Discovered A Problem

[Jason]

Sounds healthy to me!

[Rich_V174SS]

Took the V174 out for its first spring run today. Temperatures in the mid 80's here if you can believe that! The $50 electric fuel pump seems to keep up nicely with fuel demand and no flooding at idle. I was even able to slow my idle speed down a touch and it starts so much quicker and easier now. No new speed records and no video, sorry. I was able to get it up to near 50 mph but rolling waters prevented me from keeping it open for any length of time, got several air jumps that had me bouncing out of my seat. Gotta take it to the lake soon.

[Jason]

Nice work Rich! 50 is pretty good!

[V153]

Suweet Rich. Looks good! Hope it works ...  Kidding! Heh heh heh

[OleRed]

Hey Rich .. I use the identical pump to run the motors I build on a stand, works just fine for that, so I recomended it to my friend Bill, in California, to run on his 260hp Mercruiser, well .. (300hp at least) he bought one, and it continually leaned out under full power, he bought a pressure gauge, installed it, done a lake test, when it leaned out he looked at the pressure gauge and it was reading 1 1/2 lb, few seconds later it climbed back up to 4 1/2lb, that was the max reading for that pump.  The carbs we are running, Edlebrock performers, require 4 to 7 psi.  Later ... I ran the stroker with my test pump on the lake, it did the same thing, it would only stand up to full power for about 5 seconds, then the carb ran out of gas just like I pulled the power back.

This is the pump I have ran on the last few motors I have built, stands up just fine, I will try one of these on the stroker when I get it back in a boat.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fuel-Pump-Electric-Low-Pressure-Mercruiser-4-3-5-0L-/230629858252?pt=Boat_Parts_Accessories_Gear&vxp=mtr&hash=item35b29c5bcc

Hooking the electric fuel pump up to an oil pressure switch is good, and the later model boats are pressure switched, but I believe the fuel pump is initiated during the cranking mode, not by the oil pressure switch. 

[Rich_V174SS]

The pump I have is rated 3-5 psi with an output rating of 30 gph, it is power controlled by an oil pressure switch. I saw no need to run a power bypass to run the pump during cranking, this engine starts very quickly with just a single slight pump of the throttle and leaving it advanced just a hair. Since I'm running a big 3.7 liter 4 cylinder I think it will keep up ok. I did have the engine opened up full throttle for a few seconds today and didn't notice any leaning out, ran the same as with the mechanical fuel pump but without the flooding out at idle. When I get the boat on smoother water where I can keep it opened up longer I'll know for sure if it's adequate.

[Rich_V174SS]

Last weekend I had the boat out, (remember the mermaid incident?), and after blasting around the sound for a while I look in my engine compartment and I see some oil collecting in the bilge and it seemed to be trickling down the inner transom plate and on the transom itself. I thought it a strange place to have an oil leak because it's several inches behind the engine and couldn't think of where it was coming from. I have seen cases where the drive leaked oil through the driveshaft seal partially filling up the drive bellows and it would leak into the boat through the gimbal bearing. I started wondering if I could have the same problem but don't see how considering my drive is only 2 years old. So I planned for the worse and got myself a new driveshaft seal, bellows, and a gasket set and began to pull the drive. I get the drive off in about 5 minutes and was expecting to see a mess of oil inside the bellows and guess what I find - nothing! It was absolutely dry inside. So I thought "oh well" I might as well check the engine alignment and gimbal bearing, they were spot on. Then my attention got drawn to the shifter lever on the bell housing, it was loose and sloppy so I removed it. The guide roller that is normally fastened tight was floppy so I decided to get a new one and replace it. When I got the new one I compared the two and realized what I pulled out didn't look like an OEM Mercury part, looked more like something Sierra or Mallory might have sold and made in China. How did that get in there?!?!? So I put the new lever in, installed the new gasket set and reinstalled the drive and did a quick verification that the shift cables were adjusted properly. All seems well. Methinks the oil leak may be coming from the power steering ram and dripping down the transom. A problem to solve for another day.

Drive:


Drive Removed:


Alignment Check:


Gimbal Bearing:


Shift Levers - Aftermarket? (left), OEM (right):


New OEM Lever Installed:


Gasket Set Installed: