2004 250 Project Thread

[nolaboater99]

Ain't no big deal....

[slideruleracer]

On my 240, I started it up once and it shook side to side pretty violently. Scared the crap outta me and I shut down immediately. It turned out to be a combination of my fuel pump and TPS. I changed the TPS and (at the time) cleaned the screen on the fuel pump. Problem solved. I ended up changing the fuel pump later.

YT, your comment and Nola's problem made me think about this some more... One thing that I hadn't done when I started it up was bleed the power steering. So, on a whim I search google for "Volvo Penta Steering Shake" and holy crap if I didn't see 3 hits that matched mine exactly. And by the accounts I read, it appears that if there is air in the p/s ram, then the system can get into a crazy oscillation - could have even been part of what you saw on your 240?

In any case, I wish I hadn't ripped the outdrive right off... maybe I did have the alignment OK afterall.
It would be truly comical if both Nola and I were experiencing woes related to the same exact subsystem.

More to come...

[Ytmsn]

I know the first time it ever did it on the 240 it scared the absolute crap out of me. The only time I had experienced shake like that before was when I hit a submerged log and bent the shaft in my outdrive on a boat from several years ago.

Hopefully it's something simple that you can easily fix!

[thunder550]

sliderule, don't forget that with the drive installed, you have another means to transmit lateral movement of the engine to the hull through the driveshaft, gimbal bearing, and transom assembly. That whole link is gone when the drive is off...at that point you're just linked through the motor mounts. Don't those have some sort of damper built in?

Can you check the P/S issue easily just by removing the serp belt and starting the engine for a few seconds?

[nolaboater99]

I have printed out the Mercruiser manual's process for bleeding Mercruiser power steering. It is a fairly precise step-by-step process. I am going to do it tomorrow morning and keep my fingers crossed. I know that 2-3 years ago I changed the steering actuator losing some fluid, adding more but I never bled the system as it says to here in the manual. Should only take 20-30 minutes and I'll know. I'll report back tomorrow....

[thunder550]

I have printed out the Mercruiser manual's process for bleeding Mercruiser power steering. It is a fairly precise step-by-step process. I am going to do it tomorrow morning and keep my fingers crossed. I know that 2-3 years ago I changed the steering actuator losing some fluid, adding more but I never bled the system as it says to here in the manual. Should only take 20-30 minutes and I'll know. I'll report back tomorrow....

Good luck! Hope it's that simple!

[nolaboater99]

I have printed out the Mercruiser manual's process for bleeding Mercruiser power steering. It is a fairly precise step-by-step process. I am going to do it tomorrow morning and keep my fingers crossed. I know that 2-3 years ago I changed the steering actuator losing some fluid, adding more but I never bled the system as it says to here in the manual. Should only take 20-30 minutes and I'll know. I'll report back tomorrow....

Good luck! Hope it's that simple!

Wouldn't that be sweet.

[slideruleracer]

Well, the engine is realigned now and I started it up and tried to bleed the power steering lines while it was running. It would idle fine, but similar to before, it didn't want to take throttle - if I gave it throttle, it closed down the iac to try to keep the revs down. It was showing a fault of tps high, but it seemed to be showing an OK voltage, so I'll need to dig into that - maybe I just need to clear the fault first. Tomorrow I'll put the drive back on and see if it still shakes now that the p/s system is bled. If not, then I'll just need to solve the engine tps issue and paint the swim platform - which I'm starting on Friday.. Here's some pics of a few items that I hadn't yet photographed.

[slideruleracer]

More pics of the rgb cockpit lights set to different colors...

[slideruleracer]

The swim platform is just about ready for paint. I built a dolly to more easily wheel it in and out of the garage for painting.. It's going to take about 1 day per coating unless the primer dries fast enough that I can prime both top and bottom on the same day. So, at best right now, it won't be finished with painting until Sunday night. I'll wait a couple of days at least before starting to reassemble the hardware onto it. Since I'm just sticking the Aquamarine deck on, I've decided not to bother applying the griptex - there doesn't seem to be much point to creating that extra effort... But, I may wait a couple of weeks before putting the aquamarine deck on, just to make sure that I don't run into any major problems with the engine or the awlgrip paint on the swim platform..

[Ytmsn]

I really like your upper swimdeck lights! Did you put those in?

[slideruleracer]

Yes. There's going to be 3 more in the swim platform itself shining on the lowest section of the platform. Due to extreme brightness of the underwater lights and the resulting camera settings, they look more 'spot' lighty than they really are.. They're much softer looking in person.

[slideruleracer]

Well, a quick update.. The shaking was indeed the power steering pump. I'm mad at myself for ripping the drive off and messing with the alignment.. I lost almost a week.

Also, I found a stored code on the Ecu and when I cleared it, the engine started idling and running. Unfortunately, the vacuum at idle is low, which could be 1 of a few different things, and none are easy to fix.. At least 1 of the possibilities would require the engine to come back out.

Right now, I'm thinking that I'll check and fix whatever I can in the next week and then we'll put the boat in the water. It won't run at its full potential, just yet, but we'll get to enjoy it. Our season is too short to keep working on it.

The swim platform is primed and I'll start laying down the Awlcraft on Tuesday.

Look, no more bumps from internal rust swelling!

[slideruleracer]

And I know the general concensus on this group is anti-grill, but I finished the adapter to mount my Weber Q1200 on the magma stand.

[slideruleracer]

Also, my aquamarine deck pads came in last week. I'm not installing them right away, but I laid them in place before I primed so that I could drill new holes for the grill mount and they came out nice.