Here is the full story of what happened to get to this point.
I had just dropped on a freshly built P/H in March and was out breaking her in. Everything was fine for about 30 minutes when the motor lost power and stalled. I restarted her and it did this chugging thing like it was running on 3 cyl and hardly would pull a dead hen off a nest...then it recovered and was fine again. I went back & forth up the cove a few more times. All was well, so out I went into the main body of the lake.
So sure enough, it knew that I'd gone out of the cove and started to act goofy again. Some sputtering and recovering, loss of power then picking up again and the first thing I thought was A) This is either fuel or electrical, and B) It keeps recovering so I'll bet it's fuel starvation.
Then I thought back to the two previous P/H's that had blown, one at the 2005 WAR and one by the previous owner. So I thought, I'm not going for number 3 and let's figure out what's up with this jinxed rig.
So I turned around and limped back towards the ramp, sputtering and surging most of the way, occasionally picking up bursts of OK running.
While I idled in, I noticed the "frying bacon" (PERFECT description, Chris) sound that the fuel pump was making, and noticed a bit of fluctuation on the inline pressure gauge. So I think, here's a smoking gun, neither of my other two boats make this noise and is it just coincidence that I am having these problems that come and go and the pump is doing this sizzling thing?
This was with the old tank and the old pump location (above the W/S filter, forcing it to suck, no gravity feed).
Chris, your explanation and observation that the fuel return is creating air bubbles in the pickup is perfectly plausible except in my case for two reasons: 1) The pickup in the old tank was in the center, and the return was over in the corner, and 2) The tank was nearly full of fuel.
So I go on a mission to find out why there might be air getting into the fuel line, and remove the tank and the pickup tube. Aha, I think, the 11-year-old tank has a hardened clear vinyl hose on the pickup barb at the top, inside the tank, at the top, where air could leak into the line.
I replace the entire tank with a new one from Allison, re-plumb / relocate the filter and pump and lines as per advice here and from the Diamond Marine article (although some have suggested trashing the W/S filter, and maybe I should, but left it for now) and there should be a good siphon feed to the bottom of the pump.
Put in 10 gallons of fuel last night, all fresh (5 gals race & 5 gals 91), new filters both W/S and inline (oh yeah, I removed the W/S flange and re-sealed all the fittings with purple locktite), ran the pump.....
At first it groaned and would not show more than 20 psi on the gauge. After some starts and stops of the key (never starting the motor, just key ON) it picked up to 40 psi and then started doing the frying bacon noise again!
I let the pump run for awhile, thinking maybe it was just residual air in the system. Sure enough, the noise went away. Then it came back. Then it went away. Then it came back. All by itself, without any manipulation or intervention.
I wouldn't be so concerned about this frying sound were it not for the fact that none of the other boats with similar pumps have ever made this sound, and I can see the fluctuation (ever so slight, 1 to 2 psi) on the inline pressure gauge. Unfortunately, as the gauge is in the fuel tank compartment, I could not see it that time I was out running the boat.
This morning I ordered a new Bosch pump from Glenn, for overnight delivery. Worst case scenario, I'll have an extra pump on hand or for Ebay. :lol:
What's left? Could it be the regulator, up on the motor? I've never heard of one of those going bad... :?:
Thanks to all you guys who have responded and thanks for enduring this long read.
My luck, I'll get this fixed and find out the problem was in the motor electrical all along. :roll:
