FSH 190 Won't start right away after running for extended period

[Chadharter]

I'm having an odd issue with my 2017 FSH 190 Sport. The boat is brand new. 5 hours on it. Just picked it up 3 weeks ago. Anyway, what has happened twice now is this. After running for a couple hours and turning the engine off, throwing an anchor and swimming for example, I get ready to take off and the engine won't start. It turns over fine. The emergency lanyard is obviously in it, right where it has been all day, running with no issues. I'll try to start it a couple times and it won't start. Then finally, it decides to start. It's a little un-nerving because I'll be taking this boat to the ocean. Mostly bay fishing but if the weather is good, I'm going to take this boat 9-10 miles off shore. Anyone else have this issue? I've read all of the threads about the emergency lanyard connection being loose but I struggle thinking that is it when the boat has ran fine all day and the lanyard has not moved. Interested in hearing your thoughts and I'm a big fan of this forum........

 

[SgtBFGunner]

I had a hard start the other day myself. After being stranded in my previous boat I'm a little sensitive about floating around the Gulf of Mexico wowi no motor.
Only thing I did different was to hit the raw water washdown to clear out the hose before shooting the motor down.
I hadn't been running for hours either. Just kept turning over then finally reluctantly started. Kind of makes you leary of shutting of the motor.
Interested in others experiences as well.

 

[dlkhmk]

I’ve had the same exact problem 2 or 3 times last year. I’m not sure if what I did was the fix, but so far this year I have not had any trouble starting.

I noticed that my lanyard shut off was a little bit loose and tightened the nylon nut. I also took the wire connection off the back and added some dielectric grease to the connections.

If you have the problem again remove your lanyard and pull the plunger up by hand and see if it starts. That worked for me and was the reason I basically removed, cleaned, and reinstalled the shut-off.

I’m guessing that the tolerances inside the connection when the plunger is up are just that close it just wasn't getting a good connection.

 

[YamJamFan]

The boat is brand new. 5 hours on it. Just picked it up 3 weeks ago. Anyway, what has happened twice now is this. After running for a couple hours and turning the engine off

If you have this issue after "running for a couple of hours", how can the boat only have ".5 hours on it" ?

 

[Chadharter]

It has 5 hours on it. The "." is the period on the previous sentence. This has happened twice after running the boat for about 30-40 minutes during a couple hour period of starting/stopping the engine. Sorry for the confusion......

 

[Chadharter]

I’ve had the same exact problem 2 or 3 times last year. I’m not sure if what I did was the fix, but so far this year I have not had any trouble starting.

I noticed that my lanyard shut off was a little bit loose and tightened the nylon nut. I also took the wire connection off the back and added some dialectical grease to the connections.

If you have the problem again remove your lanyard and pull the plunger up by hand and see if it starts. That worked for me and was the reason I basically removed, cleaned, and reinstalled the shut-off.

I’m guessing that the tolerances inside the connection when the plunger is up are just that close it just wasn't getting a good connection.

I'll take a look at that. I just didn't think that could be the case when really nothing changed at all with the lanyard from the time I turned off the motor and when I tried to start it up again.

 

[Rich NW Jboater]

I've seen this after trolling at very low speeds (less than 2 mph) for a couple of hours. I shut the motor off to pull the gear in and stow the downriggers, went to restart it for the return trip and it wouldn't start. I moved the throttle out of neutral and back and still no luck. I waited a few minutes and it reluctantly started after keeping the starter engaged for what seemed like a extended period of time. Now, before I shut the motor off after trolling, I rev the rpm's in reverse for a bit and then shut it down, so far, I haven't had any issues restarting the motor.

 

[Chadharter]

I had a hard start the other day myself. After being stranded in my previous boat I'm a little sensitive about floating around the Gulf of Mexico wowi no motor.
Only thing I did different was to hit the raw water washdown to clear out the hose before shooting the motor down.
I hadn't been running for hours either. Just kept turning over then finally reluctantly started. Kind of makes you leary of shutting of the motor.
Interested in others experiences as well.

That's really interesting......because now that you say it, I used the raw water wash down just before I shut the motor off. Here's exactly what happened......

1.) Ran the boat back to the boat ramp.
2.) about 300 feet or so from the boat ramp, I went to neutral and engaged the raw water wash down. Used it for about 5 minutes.
3.) Turned off the raw water wash down and docked the boat to go get my truck. Turned the motor off.
4.) Got truck and backed down the ramp, came over to dock and tried to start the boat.
5.) Wouldn't start. After trying to start a few times, it finally started reluctantly.

Also interesting that I was obviously moving at really slow speed (not trolling as was mentioned above for hours but slow obviously as I approached the ramp). Not sure if all of this means anything or is just coincidence.

 

[SoftballBryan]

I’ve had this happen a couple times over the two years of owning the boat as well. I simply think it’s a matter Air/fuel/spark not working itself out and starting the engine. To me it almost seems like the engine is flooded.

 

[swatski]

@Chadharter There is hope, guys!
There's been a lot of speculation as this has been discovered to happen when wake surfing, too.

Here is the bottom line, what works (not that I would necessarily know why, but - it works):

1. before turning the engines off, cool off - idle until the water coming out of the pissers is not scalding hot
   
2. make sure the throttle (or binnacle) is in the dead-neutral position when turning the engine(s) off
3. run blowers when stopped (after a hard/long run)

There is a thread on this, with a lot of speculation. these three simple steps have completely cured the issue for me.

EDIT: Here is the thread https://jetboaters.net/threads/hard-re-starting-list-side-engine-ballasted-ar240-wake-surfing.13897/#post-240497
Don't read it, just do 1-2-3 as above, you should be fine, lol.

--

 

[SoftballBryan]

That sounds like solid information. Thank you.

 

[veedubtek]

I've had the issue with both of my skis, and my old FSH. Spark plugs cured it every time for me. Doesn't really make sense, and I didn't do it trying to cure the problem (except with the FSH, based on past ski experience), but it's worked for me every time. Cheap and easy to try, and also good maintenance.

 

[Chadharter]

Thanks for all the info guys!

 

[Bill Smith]

Mine did it when new a couple times but once broken in it seems to be gone. I would agree that cooling the engine and regular spark plug changes should help as well. I used to have a Yamaha outboard that if you shut off before letting it idle for a bit would also have a hard restart.

 

[Whisky]

I had a similar issue on my AR190, especially when doing watersports.... it was very unnerving. Generally speaking, @swatski 's summary of things to remember significantly reduced the occurrence of this.

That being said, I did have a situation on my 212X which caused the port side engine to exhibit the same symptoms significantly more than the other, in this case, the engine eventually started running rough and a fouled plug was found.

Since replacing the plug, and following the guidance above, we rarely have reoccurances, and even if we do, it does always start (so far) after a few tries.