00 Sport - surging/starting questions

Hey all,

All year we have been noticing these things, hoping they are mostly minor.

1 - Press start and hear clicking noise from motor box (sounds like starter) This doesn't happen every time, and usually only happens on the first start of the day. (starter, bat cables, keypad?)

2 - sometimes after backing up hard and putting it back into neutral the motor will surge and sometimes even die. (fuel relay, idle air control valve, MAP sensor?)

3 - twice we have popped the main ignition breaker in the breaker panel. (not a clue)

Anybody else ever run into these problems?

Hey all,

We are going to tackle this starter click this spring. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of button pushes to get it to turn over. Weak battery connection? Starter? Feels like a starter issue, same thing if one were to go bad in my truck. I also heard somewhere that bad connection on the battery cables can cause the same issue? Any one have any thoughts?

I will most likely check a few things out before we purchase a new starter.

-Mike

By telling you it's the GT-40 310hp will that help? lol

This page shows the old school (I call them "hump") starters vs. the new solenoid pigi back (more similar to automotive) starters:
http://www.nautiqueparts.com/startersandsolenoids.aspx

Cool, hope it works out.

HW is right on with this. Battery cables, battery, and connections. CLASSIC low-voltage/bad connections symptoms. Same exact thing left me and HW stranded years ago with my 2000. In my case it was corrosion between the clamp itself and the cable itself, as well as massive internal corrosion in the cables. I replaced the solenoid due to similar circumstances shortly after and have been turnkey since.

For the non-GT40 people:

YES, this motor does have the old/classic remote start relay just like the older boats do, and YES it does go bad. It's positioned upside-down under the engine computer and it's a royal PITA to change as I went through this same thing.

One thing to note is that post-1994 or so all 351 starters, including the GT40 starters, have 100% hot power to them at all times. The classic old remote relay sends a low-amperage signal to ANOTHER relay in the starter. So it's doing the same thing as it used to but not sending the high-amp juice to the starter.

FOR SALE: 2000 sport nautique >100 hrs

like new
black/tan
starts almost every time

kidding

Keypad could be an issue if it can cause this issue. If you guys remember seeing my first post on this boat it was related to our whole dash being soaked and unresponsive from it's journey to IA until it dried up...maybe it didn't like that all that much?

I know that sounded stupid, but it seemed right to me haha. What I was trying to say is that, if this little click noise I hear can be created by the keypad, then I bet the keypad is our problem. Does that make more sense? It works for all other tasks though, this is why I didn't think that was the cause.

I already gave you the shortcut. click click click means the solenoid is trying to close but doesn't have enough power to do so. The power comes from the battery, trace everything back to the battery from the solenoid.

Tim, don't confuse the issue defining power or explaining how the solenoid actually works.

I never replaced the keypad, BTW. Both keypads on my boat are 12 years old and still working flawlessly.

Well, it should be a Starting Battery with the right amount cold cranking amps.

Pics?

Check out this thread:
http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20917&title=what-size-type-battery-for-a-95-sn

Sorry no pics of the battery. It's in my garage cabinet with like 7 others. (jet skis, jon boat, mowers) I could run a prius with them all I think.

An oil filter isn't an oil filter?

Mike have you cleaned your idle speed solenoid bypass assembly? This may help with your surging and cold start problems.

I have been trouble shooting a very intermittent warm start problem on my GT40 and decided to purchase a Equus 3145 Ford Digital Code Reader to help. It come with a good manual and a better fault code description than the GT40 manual. It was only $24.99 from Amazon.

GT40 Fault Code reader

It found no stored codes and all tests ran fine. I then found in the manual that the ECA does NOT store any fault codes for the ISC-BPA.

Just give it a clean with some carby cleaner and also the passages in the inlet manifold. There is a wire mesh type filter in the passage behind the butterfly that was quite dirty in mine.