I have a 115hp Johnson 4 cyl 2 stroke engine. It will start and idle in
the driveway but not in the water?

I recently acquired Neptune 1800 with a '94 115hp Johnson (J115TLERC),
and I have had a lot of fun playing with it. Obviously I'm no pro, but
I'm not too bad with mechanics. I have taken the boat out on the water
about 8 times, and always had to struggle to get it started. Usually
once I recharged the battery and fooled around with the gas lines
(swapped out the primer bulb, new hose clamps, replaced the filters,
replaced sparkplugs, played with the choke) it started up and ran fine.
It's been a few months since I had the time to work with it, and now I
can't get it to run reliably.

The engine usually has to be started in the driveway and let idle for
10-15 mins to clear it out and get it running consistently. I've found
if I put it in neutral and leave the throttle forward slightly to give
it a little gas before I start it up, it runs quite well. It will idle
in the driveway indefinitely.

When I put the boat in the water, the engine would start with the extra
gas, but if i eased up on the throttle, it would die at 1000 RPMs (just
a bit from idling) and wont start without the gas.

What can i do? I suspect the fuel line is responsible for it being such
a struggle to get it to start on dry land but I imagine theres another
problem thats keeping it from starting in the water. I took it into the
shop in November to have them do a small amount of maintenance. They
cleaned the carbs, tested the compression & sparks and adjusted the
linkage. Compression and spark was listed as 'Okay'.

Now, the engine will start if I am giving it gas, even in the water. We
had it running at 1000rpms for 10 minutes or so at times before we'd
slowly try to drop it into neutral, but it would die when the rpms went
below 1000.

Any ideas?


Also, how much money am I looking at if I were to take it into a
service shop?

Old Reliable wrote:

I have a 115hp Johnson 4 cyl 2 stroke engine. It will start and idle in
the driveway but not in the water?

I recently acquired Neptune 1800 with a '94 115hp Johnson (J115TLERC),
and I have had a lot of fun playing with it. Obviously I'm no pro, but
I'm not too bad with mechanics. I have taken the boat out on the water
about 8 times, and always had to struggle to get it started. Usually
once I recharged the battery and fooled around with the gas lines
(swapped out the primer bulb, new hose clamps, replaced the filters,
replaced sparkplugs, played with the choke) it started up and ran fine.
It's been a few months since I had the time to work with it, and now I
can't get it to run reliably.

The engine usually has to be started in the driveway and let idle for
10-15 mins to clear it out and get it running consistently. I've found
if I put it in neutral and leave the throttle forward slightly to give
it a little gas before I start it up, it runs quite well. It will idle
in the driveway indefinitely.

When I put the boat in the water, the engine would start with the extra
gas, but if i eased up on the throttle, it would die at 1000 RPMs (just
a bit from idling) and wont start without the gas.

What can i do? I suspect the fuel line is responsible for it being such
a struggle to get it to start on dry land but I imagine theres another
problem thats keeping it from starting in the water. I took it into the
shop in November to have them do a small amount of maintenance. They
cleaned the carbs, tested the compression & sparks and adjusted the
linkage. Compression and spark was listed as 'Okay'.

Now, the engine will start if I am giving it gas, even in the water. We
had it running at 1000rpms for 10 minutes or so at times before we'd
slowly try to drop it into neutral, but it would die when the rpms went
below 1000.

Any ideas?


Also, how much money am I looking at if I were to take it into a
service shop?



---------------------------


some people might suggest it is your guardian angle sending you a
warning or trying to protect you.

Reminds me of a joke about a man stuck on his roof during a flood. The
rescue folks come by but he refuses help. "God will save me," he tells
them.. Next day, same thing. On the third day he falls off the roof and
drowns. Once in Heaven he asks God, "How could you do this to me? How
could you let me die?" God say, "What do you mean? - I sent the rescue
boat twice."

---- otherwise - what is condition of the gas tank itself???


paul

Yer idle jet is clogged, and / or the choke isn't choking when cold.
Manual choke?

