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Hey everybody it's Technicians Tuesday
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Since you all know how to troubleshoot your fuel and starting systems from our two
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previous videos in this series it's time to put them all together and go through the
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process of what to do if your engine won't start. This is something every voter should know so that they can save the day if it ever
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happens when you are around. So hit that subscribe button because you'll want to
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to have a chance to win this week's contest prize of a B-Tool fuel pressure testing kit
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When it comes to figuring out why an engine won't start, there's a quick way and a slow way
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and we'll be showing you the way to look like you know what you're doing. There's a process of elimination that should be followed in order to get the issue figured out quickly
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and not just be jumping all over the place. You can play around with the order a little bit, though, depending on the symptoms
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but we'll give you an order to try and cover all of the bases for many different situations
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An engine needs four main things to run. Air, fuel, compression
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and fire. And fire. So when you get on a boat and the engine won't start
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won't start, we are going to assume that you've checked the basics, meaning the kill
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switches in place, the handles are in neutral, and the battery switches are turned on
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Then what we'll do is pull off the cowling and do a quick visual check
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We'll look at the shifting mechanism to make sure it is in the middle, showing us that the
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engine is actually in neutral position. We'll check the oil level to make sure the engine has oil
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do an overall visual inspection to see if there is something apparently broken or if there
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is a blockage not allowing the engine to get air Checking to make sure that all the fuses are good and that none of them are blown or broken corroded or messed up This should only take a couple of minutes to do
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Next, we want to make sure that we have enough battery voltage to turn the engine over quick enough to allow it to start
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We learned from our starting video that we can do this pretty quickly by taking our load tester
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and hooking it up to the starter and the engine ground to test a battery and the engine ground to test the battery and
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and battery cables to make sure they provide enough power to turn the engine over
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Quickly enough to have enough RPMs in order to allow the engine to start and run
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If the engine doesn't turn over quickly enough, then it won't start
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Another tip is to look at the tachometer while the engine is turning over
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If you don't see the needle move showing RPMs, then that means that there is something
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going on with the crank position sensor and the engine won't start without that either
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performing the load test if we don't have the right amount of voltage then you
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will need to troubleshoot the starting system and you'll just follow the
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steps in our starting video for this series and you'll have the problem
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fixed in no time at all then we'll move on to making sure we've got fuel and
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clean fuel at that simply unscrew the water separator and pour out the fuel
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into a clear container so that we can see what kind of condition the fuel is in
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as long as there is good clean fuel we can move on and ensure that we have
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fuel pressure. This is done by locating the strater valve that is on the fuel rail or on the
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VST on the engine. We can hook up our fuel pressure gauge and then turn the key to the on position
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which will activate the fuel pumps and we should see the fuel pressure rise and then slowly
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come back down. You can also turn the key and try to start the engine to ensure that the fuel pressure
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builds and stays up the way that it is supposed to. If we don't see the fuel pressure build, we can look at the fuse for the fuel system and make sure that it is not blown
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If the fuse is not blown, then it is time to troubleshoot why we don't have fuel pressure
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As long as you follow the steps in our previous videos on fuel system troubleshooting fuel supply modules and the vapor separator tank then you will be able to figure out and resolve your no pressure issue
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But now that we have confirmed that the engine is building and maintaining fuel pressure
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we'll move on to checking the ignition system and compression of the engine
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by performing a spark and compression test. We'll just pull off the ignition coil
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and then pull out the spark plug, which are a great item that people like to put off
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Spark plugs can get expensive and so most people will put them off until the engine has all kinds of running issues
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Sometimes to the point where the engine won't even start. They'll even troubleshoot half the engine to save from just changing out these plugs
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But if you look at them and they look fouled out, burned out, or look oxidized like this
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and the ceramic around the bottom is burnt like this? It's time to just change the plugs because they could be your only issue
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Now with the plugs out, we'll hook up a sparkboard to the ignition coils and hook up the
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and hook up our remote starter button to the starter and the power post
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Then with the key switch in the on position, we can hit that starter button and turn the engine over
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while watching the sparkboard to ensure that all of the ignition coils
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are firing and sending a spark to the spark plug. As long as we see all the cylinders sparking on the sparkboard
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we can move on to the compression test. Otherwise, if there isn't spark on one of the cylinders
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then we can swap the ignition coils from one that is, it is with the one that isn't
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Then perform the test again and this will verify if we have a bad coil or need to dig deeper into the ignition system
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Before performing the compression test, you'll want to get subscribed to the channel, follow us on Instagram
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and let us know about a time that your boat wouldn't start in the comments section below
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Include a hashtag won't start for your chance to win the fuel pressure tester kit
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�� we just need to turn the key switch back off and install our compression tester into the engine cylinder
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we can hit the starter button and turn the engine over a few times and watch the gauge to see as the engine turns over building compression in the cylinder
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now these readings will vary depending on many different factors like different styles of engines
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engines, the age, carbon buildup, was it ran before compression testing, four-stroke versus two-stroke
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but for general purposes for a four-stroke, you want the compression to be above 150 to 160 PSI
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And for a two-stroke, you want the compression to be around or above 100 PSI
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After performing all of these tests, you should come out knowing what exactly has happened
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and what is going on with your engine to make it not want to start
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Most commonly, you'll find a rusty fuel filter or a clog fuel filter, old worn-out spark plugs
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or an issue with an ignition coil or fuel pump to be the most common issues for an outboard to not want to start
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Next week we'll be taking you through the process of replacing an outboard engine
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And you don't want to miss that. So have a great week and we'll see you next week
