Boat Running Rough, Pickup Coil Question, 5.7 monsoon 340, 04 VLX

[Dustin_360]

Hi All-

I have a question about the pickup coil. I’m trying to troubleshoot a rough running motor with a variety of symptoms. I believe the issue is ignition related.

One thing I noticed is with the boat turned on (but not running obviously) I can pull off the distributor cap and move the distributor rod vertically up and down (with the free play in the shaft about 1/16th of an inch). While moving the rod down I can sometimes hear a pop like small magnets clicking together in the pickup coil. When I hear the pop I also hear the fuel pump kick back on and priming for a few seconds as if I had just turned the key from off to the on position. It’s as if there is a short created, dropping voltage and the ECM has reset. Can anyone tell me if there boat does the same thing and is this is normal? Maybe you can test it?

If I unplug the pickup coil the popping pretty much goes away and the fuel pump never comes on when jiggling the distributor rod up and down. I measured the resistance of the pickup coil and it’s 930 ohms. Clymer book says 500-1500 is ok. If I measure the resistance of the coil while jiggling it up and down and it bounced between 700-1300. But the meter isn’t super good so if there was a momentary short I’m not sure this meters response is fast enough to catch it.

Here are the symptoms

Basically the engine is hard to start and the idle sometimes (intermittently) bounces between 500-1200 RPM. My dealer tried to fix the boat while it was under warranty about a year ago and they replace the Ignition control module and the ignition coil. They said the ECM and ICM were fighting to control the timing. They said the idle bouncing up and down was the result of timing being advanced or retarded by the ECM or ICM. I don’t think this fixed the problem though because within a few outings the problem was back again. I had lived with the problem for a while but now it’s not just affecting the idle but the running performance of the boat. While I was out today a few times the ignition seemed to completely cut off for half a second a few times at while wakeboarding. There was absolutely no HP then it came right back as if everything was normal.

The plugs cap rotor and plug wires were changed about 25 hours ago. The problem got better but has progressively got worse since then. The boat has 457 hrs.

Thanks,

Dustin

I’m in Chandler if anyone wants to come over and give me a hand… lol.

[JustinOSU]

Have you found a solution? I am troubleshooting similar issues and I have the same boat / engine and I am at 448 hours.

Hi All-

I have a question about the pickup coil. I’m trying to troubleshoot a rough running motor with a variety of symptoms. I believe the issue is ignition related.

One thing I noticed is with the boat turned on (but not running obviously) I can pull off the distributor cap and move the distributor rod vertically up and down (with the free play in the shaft about 1/16th of an inch). While moving the rod down I can sometimes hear a pop like small magnets clicking together in the pickup coil. When I hear the pop I also hear the fuel pump kick back on and priming for a few seconds as if I had just turned the key from off to the on position. It’s as if there is a short created, dropping voltage and the ECM has reset. Can anyone tell me if there boat does the same thing and is this is normal? Maybe you can test it?

If I unplug the pickup coil the popping pretty much goes away and the fuel pump never comes on when jiggling the distributor rod up and down. I measured the resistance of the pickup coil and it’s 930 ohms. Clymer book says 500-1500 is ok. If I measure the resistance of the coil while jiggling it up and down and it bounced between 700-1300. But the meter isn’t super good so if there was a momentary short I’m not sure this meters response is fast enough to catch it.

Here are the symptoms

Basically the engine is hard to start and the idle sometimes (intermittently) bounces between 500-1200 RPM. My dealer tried to fix the boat while it was under warranty about a year ago and they replace the Ignition control module and the ignition coil. They said the ECM and ICM were fighting to control the timing. They said the idle bouncing up and down was the result of timing being advanced or retarded by the ECM or ICM. I don’t think this fixed the problem though because within a few outings the problem was back again. I had lived with the problem for a while but now it’s not just affecting the idle but the running performance of the boat. While I was out today a few times the ignition seemed to completely cut off for half a second a few times at while wakeboarding. There was absolutely no HP then it came right back as if everything was normal.

The plugs cap rotor and plug wires were changed about 25 hours ago. The problem got better but has progressively got worse since then. The boat has 457 hrs.

Thanks,

Dustin

I’m in Chandler if anyone wants to come over and give me a hand… lol.

[99response]

I would start with a fresh fuel filter, cap and rotor.

-Chris

[JasonK]

Clean the cannon plug?

[ricnvic]

Dittos here, I'm having the exact problem and my hours are almost the same. I replaced the cap, rotor and fuel filter and it seemed to help the rough idle but it seems to have gotten worse.

Have you found a solution? I am troubleshooting similar issues and I have the same boat / engine and I am at 448 hours.

Hi All-

I have a question about the pickup coil. I’m trying to troubleshoot a rough running motor with a variety of symptoms. I believe the issue is ignition related.

One thing I noticed is with the boat turned on (but not running obviously) I can pull off the distributor cap and move the distributor rod vertically up and down (with the free play in the shaft about 1/16th of an inch). While moving the rod down I can sometimes hear a pop like small magnets clicking together in the pickup coil. When I hear the pop I also hear the fuel pump kick back on and priming for a few seconds as if I had just turned the key from off to the on position. It’s as if there is a short created, dropping voltage and the ECM has reset. Can anyone tell me if there boat does the same thing and is this is normal? Maybe you can test it?

If I unplug the pickup coil the popping pretty much goes away and the fuel pump never comes on when jiggling the distributor rod up and down. I measured the resistance of the pickup coil and it’s 930 ohms. Clymer book says 500-1500 is ok. If I measure the resistance of the coil while jiggling it up and down and it bounced between 700-1300. But the meter isn’t super good so if there was a momentary short I’m not sure this meters response is fast enough to catch it.

Here are the symptoms

Basically the engine is hard to start and the idle sometimes (intermittently) bounces between 500-1200 RPM. My dealer tried to fix the boat while it was under warranty about a year ago and they replace the Ignition control module and the ignition coil. They said the ECM and ICM were fighting to control the timing. They said the idle bouncing up and down was the result of timing being advanced or retarded by the ECM or ICM. I don’t think this fixed the problem though because within a few outings the problem was back again. I had lived with the problem for a while but now it’s not just affecting the idle but the running performance of the boat. While I was out today a few times the ignition seemed to completely cut off for half a second a few times at while wakeboarding. There was absolutely no HP then it came right back as if everything was normal.

The plugs cap rotor and plug wires were changed about 25 hours ago. The problem got better but has progressively got worse since then. The boat has 457 hrs.

Thanks,

Dustin

I’m in Chandler if anyone wants to come over and give me a hand… lol.

[Dustin_360]

Turns out the pickup coil was fine. I was able to find the missing cylinders by unplugging the sparkplug wires at the distributor and listening for a change in tone from the motor (be careful you might catch a few shocks and it bites hard) . If the tone changes I just unplugged a firing (good) cylinder. You might need to unplug the IAC to make sure the idle is more stable. Also I was able to test the spark on each individual cylinder with a spare spark plug wire and a spark gap tester (available at most auto stores). Should see the spark timing stay consistent if there is no issue and idle is stable.

So it turns out the issue is I have low compression on cylinders 3 cylinders, looks like I need the valves redone. Got water in them some how, the mechanic thinks it’s reversion. Also the lake I run at is salty. It’s 11hrs labor at $90 and hr. I’m guessing it could cost me $2000-2500

I made another post regarding this issue if anyone is interested

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index....mp;#entry262368