Marinette Boat Forum

bill wrote:

Found caps made in USA made by WELLS and purchased at Auto Zone #AL 960



I had voltage meters on the output sides of the ballast resistor.
Well after running a little over 2 hours at the dock just idling , the port engine started missing and stalled. It would not restart. Did not loose voltage on the outputs from the ballast resistor . Ron disconnected the coil wire from the distributor and held it to a ground. I cranked it over and we got good spark. Hooked it back up and pulled a plug wire off #8 plug and held it to ground, nothing. Pulled the cap and checked the ohm resistance from the spring loaded carbon pencil to the top of the cap. Using my fluke, we pushed the carbon pencil into the cap, while keeping a eye on the reading. On compressing the spring. the fluke would change from a solid reading to an open line. I pulled on of my used caps out of the drawer and Ron installed it.
Hit the key and she started right up. We decided to take it out for short run. The port engine ran great, Mister starboard was a little sluggish. We headed back home and got almost all the way there and the starboard quit. It started right back up but stalled when put in gear. Got back to the dock and started to look at the starboard engine. Ran the check on the distributor cap and found the same problem. I remember replacing both these caps last fall they were SIERRA caps and rotors. Now to find some good caps hopefully made in the US.