bad I would expect to not hear a solenoid click when the ignition is turned to start. My son who was driving the boat said that the battery posts got hot when he hooked the backup batter to the motor wires and tried to start it. I am thinking a dead short in the starter but wonder why that would happen at the same time that something caused the motor to die a sluggish death while he was motoring across the lake.

[Surface Tension]

A bad cable to battery connection will create heat.

Cranking the engine over with this bad connection(lowered voltage and amp)is bad for a starter and solenoid and will cause heat there too.

You could jump wire the starter to test it. Hook up the cables to the battery.

Hook up the + cable to the starter. Be sure you have good contact.

Then the - cable to the block.

That last connection will spark pretty good but hopefully the starter turns over.

Don't crank for long because jumper cables are poor connections.

The bog and die. Did you try pumping up the bulb and if so what did you find.

[Tom7227]

Frank,

I went this morning and the gear would pop up but the starter would not turn. I tried to hook up the jumpers as you suggested but as soon as I tried to hook up the hot lead there was a big spark so I quit. The negative lead was not connected to anything.

Bulb is firm.

Tom

[Tom7227]

Ended up taking it to a shop as it seemed a bit more than my meager skills could handle. Way to many things under the hood for me to risk screwing around with.

[boatfixer]

Ran it for 5 minutes, bogged and died, now won't turn over?

Yikes!! I'd pull the plugs and try turning it over by hand......

[Tom7227]

The shop called and said that the compression is ok and they can turn the motor over. The starter is fried and getting a new one will have to wait until Tuesday. Several suggestions have been offered that there could be water in the gas.

The boat is a 09 Crestliner pontoon and their specs say to fill the tank at the end of the season. I did that and added the proper amount of marine grade Stabil. The boat was stored in an unheated pole barn over the winter.

I suppose there could have been enough freeze and thaw to get some condensation going. How do you determine if there is water in the gas and if there is what can you do about it? I am not all that interested in trying to siphon 17 gallons out of the boat and really not interested in wasting that fuel. I realize that given the gas prices in October vs now probably will require that I post a short timer capital gain on my income tax but spending $75 to replace it isn't all that attractive either.

Thanks for your time.

Tom

[boatfixer]

Tom the easiest way to check for water is pull a sample from the bottom of the tank, whether you use the fuel line or whether you siphon. Then put it right into a clear glass jar. If water is present, you'll see the water beaded up on the bottom.

[BoxMN]

Tom, do you have a fuel / water separator filter on the toon? I do and that should should be easy if so, just dump the filter into a glass jar and look for the same water. We saw that once on our 150 which was giving us an alarm... it was just the motor telling us our fuel had water in it.

FWIW, we try to store the boats with as little fuel as possible over winter, then add fresh stuff (non-oxy) in the spring. We do use a tiny amount of SeaFoam all season long with each filling of fuel. Not sure if manual calls for it, but it works for us. On the 50 with 6 gallon tank, we dump it (into my truck) at end of duck season and start totally fresh in spring.

[Tom7227]

Well the news from the shop is not good. The starter was fried, and that really isn't that bad. But the shop owner told me yesterday that there was water in cylinders 2,3 &4 and that he suspected a blown head gasket. He said things were already starting to rust!

The obvious cause is an overheat. But the engine warning system never did the beep thing. Of course it is one year and 5 days out of warranty so I suspect that I am SOL. I just hope that I won't have to tap the home equity line of credit to pay for it.

[BoxMN]

Yikes... sorry to hear that Tom.