4x4Nick
Member
Hi folks, longtime powersports & 4x4 enthusiast, but new to boating. My wife & I picked up a 2001 Sportster LE last weekend, put it in the water for the first time today, and while it seemed to run fine at lower speeds it didn't want to go past half throttle or plane out, it just bogged.
I did a quick plug change on the water, front plug seemed fouled & wet but the rear was decent. Then engine woke right up & planed out no problem, but then it died 30 seconds later. Not like lost power & slowly sputtered out, but like someone pulled the lanyard/hit the kill switch. I put it back into neutral & it fired right back up.
Still sounded healthy, but this time I only got about 20 seconds on plane out of it before it died again in the same way. At this point we decided to head back to the ramp. It died twice more on the way back, but seemed ok if I kept it around 3000ish RPM.
I thought it may have been a grounding issue, as the negative battery terminal lead was kinda worn out when I put a new battery in it the other day. So I fixed that back at the house & we headed back to the lake. That didn't really help much, the front spark plug was still fouling & it still wanted to die if we tried to get into it, though it never completely shut off on us the second time out.
What do you folks think I should be looking at first? I was thinking it was an ignition issue at first, but now I'm thinking fueling or maybe a bit of both. It's a low hour engine, less than 50hrs I'm told with a receipt for the rebuild in 2019, but I still see light grey fuel lines from the sending unit to the carbs that I've been reading need to come off asap.
Right now my plan is to pick up a compression tester & some new fuel line for it, and pull the carbs to clean them up. Is there anything else I should be looking at? Is there any part of the cooling system that would cause it to run like this?
Thanks
I did a quick plug change on the water, front plug seemed fouled & wet but the rear was decent. Then engine woke right up & planed out no problem, but then it died 30 seconds later. Not like lost power & slowly sputtered out, but like someone pulled the lanyard/hit the kill switch. I put it back into neutral & it fired right back up.
Still sounded healthy, but this time I only got about 20 seconds on plane out of it before it died again in the same way. At this point we decided to head back to the ramp. It died twice more on the way back, but seemed ok if I kept it around 3000ish RPM.
I thought it may have been a grounding issue, as the negative battery terminal lead was kinda worn out when I put a new battery in it the other day. So I fixed that back at the house & we headed back to the lake. That didn't really help much, the front spark plug was still fouling & it still wanted to die if we tried to get into it, though it never completely shut off on us the second time out.
What do you folks think I should be looking at first? I was thinking it was an ignition issue at first, but now I'm thinking fueling or maybe a bit of both. It's a low hour engine, less than 50hrs I'm told with a receipt for the rebuild in 2019, but I still see light grey fuel lines from the sending unit to the carbs that I've been reading need to come off asap.
Right now my plan is to pick up a compression tester & some new fuel line for it, and pull the carbs to clean them up. Is there anything else I should be looking at? Is there any part of the cooling system that would cause it to run like this?
Thanks