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5 Reasons Boats LOSE POWER!!!
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Aug 16, 2024
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View Video Transcript
0:00
Anyone that has a boat or uses a boat has the opportunity to plan out a great day on the water
0:07
Pack up the cooler, the gear, get everyone on the boat, and head out on the water
0:11
Just to get out and push the throttle down to find out that the boat has something wrong with it
0:16
and has either lost power or is no longer reaching wide-open throttle like it once did
0:21
Which is why we want to cover the five most common things that you can investigate on the boat
0:25
that will usually cause this issue out of the blue. The first thing that we want to discuss is something that usually comes about as a one-time thing
0:34
It's one of those things where when it happens to you, you never forget it. It's also something that a lot of people won't ever experience
0:41
because it's something that only happens to those that leave their boat in the water all the time
0:46
For those of you that trailer, you don't have to think about it, but for those of you that go from trailering to leaving the boat in all the time
0:53
this is where we see it the most. Because the first reason that a boat randomly loses power
0:58
or top speed is because of a dirty bottom. You don't really think about it, but the weight, the suction to the water
1:05
and the roughness of the growth that can build on the bottom of a boat can slow it down to the point where you think you have an engine problem
1:11
when in reality you just need a power wash. In some places, it only takes a matter of weeks
1:17
and the bottom of the boat can get so dirty with enough growth on it
1:20
that it can rob you of speed and power. So just being aware of how badly this can affect the performance of your boat
1:27
is something to think about, which is why this made the list. Our next issue that you can see whenever you get the boat up on plane
1:33
and realize that you've got the handle all the way down, but you aren't going nearly as fast as you used to
1:39
is going to be possibly the most common issue, because this is going to be anything that has to do with the fuel system
1:46
You've learned what the number one problem that we see with the outboards is in a separate video
1:51
but we also mentioned this infamous fuel issue over there, as well as in a couple of other videos
1:56
and that is because this can be a difficult problem to discuss, mainly because it's really an entire issue made up of hundreds of things that can go wrong within the system itself
2:08
But for time's sake today, we're just going to go over a couple of the most prominent things that you can find that will cause you to lose power on the boat due to your fuel system
2:18
Number one, the fuel quality. If you've got really old, dirty, or really poor quality of fuel, that can steal your power right there
2:25
And to test this, we just need to roll into the second thing, being old, rusted, clogged, or full of dirt and water, water separators
2:34
A dirty water separator can create high restriction in the fuel system not allowing the engine fuel pumps to be able to pull the fuel from the tank to feed to the engine resulting in a loss of power Then on the other hand with dirty fuel or water in the fuel if the separator fills up with that junk
2:51
it will then just feed all that junk to the engine, causing even more problems
2:56
So by pulling the separator off and pouring it into a clear container
3:00
you can check the quality and see if this is possibly your issue. Moving on to the third issue, any other kind of restriction within the fuel lines going to the engines
3:10
This can include a dirty pickup screen in the fuel tank, or a kinked fuel line in the boat
3:18
or even a bad fuel line where the liner has separated. You can test this by simply disconnecting the fuel line at the engine
3:26
squeezing the primer bulb, and seeing if you get fuel to come out into a jar
3:30
If you don't see any fuel or is really hard to squeeze the primer bulb
3:34
then you know where to start tracking. Then this problem will creep its way into the engine
3:39
These restrictions, dirty fuel or water can start to damage things on the engine like the fuel filters that are on the engine
3:46
and even into the fuel pumps and their screens that you will find in the engine's fuel system
3:51
And if the issue gets all the way to the fuel injectors, those can get damaged as well
4:06
But testing for any of these kinds of issues can start with a quick
4:10
and dirty test by simply removing one of the fuel hoses to the fuel rail and putting it into a bottle
4:19
Or taking a rag and covering the strater valve normally found on the fuel rail and pressing it in
4:25
With that pressed in, cycle the key switch to see if fuel comes squirting out of the hose or out of the strater valve into the rag
4:33
If nothing comes out, you've got a problem. If fuel just trickles out, you've still got a problem
4:38
And if fuel does come squirting out, then you might even still have a problem because you don't know the pressure of that fuel
4:45
But at least you know a lot more about what's going on than you did before checking this
4:50
And if we are talking about carburetors, then all the same issues apply, with the exception of stopping before we talked about the fuel pumps
4:59
Because the fuel pumps on carbureted engines are usually diaphragm-driven pumps, and you can take those off and inspect them to make sure that the diaphragm isn't ruptured
5:08
And then if you want to do a little test on the carbs before removing them and cleaning them
5:12
you can simply put some fuel and oil into a bottle, put a hole in the top of it
5:17
and then squirt the fuel into the carb while you're running to see if you get that speed back
5:21
or at least get the RPM to jump up like it normally would if it had the fuel that it was supposed to have Now moving away from the fuel topic though our next issue is also going to be a pretty simple and common issue being a bad spark plug If you don put many hours on your boat
