Engine Trouble
 

2000 Johnson 150 Ocean Pro, Carbed, with oil tank still being used....long read but any insight would be helpful.

Was heading out today when I got a No Oil alarm (interesting because the low oil never went off and it was working a month ago). Immediately throtte down and turn off the engine, open the oil tank and sure enough it is empty with only a little still in the ball. Fill the tank with oil, pump the ball hard and fire her up. No alarms. Idle along for a bit to make sure all is well and then throttle up. 15 secs later I got a No Oil alarm again. Check the ball, squeeze it a few times and fire it back up. No alarms and we are off again. AGAIN a no oil alarm, this time I just key off and on and the alarm is gone. Think there may be some air in the line that is setting off the alarm. Get going one last time and all is well. Run another 3 miles and all of a sudden loss of power and stalls out, No alarms. Fires right back up and fine again. So we anchor and fish.

2-3 hours later I fire it up and head for home. Half way home I get a loss of power again and it stalls. Fire it back up and idle for a bit then off we go again. This time I get a weird plastic knockind/whing sound as if something is whacking the inside of the cowling. Off goes the cowling and now I just have a knock noise and rough idle. Powering up works and then a loss of power. Decide to shut it down and call sea tow for fear of doing more damage.....

I am thinking that I might have fried a ring or a cylinder wall with the no oil issue and now it is acting up???...??? Going to do a compression test tomorrow, right after I buy a compression tester :head:. Anyone have any other idea what it might be. I am guessing the oil has atleast something to do with the problem but you never know.

Also anyone have a good johnon mechanic in the Hampton Roads VA area???


-Svence

Sounds like you air locked the system. The VRO system has to be purged and run on 50:1 if there is ANY question about air being in the system. You'll probably want to pull the heads off as well, but it sounds like you got a rod or wrist pin bearing from lack of oil. There is a SLIGHT chance that you have air trapped in the VRO pump, but unlikely.

sounds like time to look for a motor. i would guess you hurt the rings, pistons and bearings in the motor. a compression test will tell but i would say you lost the motor due to oil injection, that's another reason not to run it. if it's in the gas and pre mixed you know as long as you have gas you have oil.

How do I purge the oil line/pump? I am really hoping it is a bad ring or something but its not sounding too good right now...

-Svence

Sorry to hear about you troubles. Try Ron's Marine (Johnson/Evinrude). I get all my work done there.

Quickest way there:

Out of Suffolk 58 to 264
Exit Victory Blvd, turn left
At third light, Airline Blvd turn right
Continue on Airline until you get to Mosberth Resturant right hand side of street.
Turn right on Rodman Ave.
Go through the second or third stop light. (If it's green) :-)
He is on the right hand side of the street, blue building


Ron's Marine & Equipment Inc
2406 Rodman Ave, Portsmouth, VA
(757) 397-3451

Thanks for the suggestion, thats who I was going to call, looks like a good shop.

Well I just finished the compression test....not so good. Looking from the stern to the bow all the left cylinders were at 100-105, on the right the top two were 100-105 and the bottom right was 0. Was getting absolutely no compression or resistance with the plug in. The motor turned as if all the plugs were out when I still had that bottom right cylinder hooked up. I then checked to see if I was even getting the piston to compress, and it is so it looks like the rings are shot or the cylinder is fried. Anything else I should check before dropping her off at the shop? Can I resleeve the cylinder or is that asking for more trouble down the line?

-Svence

it may be lucky enough to be honed out and use a new piston, rings and bearings on that hole. but at a marina they won't usually fix one hole usually they want to do a $2500 to $3000 rebuild. Um i would remove the oil injection now.

I am sorry for your loss!! I have been there and done that!

And i have never used a oil injection system again, and never will.

Good luck

The thing that pisses me off is that the oil injection didn't fail...it was me. I knew it needed oil but just figured I would wait for the damn low oil light to come on. What's it gonna set me back to rebuild that one cylinder? Going to call Ron in Portsmouth today or tomorrow and see what he says.

-Svence

in a shop my guess is least $950 and most likely will cost $2500 to $3000. The OMC owners manuals all say to check the oil before you leave the dock and everytime you fill with gas.

