Quote:
Originally Posted by MAXUM
Honesty I don't know and my way of thinking is if the part, especially electronic is in any way faulty why not just replace it. What I didn't tell you was that it took me several trips out on the lake to figure out what the problem was and twice had to be towed in, thankfully I did not go out alone so the towing was somewhat expected. By that time whatever I found to be wrong was definitely going to be replaced.
I'd at least pull it out and look at it although some may not have outward signs of being bad, mine it was plain as day. The service manual I have does not give any kind of diagnostic tests that can be done. Granted I have a cheapo Clymer manual, if I had a mercruiser manual I'm sure it would have a test that could be performed with a multimeter to ensure it's within spec. Also what makes me think this may be an issue is that 99% of the problems I've dealt with in regards to ignition module failures (oh I'm an ex Toyota technician) has been heat. Things are fine till you hit operating temperature then the sporadic run time problems rear their ugly heads.
OK far as coils go. Again usually when they go they just plain go. Be aware that there are various makers of coils out there, some good, some not so good. There was mention of Mallory in an earlier posting. Don't know about them but I'd stick with a Delco or Denso. If you are going to put a new one in, before going through all that work to install it, shake the coil and be sure it's got oil in it. Matter of fact I do that at the parts store!
The ignition pickup is inside the distributor housing. At least that's what I've always called it, looking in my service manual they call it the ignition sensor, the box it came in something like ignition module assembly. Call it what you want I guess. If you pull the cap off and pull the rotor off you'll see it, there are a couple of small screws that hold it in place and there is a notch in it where the rotor blade rotates through. Yes these are not exactly easy to get to depending on the way your boat is made. I'm fortunate in that I can pull the engine box off and get it out of the way and lift the rear sun pad out of the way. For those that have the bench seating, yeah it's a chore. Replacing the part is not hard and takes little mechanical know how, just need to get in there which is half the battle. For reference I have a 2003 4.3 with the thunderbolt solid state ignition and no EFI. If it weren't such a pain to get at it I'd pull my distributor cap and take a pic for ya. I was just out in the garage looking for the original box it came in so I could give you a part number, but it looks like I may have pitched it.
BTW if you're going to go that far might as well replace the rotor and cap too. I did just because I was already in there.
Good luck!!
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I too have had problems several times with the ignition module inside the dist on my 23' Carlson 5.7 Mercury I/O with thunderbolt ignition.
Its a piece of JUNK as far as I am concerned and part of the reason that boat is down with a bad motor.
The module died while I was prepping it for winter and I thought well its good enough and I'll fix replace the module again (3rd time for me) in the spring. Well I guess I didnt get enough coolent run through it and the motor got a freeze crack,,,
What really got me was that the motor had very low hours and ran GREAT otherwise. Errrr