5:36
or you put a whole lot of hours on your boat in a short period of time, then spark plugs might not
5:41
be as high up on the list of things that you think about when it comes to potential issues. But a bad
5:47
plug or coil can drop out a cylinder and if enough of them drop out, you could not only lose
5:52
top speed, but the engine could just stop starting and running altogether
5:56
A dirty, fouled or shorted plug can rob your power just as quickly as a loss of fuel
6:01
And the quick and dirty test to pinpointing an issue like this is as simple as doing a drop test by simply unplugging the coils one at a time
6:09
or unplugging the injectors one at a time. I know people can get a little uptight when it comes to unplugging things when the engine is running
6:16
and say things like you shouldn't unplug the coils and you shouldn't unplug the injectors, this and that
6:22
and you just don't understand what that's doing to the engine. But when you're 20 miles offshore and you've got problems with your engine, this kind of a drop test is worth knowing how to do
6:32
By unplugging one or the other, depending on what model engine you have, you can listen to the RPM
6:54
And if the RPM doesn't change when you unplug one, then that lets you know that that
7:01
cylinder is not operating. And it could be either the plug, the coil, or the injector, but again, at least you now
7:07
know more than what you did before doing this. I might warn you though that if you don't have the coil over plug or coils that are bolted
7:16
on but instead have spark plug leads or wires like this, just unplug the injector and
7:22
don't pull this off. If you still choose to pull it off with the engine running, be careful because you can and
7:29
most likely will get shocked by the lead during that process. Okay, so our next issue is a little easier to identify because this will usually come
7:38
with an audible alarm and a warning, depending on what kind of engine you are working with
7:43
and that is going to be an overheat condition when the engine is getting too hot and putting
7:47
you in an RPM reduction state or protection mode or guardian mode, whatever it is that you're
7:53
used to calling it. Where the engine isn't cooling down like it should, heating up and then limiting your RPM
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because it is too hot, this is usually caused by a weak or messed up impeller or say a muddobber
8:04
has made a nest in your cooling system. Or you've sucked something up into the cooling system and it has a part of the system blocked
8:11
where you would need to follow the steps we outlined in the video about fixing an engine that has stopped peeing This is actually another really common issue You know it the scenario where you have your buddy get the boat ready
8:22
and they start the engine with it out of the water, and it takes them a minute or two to realize why the engine is so loud
8:28
before they trim it down into the water. Why is that, Captain Ron? Well, nobody knows
8:35
All right. And that was just enough time to partially smoke the impeller to where now
8:40
it isn't moving the amount of water that it should, and no one in the boat seems to know why this is happening or how it happened
8:46
Well, at least no one is saying anything yet, until you drop the lower unit and look at the impeller and say
8:51
hmm, I wonder how that happened. But it's common and it does happen, so now we can move on to an honorable mention before we talk about the fifth issue
9:00
This issue is going to be more model-specific, but it's something that many boaters are still not familiar with as an issue that you can come across when it comes to RPM reduction and lose
9:10
using wide open throttle on the boat. And that is going to be a faulty trim sensor
9:14
Yep, if your trim sensor fails, it can limit your top speed
9:18
And not even give you any kind of codes or warnings or anything. It just limits your RPM
9:23
And this is because the engine's computer is looking at the trim reading it gets from the sensor
9:28
If that reading is telling the computer that the engine is trimmed up out of the water
9:31
or way too high, then it limits your RPM. And some engines won't give you any kind of code or anything, it just limits your RPM
9:39
But a quick test for this is to just trim the engine up and see if you see the trim reading
9:44
on the gauge go up or down when you trim. If it doesn't, then on certain engines, this could
9:49
be your only issue. Now for our last power loss scenario, we are going to be talking about
9:54
an issue with the air system. This can be any issue where we have a leak in the air system, or
9:59
if we are talking about a carbureted engine, an issue with the air jets in the carburet being
10:04
clogged up with any kind of debris that can easily clog up a car. As many boaters running
10:09
carbureated engines have become used to dealing with. Then on fuel-injected engines, this can be an air waktuake in the manifold, an air leak in the
10:16
throttle body, a boot to a sensor, or on say a supercharged engine, a dirty air filter
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or a leak from the charger to the manifold where the air needs to go to get to the engine
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Any of these scenarios can cause you to lose power on your boat, and we'd love to hear about
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any of these issues that you have had to deal with, both in the comments section below
10:35
and if you are a community member at born-againboating.com. a discussion about your experience over in the community. If you aren't a member yet
10:43
just go to borneganboating.com and sign up. Then we'll see you over there. Now don't
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forget to subscribe to the channel and hit that like button. We want to thank you all for
10:52
hang out with us this week and we look forward to seeing you next week
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