Off to the shop. Cylinder wall is scored to hell. Pics...

http://picasaweb.google.com/csvencer/JohnsonCylinder#

-Svence

OUCH! i recommend Newport Marine for a shop. keep us informed. that sucks and i'm sorry dude.

I use to fill oil after each trip, why would you wait for the light??

that doesn't look to bad, but it will need honing, piston,rings, berrin. they also may be able to resleve it?? Nothing will be cheap, and might be able to find good used motor for less.
look for same year omc and you keep this one and have all the parts you will ever need

yur repair cost and the decision to repair that engine will be based on the condition of the crank, if the crank is bad, its not going to be cost effective to repair that engine

easy repair that isn't bad at all. i've fix several that were much worst with honing and new piston and rings. New piston and rings set avail for your motor from Tri State Marine for $89.75

You might try Airodine it's located at the airfield at Bowers Hill. They do machine work (and on marine products) They won't care if you fix 1 or all cylinders. BUT you want to check (visually and mic) all cylinders and look closely at the pistons/rings/wristpins/crank to make sure you don't have other problems due to low oil. You probably already know but I just had to mention it.

I am sadden to see your engine got destroyed this way, Once again my thanks to guys on this site who convinced me NOT to connect my VRO and I was having doubts, I now know mine is never getting connected !
Once again sorry.

My question would be is why did it have zero compression? It looks rough, but not bad enough to be zero. I would have expected at least 20 or so from it, zero normally means a hole or MAJOR piston damage. I'm not sure on the EAGLE engines if you can pull a piston out without teardown, but if you could I would start off by pulling just the one piston and looking at the crank journal. The other BIG question is what other damage is there or waiting to happen? Not trying to be the bearer of bad news, just don't want to see you dump a $1K into fixing just one hole and then have it let loose on you on your first trip. At the MINUMUM you need to do a COMPLETE teardown and inspect ALL of your bearings for damage or small chips. I would expect you spend $2500 at a MINUMUM for a teardown and basic rebuild at a dealer on that engine. Most shops down here by me would rather sell you a new one than to build your old one. I know a trusted EVINRUDE dealer down here and won't give an estimate for less than $3500 on ANY V-6 to do a rebuild because you never know what you will run into once your in it.

Sorry for your misfortune. The guys here who know what they are talking about are a great resource and hopefully you can get out of this for the least amount of dollars or without throwing good money after bad.

When I am running my outboard I always feel like a race driver leading on the last lap. I hear every little change in sound and I hear things that nobody else does. I guess the only cure for that would be called a warrantee but with the price of new OB's that's kind of out of my reach.

I am no expert but I gotta ask the same thing as Ferm, why zero compression. My kids had a 2-stroke motorcycle that they had to use WD-40 and a running push start to get going but it still ran and had some compression but when I took the head of it looked 100 times worse than the bore on yours.

I was shocked by the 0 compression as well, hence the reason I did it a couple times to make sure it didn't just stop working. At this time I am looking at getting a rebuilt powerhead, short block, for about $1900. I got one quote for just that cylinder at $1800 which made me start looking at a new block or rebuilding this one completely. A completly dressed powerhead will run me about $3200 so I think the short block may be the way to go. My only concern with that is how do I know the VRO pump isn't still messed up for that cylinder? I know it works as if it had completely died I would have had more than one cylinder get fried, but how do I ensure this won't happen again with a new block...??? I am also looking at a entirely new motor (new to me) as I have found late 90's-early 00's 150/175's for about $3500-$4500. I could then part out the johnson to recoup some of the cost. Any ideas on what I could get if I pieced it out? Thinking anywhere from $1000 to $1500 as everything from the lower unit up is good except the damn cylinder. Thoughts???

-Svence

SIDEBAR-

The Towboat US guy was driving an 80's 250 sportsman and I fell in love. So maybe a whole new rig is in the works.... ;)

-Svence

I would look around a bit. You can find REALLY late model 2 stroke carb motors for under $4K in the 200/225 range. The 150/175 EAGLE motors are known as OMC's BEST engine ever, so that is a BIG reason for them holding there value so well. The only way to know for certain that you are getting oil is to ditch the VRO and pre-mix.

