It’s been overcast since Sunday, with few exceptions. With a dewpoint within a few degrees of the temperature, rain came and went at a whim, sometimes light drizzle and other times torrential downpours, although admittedly we do need the rain - it’s been a beautiful summer with sunny day after sunny day, which is nice for us humans, but the water table was hurting. So today it looks like this again:
This was actually taken last Friday; I’m in my office wishing I was on the lake. Perhaps over the weekend.
First, I have to figure out why the boat ran like crap on Wednesday, after it ran perfectly the previous Friday and Saturday. It absolutely has to be related to the moisture; perhaps just literally condensation underneath the distributor cap. Or possibly some water in the fuel... but it ran consistently - but badly - at 25-30 mph; misfiring and just feeling underpowered. If it was ingesting water, it would run worse and worse, I would think, as it pulls more fuel (water) through the system. It also idles great and revs OK in neutral, but not under load, so it’s really pointing me toward ignition.
I’m going to the boat tonight, so I’ll check plug wires, cap/rotor, and drain some fuel from the water separating fuel filter to look for water there. I could maybe put fresh fuel in, but it’s around a half tank now. If there IS water in that ~18 gallons of fuel, I would want to get that mostly out before putting in fresh. It’s a challenge to find a place to put 39 gallons of fuel - I don’t have eight gas cans just kicking around, you know?
On Wednesday I would have checked the distributor cap but it’s held down with TORX screws. Why? I have a nice little tool set on the boat, but no Torx bits. Ah well, it started raining anyway.
Wish me luck!
Have a great weekend.