2004 optimax help!!!!!!!

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wetaline

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 12, 2011
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Well I got my dream boat, a 2072 seaark for a great deal in gulf shores Thursday. I drove down early worked a deal, drove it and fished for a day and came back the same night. It was horrible. I was so tired. Well I fished watts bar in the am yesterday and the chick a night with no problems. Well my wife wants to go out today so I took her our below the dam. We ran straight up to the dam grabbed some bait and drifted for a bit. Decided to find a place to hop in the water and cool off so I went to crank the engine and it turned over but never would crank. My wife was so upset she almost cried. I checked spark and had it and was needing some help from you guys, this sucks. The boat ran great, didn't miss a beat, I killed it to fish and it never started back up again. I cleaned the plugs and checked spark. Since it's an efi engine I can't do much else. Also who around the Cleveland or Chattanooga area is best with the optimax line. I'm gonna call the boat dealership in the morning to see If they will cover it but I doubt it plus it's 450 miles back down there, so please help I am in very much need. Thanks so much.
 
If you've got spark, it's not the kill switch.

Opti's are sensitive to low voltage, I'd charge the battery fully and start there. Could still be a fuel issue, but eliminate the simple things first. You can have enough voltage to turn teh starter motor, but not enough to run the electrical system properly on these engines.
 
chattanooga fish n fun here in town or bunch marine is who i would take it to.
the optimax is such a complex beast i wouldnt take it to anyone else.

there are any number of things that can make an optimax do this , from low volt/weak battery to fuel pump issues and even the compressor failing .

before you start spending money guesing at it take to one of the above .
they have the proper diagnostic equipment to get it right .
 
m17glock - 6/6/2011 12:52 PM

Chattanooga fish n fun here in town or bunch marine is who i would take it to.
the optimax is such a complex beast i wouldnt take it to anyone else.

there are any number of things that can make an optimax do this , from low volt/weak battery to fuel pump issues and even the compressor failing .

before you start spending money guessing at it take to one of the above .
they have the proper diagnostic equipment to get it right .

+1

I use Bunch personally

I know from experience a battery without enough cold cranking amps can do this
Including a brand new battery
Optimax's shut themselves off with out the right amount of juice
Also it could be in your fuel pump especially if the motor has sat around any length of time
Bunch fixed me right up
 
Since you havent owned the boat long. Make sure you can pump the fuel bulb up. It should fill with fuel and get hard to pump. I had one doing the same thing. There was a really small hole in the bulb. It would get firm but not hard when you pumped it. Pump it up and if it starts. I would check the bulp or the fuel line for pin holes. Hope this helps.
 
My last experience like that (when it ran great, then wouldn't fire the next time I went to start it) The shift lever wasn't perfectly in neutral.
 
Need to check your primer bulb an the fuel line from the bulb to the motor.. Check the inside of the fuel line to see if the ethanol has broke dwn the inner linning of the fuel line! It could also be a coil.. Optimax's are known for coil issues.. It could be a number of things.. Wherever you take it make sure you request printouts of the run history an freeze frame (fault history) They should also check fuel and air pressure test and a spark test! Get it on a computer!
 
Well sorry its been a while, but i been fighting the opti bad. I dropped the boat off at a local and well known boat shop and they said it would be ready thursday (yesterday). So I called and they said it wasnt ready, but it had a bad lift pump. They said it would now be a week until it would be done, so I said forget it and I went and picked it up and bought the pump, I put the pump in yesterday and what do you know, the same thing, it wouldnt start. A 300 dollar pump for nothin. Sorry if I sound mad, but I just want my new boat to run. My plugs are wet and my sparkplugs are fireing, but it wont hit a lick. I took the fuel rail off and found what looked to be like fuel in my air pressure regulator, right under my diaphram. There is so much fuel everywhere that I am not 100% sure it wasnt caused by me. I didnt see any rips or tears in the diaphram, nothing stuck out besides the possibility of fuel under the diaphram. Anybody ever seen anything like this. Any help would be much appreciated, Man I just want to fish in my new boat.
 
sounds like a job for wrenchin2, I called him with a problem with my mercury, told him the year and the size and he told me where every tag on the thing was and what it should have on it,I was very impressed, call him it couldn't hurt advise is free 423 304-0930 (james)
 
Yea james told me they had too much crap on them and he couldnt handle it and was way to scared to try to attack an optimax. emoPoke I hope he reads this. Yea I have heard a lot about Bunch, but I kinda got into it with a salesman up there. I brought an old boat up there for possible trade on a seaark they had at the time and he told me my boat looked like a$$. His exact words. It wasnt a 520 Ranger but what he said could get a man hurt. I thought it was very rude of him to say that. But all in all James warned me about these optis. Every little thing is megga expensive. Has anybody heard good or bad about Nichols.
 
I haven't heard anything bad about them, and they are always friendly there, but i have never had any actual work done there< just been there to pick up stuff and do it mostly myself, sorry i couldn't be more help there
 
You really can't "shade tree" an Optimax. You need to find a good shop that has Optimax expertise and the correct diagnostic tools. It will cost some $$ to get the job done right and there will, no doubt, be a wait involved. Good shops are busy. I can tell you that Mark Bunch up at Bunch Marine is a first class guy and runs a great shop. Good luck with yours.
 
yea Im going to take it to them monday morning. Im scared to hear the final results honestly. I wont be able to fish for a week and a half anyway so it will work out ok. Thanks for all the help guys.
 
Those guys will get you going. If you haven't already, it would be a great idea to have them get all the "annual service" items (filters, fluids, water pump, etc) up to date and change the old, gray fuel line and primer bulb to the new ethanol resistant products while they've got it. Let us know what the problem turned out to be, if you get a chance. Sounds like you've got a neat rig, BTW.
 
Jbh3 man it's nice to have a positive thing said here and there. I love the boat I just got to get the motor right. I can't wait to hit the water again!
 
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