Ferm-

EAGLE? What years are they?

-Svence

The EAGLE series is what they called the 60 degree loopers. They came out in 90/91 in OMC in the 150/175, and in 95 in the V-4's. The eagle series is what you have now.

What's your thoughts on a Yamaha instead? This one is with controls, tank, gauges, and prop.

http://www.boattrader.com/listing/19...-carb-93627972

Or there is another 2000 Johnson 150 for about the same on there.

-Svence

here's what ya need

http://wilmington.craigslist.org/boa/976388019.html

1997 Evinrude Ocean Pro with less than 200 hours. Excellent condition with no rust. Compression even on all cylinders. Engine is 25 inch shaft with standard rotation. Recent lower unit oil change and New Tilt and Trim Motor.

Extremely clean and sound engine. You will not find one like this anywhere.
Engine only. No prop or controls. I can assist in getting wiring harness and cables. Engine hood is Johnson as the Evinrude hood was stolen off my boat.

$2850


http://images.craigslist.org/3nc3ma3...4668c7169f.jpg

http://images.craigslist.org/3ma3oc3...e0d6831446.jpg

SKOOLS has a nack for finding the deals, don't he.

I have already been talking to that guy. He sold that engine but has another 97 that he is getting rid of. I was going to get some pics of it before I headed down his way.

I have been scowering Craigslist, ebay, THT, etc looking, hopefully I can find what I need.

-SVence

If you just get off at the Portsmouth BLVD exit (only exit and direction you can go) and then just go dowm a mile and turn right on Rodman and they are on your right. Just an easier way to go.

Well here is an interesting twist...

Just spoke with Ron's and he doesn't think it was completely an oil issue. He said the VRO mixes the gas and oil before sending it to the carbs so if one carb/one cylinder got low oil they all would, which doesn't seem like its the case as I have only one bad hole. He said it may be a carb issue that reduced the fuel/oil mix to #6 and eventually fried it.

-Svence

no it was oil issue not a carb, ive lost several when the vro stops you usually only loose the last cylinder in the fuel feed for some reason. some times if it happens fast you can loose the first to get the raw fuel. but that is normal to loose only one cylinder they are only wanting to do a complete rebuild and carb job.

But why then is there no evidence of an issue in the other cylinders? I have good compression on the other five and the top two on the right looked clean when I pulled the head. The two things that I don't get is that it was only a short burst of no oil, I mean short, and that only one cylinder went and the others are perfect.

-Svence

damage
 

The reason is simple, You stopped running it before the other cylinders had a chance to destroyed themselves.

The damage normally only happens to one like SKOOLS said. I have a YAMAHA 250 that COMPLETELY lost one cylinder, yet it still ran on the other 5 and they didn't look that bad. It just proves that these engines run on a FINE line of just enough oil to live on with the VRO. If it leans out just a little, you can't predict what will happen. That fractional drop in oil though could have been just enough to finish that cylinder off, while the others escaped. If you think otherwise, look at how many MERCURY's have died on just one cylinder from the crank gear just beginning to slip.

We found the broken injection arm on my Yamaha, and also was just one cyl.

Did somebody mention PRE-MIX?:zip:

Figured these pics are appropriate to this topic. This engine was on a boat that I bought awhile back. It was a 93 MERCURY XR6 150 with the oil injection removed. The person I bought this from was 17 and had never had a 2 stroke before. The guy he bought it from told him he should double up the oil for the first tank, so he mixed it 100:1 instead of 25:1 like he was told. The other 5 cylinders were fine with 125 compression, but #2 was a DISASTER! And this was on pre-mix so no oil injection to blame, and the carbs were in tip top shape.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...0XR6cyl1-1.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...0XR6cyl1-3.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...0XR6cyl1-2.jpg

Have you tried Budget Boats on Battlefield Blvd. They have a good colection of used motors and they also have news motors.

Stillrunning,
Thanks for the heads up. Called them and they are fresh out of any johnrudes that would work.

-Svence