Clean out the idle jet, and try again. It is a tiny hole in the side of
the barrel of the carb, close to where the throttle butterfly edge
rests when closed, or in the idle position. Often, poking at it with a
toothpick is all it needs, or blowing out with air. I had a carb seal
itself off at the main jet intake, with a blister of gasoline varnish.
Popped it, and all was well. Had to take it apart to find it

The carb needs maintenance by a guy that knows carbs, a dying trade
now, with fuel injection being so much better.

Terry K

"Old Reliable" wrote in message
ps.com...
I have a 115hp Johnson 4 cyl 2 stroke engine. It will start and idle in
the driveway but not in the water?

I recently acquired Neptune 1800 with a '94 115hp Johnson (J115TLERC),

If you are in the Northeast, don't overlook the possibility of the
MTBE/Ethanol combination. It has raised hell with marine engines up here in
CT, NY etc.

Kevin

On 2006-01-17, Terry K wrote:
Yer idle jet is clogged, and / or the choke isn't choking when cold.
Manual choke?

Clean out the idle jet, and try again. It is a tiny hole in the side of
the barrel of the carb, close to where the throttle butterfly edge
rests when closed, or in the idle position. Often, poking at it with a
toothpick is all it needs, or blowing out with air. I had a carb seal
itself off at the main jet intake, with a blister of gasoline varnish.
Popped it, and all was well. Had to take it apart to find it

The carb needs maintenance by a guy that knows carbs, a dying trade
now, with fuel injection being so much better.

Yeah I agree with this assessment, I had a Johnson 135 with very similar
symptoms, I tried to adjust if for hours. It would idle, or a little
more, but that was it. I took it to a shop, they cleaned up the carb
and it ran perfectly for years afterwards.


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julien Mills Amoroso's Baking Company
IS Department Philadelphia, PA USA
215-471-4740

"Julien Mills" wrote in message
. com...
On 2006-01-17, Terry K wrote:

Yeah I agree with this assessment, I had a Johnson 135 with very similar
symptoms, I tried to adjust if for hours. It would idle, or a little
more, but that was it. I took it to a shop, they cleaned up the carb
and it ran perfectly for years afterwards.



That... a good carb clean and I'd add looking at the rest of the fuel path.
I don't know if those little flapper things are on engines as big as 115 but
if they are gummed up, they'll play hell with things.

Ed

How complex is cleaning and rebuilding a carborator? I can handle a few
screws and what not, but if it's something thats easy to foul up, I
might do better trusting a professional. Also, how much should I expect
it to cost? My mechanic charges $77 an hour here but is highly
recommended. Whats the going rate in the south east (north carolina)?

I had a 90 Johnson that I let sit too long with fuel in the carb. I
took the carb apart (patience, digital photos of each step, and a good
handbook) and found "gummy worms" of jellied gas in each passageway of
the carb, particluarly the baseplate-like foundation of the carb body.
My boating life improved immediately.

Every time now I pick up a can of gasoline, I think Stabil fuel
stabilizer.

The carb is not magic, just a machine. Get good light, a big surface
with a towel over cardboard to catch minor spills and gunk. There are
some springs and small steel balls serving as needle valves in the
older one I worked on, and they jump if you don't move very slowly in
separating pieces.

The worst that can happen is that you screw it up and have to get help.
If you don't try, that's your starting position. I'd like to know how
it went.

By melting the main bearings? Fouling the rings? Burning the valves?
Coking up the combustion chamber? Dissolving the plasic intake
manifold, causing lean, hot combustion, burning holes in the piston
domes? By melting the fuel pump rubbers? Good old Ford engines, eh?

The flappy things are the reed valves, which admit fuel air mix to the
crankcase, where it is compressed by the down stroke, then popped into
the combustion chamber through the intake port, and after chasing out
the exhaust, is compressed on the up stroke.

If they get leaky, compression can fall, and power can diminish, with
gas fumes puffing out of the carburator.

Some exhaust is retained, mixed with the charge, as is done in four
strokes with the egr valve, to reduce lean burn effects, like high
tempratures and NOx smog formation, by cooling and reducing efficiency
of the explosion.

