our 2003 utopia 185 seadoo boat. I just bought it last year and have been plagued by this intermittent stopping as if it were running out of gas. I thought the fuel gauge was possibly broken but after stalling after dropping 10 gallons of gas in, I knew that wasn’t the issue. I also suspected my battery was slowly losing juice and not getting charged while running. The boat would run great for 20-30 minutes and suddenly stall out and would not restart. I pulled the battery, charged it overnight and and it would start right up the next morning. I did this several times until the other day it still wouldn’t start on a fresh battery. I got a referral to a neighbor who knows his way around gm cars so figured what do I have to lose.
We started to make sure the fuel pumps were running. Turned the key and could hear the lift pump and other what I guess is the high pressure pump engaging. The engine would crank but still not start. We sprayed carb cleaner down the throat and sure it enough the engine would fire up right away, but would not stay running. We started disconnecting the fuel hoses to make sure we could see fuel pumping into a Gatorade jar. What we found was lots of air with the gas in the tube. We checked the hose clamps and pulled the rear seat benches to make sure the connection from the tank was good. We couldn’t find any leaks. I’m not a technician but I’ll say we “hot wired” the high pressure fuel pump to force it to run and see if fuel was coming out. We heard it running but no fuel was coming out. So we moved to the low pressure lift pump. We got the pump to run but again no fuel was coming out. So we decided to disconnect the “in” fuel tube and place it directly into a jar of gas to see if it was pulling gas from the jar. Sure enough the pump was pulsing but no gas was coming out the other end. I’ll tell you now that I had this same problem last year, brought it to the local shop who claimed to replaced one of the fuel pumps to solve the issue last year. I could tell this was the same pump that was in it last year because we put a white zip tie around it thinking it was slipping and that a fuel hose was getting kinked. I went to the local auto parts store and picked up a new fuel pump and brass elbow. My mechanic friend took the old electric connectors and placed them on the new fuel pump. Installed and made sure it was pumping fuel. She fired up straight away and is running strong. We did determine the battery is not getting charged while the motor is running, but this is a separate issue. The part was $70 at the auto parts shop and my neighbor charged me $250 for several hours of diagnostic and installation work. This is much better than the shop charging me $800 at the end of last season to replace I don’t know what, but I will be calling them this week to find out exactly what they reportedly did. So my intermittent stall and what seemed like a fuel starvation issue of some sort ended up being the lift pump. So even if it sounds like it’s running, you still need to pull it and make sure it really is moving fuel. Hope this helps one person out there.
We started to make sure the fuel pumps were running. Turned the key and could hear the lift pump and other what I guess is the high pressure pump engaging. The engine would crank but still not start. We sprayed carb cleaner down the throat and sure it enough the engine would fire up right away, but would not stay running. We started disconnecting the fuel hoses to make sure we could see fuel pumping into a Gatorade jar. What we found was lots of air with the gas in the tube. We checked the hose clamps and pulled the rear seat benches to make sure the connection from the tank was good. We couldn’t find any leaks. I’m not a technician but I’ll say we “hot wired” the high pressure fuel pump to force it to run and see if fuel was coming out. We heard it running but no fuel was coming out. So we moved to the low pressure lift pump. We got the pump to run but again no fuel was coming out. So we decided to disconnect the “in” fuel tube and place it directly into a jar of gas to see if it was pulling gas from the jar. Sure enough the pump was pulsing but no gas was coming out the other end. I’ll tell you now that I had this same problem last year, brought it to the local shop who claimed to replaced one of the fuel pumps to solve the issue last year. I could tell this was the same pump that was in it last year because we put a white zip tie around it thinking it was slipping and that a fuel hose was getting kinked. I went to the local auto parts store and picked up a new fuel pump and brass elbow. My mechanic friend took the old electric connectors and placed them on the new fuel pump. Installed and made sure it was pumping fuel. She fired up straight away and is running strong. We did determine the battery is not getting charged while the motor is running, but this is a separate issue. The part was $70 at the auto parts shop and my neighbor charged me $250 for several hours of diagnostic and installation work. This is much better than the shop charging me $800 at the end of last season to replace I don’t know what, but I will be calling them this week to find out exactly what they reportedly did. So my intermittent stall and what seemed like a fuel starvation issue of some sort ended up being the lift pump. So even if it sounds like it’s running, you still need to pull it and make sure it really is moving fuel. Hope this helps one person out there.
