We had a very similar problem on Arione last year. Thought it was a fuel line - a pinhole or something letting air into the line. Since the lines were rock hard and old enough to drink, had them all replaced in San Jose Del Cabo at not small expense. Problem persisted. A mechanic in La Paz (who spoke not a word of English, and our Spanish was rather, um, limited, at that point) traced it a a dying solenoid - it was slowly closing as it died - not every time, not in a consistent manner, but definitely dying. The guy was one of those people where watching him work made it clear that he was a freaking mechanical genius - he very methodically traced the problem back to the source. He replaced the solenoid and we've been good to go ever since. worth checking. Could also be a problem with the solenoid getting current, which he also checked. Lines are the most obvious thing to check, but if there's nothing obviously wrong with them, I'd investigate other possibilities before you do what we did (replacement).
If anyone finds themself in La Paz, Mario, at Marina Palmira, who's become our mechanic of choice, is a great guy and really knows his stuff. You do need to speak at least a little Spanish, though. On Jul 10, 2011, at 7:22 PM, Ben Okopnik wrote: > On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 06:40:42PM -0500, jim sims wrote: >> Looking for a touch engine diagnosis problem and the solution for a >> story I'm writing.... Ideally something not obvious, that might have >> symptoms like: >> 1) runs fine for a while >> 2) then misses or surges >> 3) quits > > Agree with Lee: air leak on the suction side of the low-pressure > mechanical fuel pump (gets worse as the engine-mounted beastie heats > up, > "cures" itself when the engine is cold.) Don't ask me how I know, > either. :) > > > Ben > -- > OKOPNIK CONSULTING > Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business > Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming > 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com > > To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
