When I decided to get a new boat this spring and go from IO's to outboards for easier maintenance I actually looked to find a boat with Yamaha angines since I had heard good things about their being reliable. What I really want most in the boat is to be able to trust it to fire and run when ever I want so I just don't have to muck with it.

The boat ran fine on the sea trial (April) and hasn't run right since. It's now September and I havn't been able to take the stupid thing out once!!

I have been contiuously battling with their stupid carb design. It started with the port motor,which started up fine cold then would simply quit at idle and not restart. It was obvious it was flooding, and after a while I tracked it down to the enrichment solenoids being stuck open. I pulled them and cleaned them and was able to get the port motor to start and idle.

Tried to take the boat out for a test and the stbd motor ran fine but the port motor would not get over 3000 RPM. After a futile attempt at having a local Yamaha shop mechanic come to work on it (I told them the carbs needed cleaning. He came out twice to work on it, and didn't bring any parts/tools to clean the carbs either time. At the end of the second trip he said, yep I was right in the first place and the carbs needing cleaning. He would have to order the parts. When I asked wat the cost was they wanted $900 !!!! just to clean the carbs. Neadless to say I told them to forget it. I still have their bill for $200 for the two "diagnostics" trips setting in the folder waiting to be paid).

So, I ordered new gaskets and cleaned the carburators on the port motor and found most had one of the high speed fuel feed passages clogged since that passage feeds by a hose from the very bottom of the float bowl (stupid design !!!). After cleaning I ran the motor on the lift and it did seem to be running well.

The stbd motor had been running fine, but since I found all the clogged passages in the port motor I thought I should clean it's carbs too. I found 4 of the 6 carbs had the same passage clogged. When disassembling one of the carbs to clean the passages the main jet broke off when I went to remove it.

I put the stbd motor back together (after waiting two+ weeks for a replacement jet) and fired it on the lift and it seemed ok, but a little rougher than the port motor.

I finally got a chance to take the boat out today and was going to check to see how well it ran. Of course it didn't. Both motors started fine, then the stbd motor simpy quit and wouldn't re-fire. I'd seen that behaviour before on the port motor.

Disconnected the electric fuel pump that feeds the enrichening solenoids and sure enough it fired up again and idled fine. I shut it off, opened the throttle full, and looked down the carbs to find 4 of the 6 enrichening solenoids were dripping fuel. I pulled them to try cleaning (which had worked with the ones on the port motor) but they are all stuck/failed open ... toast.

I've either got to find a FAST and AFFORDABLE place to get a full set of those stupid solenoids from and replace them all (their second really stupid design) or I'm going to put it up for the winter and see if I feel like working on it next spring or just decide to junk it and quit boating.

I HATE YAMAHA AND THEIR STUPID CARB DESIGN!!! (Being an engineer I am entitled to call their engineers idiots!!) I've lost an entire season of use by switching from my old boat to what was "supposed" to be a nice, simple, easy to maintain, reliable ride. Yes, I am pissed!

-Greg

Mercury.

I`ll take you for a ride on the 18th if the lake cooperates. Might even get Jerry to go along.

Roger, is the 18th a cops run???

Also, are these new motors? If so, why doesn't Yamaha stand behind them? If they are older, I'd be calling Yamaha every day until they are so sick of me they fix the damn things.

They are 1993 motors, so I can't blame Yamaha for warranty service, just very SLOW parts supplies and stupid design (and yes, I've made many stupid designs in the past, but that doesn't keep me from b$tching about their design).

Roger, would love a ride if things work out time wise ... and I expect one in the Cig when it's done too . I've got the Corvette stripped to a bare frame, trying to get it finish welded, prepped and painted this week while Julie is in Germany and I have the whole garage to myself. Then I can start putting it together FOR REAL and just maybe will have it running sometime during my lifetime.

-Greg

By A Cigarette Lol Hehe Mercury Is The Way To Go With Outboard Yamaha Are To Much Of A Pain In The A$$ Cause There Mostly Computerized Especially The Older Ones

Donz Jr Mike

Yamacrappy is what they're called around here. The Honda 4 strokes are amazing. Only one person I know had trouble with one of their Hondas, they put a brand new motor on the back of the boat and shipped the motor back to Japan. The company wanted to see exactly what went wrong.

I have put 740 hours on my Yamaha 150 hpdi in 16 months. It's been one of the most dependable engines I have ever owned. I guess the new ones are more dependable. BH

Jack was thinking about a small run to Northpoint on the 18th. Plus, Greg is going to be in town. Stay tuned Mike....

I have 1994 200's on my boat.. Awesome motors.
Carbs will gum up, but once cleaned out they are fine.. Get it running on a seperate fuel source, then dump the fuel you have now, do not attempt to add clean fuel to it and use it...

FWIW, my Mercs never tolerated bad gas either..