My new Seafari
 

Well I just couldnt pass up this nice little 78 Seafari. It has a 175 Merc Black max and a 2010 Dual axel trailer. Its pretty nice for its age and the price was good. looking forward to some fishin and crusin Seafari style!

Nice score..looks to be in great shape and trailer is a perfect match!
-Fred

Great boat Ryan!

Thanks guys. Here's my only problem, it starts an runs like a top untill its runs between 20 minutes to an hour if I shut it off it won't restart. It's got fuel and spark but won't start. Put it on the trailer, and the next day starts right up, runs great, shut it off, won't start? Any thoughts?

Is this covered under ACA for medical needs?

Mr. Shrimpin will be along shortly. Got a manual?

Nice find,
GFS

Ryan,

I'm no Merc expert, and Big Shrimpin may chime in with a better solution, but this scenario sounds a bad coil, although that motor should have one coil per cylinder, so it's unlikely all 6 coils would be bad. The general scenario for a bad coil is that they work fine when cold, but as they heat up and expand, small cracks in the coil winding's open up and no longer transmit current, giving you a weak or no spark. The OMC motors, and probably Mercs also, had trigger or sensor coils in the stator assembly; magnets in the flywheel would trigger a current/voltage in those sensor coils on every revolution which was used to fire the CD ignition system. If those sensor coils opened up when hot, it would probably shut down the whole ignition system. I'd get a manual and check continuity and resistance on those sensor coils after they're warmed up, and also check 'em for shorts to ground.

I once had an old 1958 Johnson 50 hp V-4 with a magneto ignition system. It had a bad coil in the magneto which developed enough voltage at high speed that it ran fine even when fully warmed up, but if you slowed down to idle, the voltage would drop, motor would die and refuse to start until it cooled down. A friend had a slightly later V-4 with a conventional battery/single coil/points/distributor ignition system. His coil died several miles offshore, but he made it back in by taking cover off motor and packing ice around the coil!

Nice find BTW! Looks like a very clean rig! Notice you have the gas tank hatch off. The fuel tank is so easy to remove on a Seafari that it's worth doing, if for no other reason than to check condition of the hoses and to make sure there are no imminent problems. I pulled mine when I first got the boat which was only 3 years old at the time. Discovered that the aluminum tank was resting on top of a brass nut that had evidently been dropped into the gas tank area at the factory before the tank was installed! Galvanic action was starting to eat away at the tank under the nut, but I caught it, repaired it before it had gone too far, and painted entire tank w/epoxy. Thanks to that inspection, I'm still running the original tank, almost 39 years later! Denny

Thanks Denny!

http://issuu.com/cdielectronics/docs...044661/2001100

page 83-84

would be interesting to know if you have spark on any of the cylinders.

my guess is no.


do you have a kill switch lanyard on your control set? (have to ask this to cover all bases.)

I had a cdi box do something similar to this one time on a dirt bike, ran fine cold or till stopped then no fire to restart or really weak fire. Changed the cdi and fixed the problem. Just a guess? I also had a 1980 Johnson 70hp that had a no fire issue and it was the cdi box.

Check for spark at the plugs - all of them. Then trace backwards, i.e.; coils, switchbox/powerpack, trigger, etcetera.

Having happily lived with Mercs most of my life, and having undergone EXACTLY that scenario with a '92 XR4, my guess is trigger or switchbox. But that's only a guess.

My wife got rather upset when for the 2nd time we were 9-10 miles offshore and the motor wouldn't start 'til it cooled down completely. :-(

My motor had a bad trigger due to deterioration of the wiring insulation. During diagnostics, we discovered my switchbox wasn't very good, either. Changed those out and the motor ran perfectly another 5 years/300 hours before I repowered with a 90 Optimax.

Another guess. Pic looks like a black max engine. If so, the cowl tends to leak in rough weather. Coils get wet and connections corroded. Crank the thing at night and you may see blue flickers all around the ignition system. Problem might be related somehow.

Cdavis -yes it is a black max, Bigshrimpin-thanks for the info, no it does not have a lanyard --ill report back what i figure out. Frizzle and Fr Frank i appreciate the insight.

Good morning Ryan. That was my Seacraft about 13 years ago. I bought the hull with a blown up 115 Merc, stripped the bottom paint, did some cosmetic repairs, put the 175 HP Merc on it and built the rod holder plate for the transom splash well. All the decks, hatches etc... were in pretty good shape when I had it. I thought seriously about buying it back from Chip here in Winter Park. I was a little concerned with the flexing in the transom, so you might want to keep an eye on that, especially with the 175 on her. It had the aluminum transom cap on it when I first bought it.
Have you run a compression check on the motor when it is cold and then again when it heats up? I'll check with my Merc mechanic and see if he has any thoughts. Overall the boat still looked very good when I saw it a month or so back. I hope she give you years of enjoyment

Barry

So you finally bit the bullet.
Good deal!!
Looks nice.
OP

Thanks Barry, Chip did mention that you were interested in her. Ive got to say from the splashwell forward shes in very nice shape. The transom, ahh well lets just say im not heading to Bimini quite yet. It will be a fun little boat to play around in.

Thanks Oly!

curious if you ever figured out what your issue was with the motah?

I've got a 200 Black Max if you want one.
Came on the Donzi Sweet 16 we just got. :)

Dropped it off at my mechanic and he ran it on the hose, but couldn't replicate the problem. Hoping to go run it again this week to replicate the problem and fix. Will definitely update when I get done.

Oly I'll keep it in mind.thanks.

wet spark plug wires would be my guess also

Ryan, I was talking to my merc mechanic and he thought it might be a stator problem. Did the motor shut off while running, or did it fail to restart after you had shut it off? Only real problems I've had with my merc's have been stators and switch boxes. As a precaution, I make a habit of not shutting my motors down when I'm offshore, unless I really have to. When you checked for spark, was it while the motor was cold or hot? When you said it had fuel, did you try to start it by squirting a little fuel mixture directly into the carbs? Good luck with the cure, the weather is starting to turn up here in Central Florida and the winds should start laying down a bit.

Barry

check kill switch

Thanks for the replies fellas turned out to be the ignition switch. mechanic has a new one coming and I should be all set. cant waut to run her a little more.