WhiteZombie
Member
So put my Sportster 1800 on the water the first time Thursday and played around finding some quirks etc to work on. This morning I was fine tuning the left side carb idle setting when I noticed the gas tank was sucked in more than normal. Even tho it has a fuel vent, I decided to loosen the fuel cap. When I did I heard air being sucked in at the cap. A few seconds later I heard water pouring into the lake. Luckily my gal was there and for some reason paying attention to what I was doing, so she saw what she described as 1/2 to 1 cup of water pouring out of the vent. Had she not seen it I wouldn't be sure what I heard was what I heard if you know what I mean.
So here is all I did yesterday. I put 10 gallons of gas in with a container. The fuel was out of a underground tank so it should have expanded as fluids do as it warmed up in the 90 plus degree tank, so that doesn't create a vacuum. After fueling we took a long ride and then I took it out solo to play. When I was fooling around I cut a few circles pretty tight like and decided I was better to stop the boat while the waves settled out. There was one 2 foot or so wave that came at the drivers side of boat, same side as the fuel vent. The wave turned the boat sideways downward toward the water and pretty gently crashed into the side of the boat just splashing my arm. I'm thinking maybe the wave forced water up the vent, and it must have gotten air locked enough to prevent the vent from working, which created a vacuum that evidently held. But with that said, I did a shit load of riding full throttle after that happened, so I'm not sure if that's what's up or not. The vent obviously isn't blocked as it let the water out quickly this morning, and I can smell gas when I sniff right at it, so it is venting.
One other issue I have is I'm not sure about the oil circuit. The oil was about half full, which put the line just below where the return line and check valve go into the cap on the side. It used about an inch of oil for what I am guessing to be around 25 gallons of fuel that I went thru. I don't know if that is a good ratio or not, but seems like a lot to me. But at that level, lets say 2 to 2.5 inches above the Min mark, the oil light is coming on. It was sporatic on the water so I took the boat off of the water. But now in the shop, the oil light comes on every time I plug in the lanyard.
I also have a tachometer problem on the right side tach that I added to another post that I just updated if anyone cares to add to that.
I think I have a good boat, just gotta get some bugs out it seems.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks
So here is all I did yesterday. I put 10 gallons of gas in with a container. The fuel was out of a underground tank so it should have expanded as fluids do as it warmed up in the 90 plus degree tank, so that doesn't create a vacuum. After fueling we took a long ride and then I took it out solo to play. When I was fooling around I cut a few circles pretty tight like and decided I was better to stop the boat while the waves settled out. There was one 2 foot or so wave that came at the drivers side of boat, same side as the fuel vent. The wave turned the boat sideways downward toward the water and pretty gently crashed into the side of the boat just splashing my arm. I'm thinking maybe the wave forced water up the vent, and it must have gotten air locked enough to prevent the vent from working, which created a vacuum that evidently held. But with that said, I did a shit load of riding full throttle after that happened, so I'm not sure if that's what's up or not. The vent obviously isn't blocked as it let the water out quickly this morning, and I can smell gas when I sniff right at it, so it is venting.
One other issue I have is I'm not sure about the oil circuit. The oil was about half full, which put the line just below where the return line and check valve go into the cap on the side. It used about an inch of oil for what I am guessing to be around 25 gallons of fuel that I went thru. I don't know if that is a good ratio or not, but seems like a lot to me. But at that level, lets say 2 to 2.5 inches above the Min mark, the oil light is coming on. It was sporatic on the water so I took the boat off of the water. But now in the shop, the oil light comes on every time I plug in the lanyard.
I also have a tachometer problem on the right side tach that I added to another post that I just updated if anyone cares to add to that.
I think I have a good boat, just gotta get some bugs out it seems.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks
