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Hey all,

I have a 95 Rage 15 with a 115 TurboJet. I love this little boat and it is a good all purpose boat for me. Recently, I ran on a small sand bar in the Gulf. I got off with no issues but suffered an overheat shortly afterwards. After I got the boat back on shore, I checked the water strainer and sure enough, I sucked up enough sand to make a difference in the water passage. I cleaned it out, flush out the boat, cleaned it up, put it away until my next trip.

After putting my boat in the water some 2 weeks later, she started without any issues as normal, but now she will not exceed around 2500 RPM's under load. Anything more than 2500 RPM's and it sounds like she is "bogging down". When I pull her out of water and hook up the flush hose, the RPM's are fine...no issues. This is only under load. Can anyone help with ideas? The weather is WAY too good to be missing these days on the boat.

Thanks.

Pope

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I would guess that you have some issue caused by the overheating. If possible pull the strainer off and see if there is any debris still the intake tube. I would imagine that motor also has some sort of imperller that may need addressing, but I have absolutling no idea as to where it is, how to get to it, or how dificult it is to access.

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First place I'd start is a compression check of all cyl's. That'll give you an idea if there's any engine damage done by the overheat. Once you get those numbers, you can go from there....

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Thanks guys...I'll be doing a compression check on the motor first thing in the morning. Has anyone ever even heard of something like this though? If I have to do a motor rebuild, my wife is going to kill me...

Pope

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Also...Tom, yeah, I pulled the strainer off and there was a considerable amount of crap in there. I then hooked it back up and did another flush, then checked it again. Was clean after that. The strainer did it's job.
A buddy of mine was telling me something about a possible rev limiter reset...I have never heard of it before, but apparently he is telling me that when his jet ski (since the rage is a jet, not too much difference here) starts to overheat, the rev limiter will set him RPM's low to prevent the overheat. He then investigates the reason for the overheat, resets his limiter, and it's happy days. Anyone ever heard of this? It is no where in my manual.

Thanks all.

Pope

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I can't say for sure, but that makes a lot of sense. On many outboards there is a rpm limiter which kicks in when engine block reaches a higer temp. I would suggest that you call a Whaler dealer for advice on how to reset it. If that is the problem and you manage to reset it, be very cautious that you don't cause major damage by over riding it and allowing the engine to over heat again.

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Hi All, I am the "friend." Here is what has been tried. We took the the impeller housing off and checked all the water passage only to find everything clear of obstruction. Then moved on to the water screener only to find a good amount of sand caught in it. Everything was taken apart and cleaned and flushed and working great on the trailer. The motor would rev its head off out of water on the flush so we decided to take it to the ramp and test it on the water. The motor would start and run fine no problems at the dock but when we pull away and get the boat to start to plane the RPM's reach about 2800 and max out and bog down. While Pope drove I checked a few things on the motor to see if I could get it to rev past 3K. I shot some carb cleaner in the carbs to get it to shoot over 3K but nothing. I checked the throttle linkage on the carbs to see if they both were opening and still nothing. This is where I am stuck (Compression Test Pending).

Rule out fuel loss - Shot carb cleaner at WOT to rev past 3K and nothing
Rule out blocked water passage - Flushed the system and getting really good stream of exit water on the flush.
Motor runs smooth below 3K
Motor will rev its head off out of the water but as soon as you put it in the water even in neutral it will not rev past 3K.

The symptom is "load" related but I can not figure it out. Any idea's?

Thanks,

Max

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I had the same problem on a seadoo and it was the plastic liner around the impeller. It would not seal enough to reach higher rpms. Your motor might not have the liner, in which case it would be the impeller. Hopefully it has a liner which is an inexpensive fix.

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I am going to guess you cracked a head gasket in the overhead. Pull the plugs and if you find one the is perfectly clean that is a tell tail sign. It is clean because raw water is being pumped into the cylinder and steam cleaning the plug. A compression test will confirm a cracked gasket as well.

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Give this ARTICLE a read, good info including retorque of cyl head bolts after an overheat. But the best place to start is the compression check, that'll let you know if you have a good base to start with. What's on that engine as far as electronic controls?

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Okay...so I took the day off to work on the boat and dd the compression test. here are the results...

port 1 - 110
port 2 - 106
starboard 1 - 119
starboard 2 - 109

I was worried about the spread between 119 and 106, but then spoke to a local OMC dealer and they said that anything a spread of 15 is cause for alarm, and that it's not uncommon for on side to have a little higher compression than the other. He also suggested running Power Tune through the carbs and said that that could raise the compression in some cylinders by freeing up any sticky rings.

My next thought is now the fuel pump. Whether or not that is the culprit, it can't hurt to rebuild it anyway.

Any ideas?

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Looks like this thread has started to go cold, so I will give an update and look for more advice. The compression is fine, no issues there. I decided to rebuild the fuel pump. The previous owner has bypassed the VRO pump and installed an aftermarket mechanical fuel pump on it. I am all for that, as I have heard nothing good about the VRO.

Anyways, I rebuilt the fuel pump and then went to replace the fuel filter/separator that was installed. What I found in there worried me. Hard, black grit, literally a small handful in the filter. What is this crap? It can't be normal. I changed the fuel filter when I bought it 10 months ago, so it hasn't been on all that long. could this grit be clogging up my lines, restricting the fuel and causing my problem?

Thanks again for the help.

Pope

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I once had a fuel line break down and clog the screen with hard little rubber bits. Caused the engine to starve under load. Cleaned the screen and it ran fine. Replaced the fuel line to the tank and no more problems.
Check the grit out again, sounds like it is the problem. You just need to figure out where it is coming from.

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Thanks Tig. I am currently working on that to see if it is the problem.

I bought a separate 6 gallon tank with new lines to switch it out to see if that solves the problem. Full power would equal problems in the original fuel lines.

I'll update you in a day or so...