BigKahuna
Well-Known Member
All right Lakeliving story #1........Had dinner at Nautical's house last night with cwag911 and our wives. We try to get together whenever our schedules permit. Anyway we took our boat out of storage on May 4th. Took the cover off cleaned the pollen off of everything, put all the equipment we took out last fall back in and headed for the ramp. Picture perfect day not a cloud in the sky had the ramp to ourselves. Put the boat in the water.......Cranked over couldn't get it started. Our boat usually starts right up so I knew something was up. Had a full tank and checked fuses. (A couple years ago the fuse that fed the electric fuel pump was split so I checked that first) It was intact. I did notice that when I turned the key I didn't hear the fuel pump kick in so either power wasn't getting to the fuel pump or the fuel pump was bad. We put the boat back on the trailer and took it back to our mechanic. Now we're thinking how could a boat that ran perfectly last season not start in the spring? Hmmmm.......Well it's the fuel pump. Had it replaced before we left Virginia 5 yrs. ago with a genuine original Mercruiser fuel pump. For those of you who don't know it's mounted on the underside of our I/O so the engine had to come out to replace it. We contacted Mercruiser to see if there were any recalls or bulletins on it and see if there was anything they could do and stand behind their product. They basically said No! Its past the 1 yr. Warranty period. So we just had a Sierra brand fuel pump installed. Hopefully this one will last more than 5 years....... Story #2.......After removing the engine and installing the fuel pump our mechanic calls us and asked us exactly how much gas we had in the tank??? Of course it was full. Always fill up in the fall before winterization. We have the receipts. He then tells me that the TANK IS EMPTY! What! Are you kidding me? Someone siphoned/stole 52 gallons of E free fuel in a locked storage area? He said he would fill it up. Not the spring we imagined .