Is it possible that if only spark plugs and valves and pistons and
rings and bearings like in a diesel could withstand a true lean burn
engine, with no monoxide discarded, that a little water injected after
perfect combustion would expand in a small combusted fuel charge, and
convert the internal combustion engine into an internally fired steam
engine, exhausting only hot carbonated water and uncombusted nitrogen?

Much heat energy is thrown out the tailpipe of "modern" i.c. engines.
The exhaust should be at about 213 degrees farenheit, not 1200.The
exhaust should be just hot enough to keep injected water as high
pressure steam, pulling all the power out of the phase change cycle. A
resonant exhaust would reduce it's gas volume by causing the exhaust
steam to condense into water just after exiting the combustion chamber,
helping to scavenge the cylinder.

The temperature variations on each cycle is what kills this design, and
the requirement for precise water injection timing and quantity. You
would need a tiny hemispherical combustion chamber in the centre of the
piston dome for the fuel, and large displacement to maximise the
steaming part of the cycle. As the water boils, it increases the
pressure while cooling the mix, because water boiled expands to 1700
times it's volume as a gas, while absorbing heat. However, the
combustion, at high compression, would still generate NOx unless it's
combustion could be kept cool enough to prevent it, by heat sinking the
initial combustion by the proximity of internal metal masses of the
engine, which would contribute to the boiling of the water injected.

Golf ball dimples on head and piston dome?

So goes the age old story of the secret "water burning" engine
suppressed so many years ago by those opposed to efficiency in gasoline
engines, also known as petroleum wholesalers.

Too hard for Ford? Who owns Ford?

Terry K

Terry, maybe cut back on the caffeine a bit...

Ed

--
When replying via email, replace spam with speak in the address.
"Terry K" wrote in message
ups.com...
By melting the main bearings? Fouling the rings? Burning the valves?
Coking up the combustion chamber? Dissolving the plasic intake
manifold, causing lean, hot combustion, burning holes in the piston
domes? By melting the fuel pump rubbers? Good old Ford engines, eh?

The flappy things are the reed valves, which admit fuel air mix to the
crankcase, where it is compressed by the down stroke, then popped into
the combustion chamber through the intake port, and after chasing out
the exhaust, is compressed on the up stroke.

If they get leaky, compression can fall, and power can diminish, with
gas fumes puffing out of the carburator.

Some exhaust is retained, mixed with the charge, as is done in four
strokes with the egr valve, to reduce lean burn effects, like high
tempratures and NOx smog formation, by cooling and reducing efficiency
of the explosion.

Is it possible that if only spark plugs and valves and pistons and
rings and bearings like in a diesel could withstand a true lean burn
engine, with no monoxide discarded, that a little water injected after
perfect combustion would expand in a small combusted fuel charge, and
convert the internal combustion engine into an internally fired steam
engine, exhausting only hot carbonated water and uncombusted nitrogen?

Much heat energy is thrown out the tailpipe of "modern" i.c. engines.
The exhaust should be at about 213 degrees farenheit, not 1200.The
exhaust should be just hot enough to keep injected water as high
pressure steam, pulling all the power out of the phase change cycle. A
resonant exhaust would reduce it's gas volume by causing the exhaust
steam to condense into water just after exiting the combustion chamber,
helping to scavenge the cylinder.

The temperature variations on each cycle is what kills this design, and
the requirement for precise water injection timing and quantity. You
would need a tiny hemispherical combustion chamber in the centre of the
piston dome for the fuel, and large displacement to maximise the
steaming part of the cycle. As the water boils, it increases the
pressure while cooling the mix, because water boiled expands to 1700
times it's volume as a gas, while absorbing heat. However, the
combustion, at high compression, would still generate NOx unless it's
combustion could be kept cool enough to prevent it, by heat sinking the
initial combustion by the proximity of internal metal masses of the
engine, which would contribute to the boiling of the water injected.

Golf ball dimples on head and piston dome?

So goes the age old story of the secret "water burning" engine
suppressed so many years ago by those opposed to efficiency in gasoline
engines, also known as petroleum wholesalers.

Too hard for Ford? Who owns Ford?

Terry K