Conference vicki::boats

I have heard the same alarm on my Johnson 110 but only when
there was an over heating problem. THis has occur after I ran 
the motor on shore with a cooling jacket and then took it into
the water. It cleared up after a few minutes of running in cold 
ocean water. The marina said that the thermostat will sometime
stick closed. The engine heated up after I shut it off and
tripped the thermostat.

The low on oil alarm is a pulsing alarm. I've never heard this
and hope I never will, unless there's a real problem with
the oil. I carry  oil on board to mix with the engine gas
just in case.

When was the last time you had the water pump impeller checked.
This is recommended to be changed every 3 years.
Jim

    I have 1987 Evinrude 120 VRO. The over temp (steady) alarm came on for
    no apparent reason a couple of weeks ago. The water pump was putting
    out a good stream (new pump). I shut the motor down and restarted a
    couple of times and the alarm was still on. I could hold my hand on the
    engine heads without discomfort so the cooling system seemed to to be
    fine. After replacing the engine cover, I restarted the motor and no
    alarm. I put another 3 or 4 hours on that day at all speeds without the
    alarm sounding. ????
    
    John

    When the alarm sounded the first time last year, I took it to the
    marina to have it checked because I thought my pump was going bad. 
    They said it was only the impeller so it was replaced last summer.
    This seemed to solve the problem for the short term, but on those real
    hot days when the boat sits in the sun for a while, the dark blue
    engine cover gets hot even to the touch.  
    
    Sometimes when it goes off, I let it sit for a few minutes and then it
    start again with no problem.  Once again this only happens in the
    middle of the day because I can run full throttle in the morning or
    after the sun goes down a little in the early evening.
    
    I'm going to try it again this weekend and if the alarm continues to
    sound I guess I'll take it back to the shop or if I'm in a bad mood,
    maybe overboard.
    
    Keeping the oil on board is a good tip, thanks,
    
    Rob.

I learned that there is another event that can trigger the alarm, at
least on my big Johnson with VRO. That is, insufficient fuel flow.
Elaborating on this, if there is an restriction in the fuel line, this
could cause the engine to run to lean, which can be disastrous with 2
cycle engines, so they added that function. 

I have an inline fuel filter (OMC), and the first time I had recurring
alarms (and went through the checks you've made, such as investigating
possible overheating), I could find nothing else wrong, and changed the
filter as a last resort. It stopped the alarm. After that I began
carrying a spare filter on the boat.

Hope this helps,

Art

    Thanks Art.  I guess there is no quick and easy trouble shoot to this
    problem other than to replace parts one by until it stops since all
    these problems could be the cause.
    
    It would be nice if there was a most probable cause to start with, but
    I guess that would take the fun out of owning a boat.
    
    Rob.

    I thought I'd add one more quick note.  I put my boat in the water and
    as I expected it worked perfectly, mostly in my opinion to the cool
    weather and water.  
    
    The only strange thing that happened was the alarm going off as I
    turned the key to "on" and before rolling the engine over.  I turned it
    back off again and tried again with no alarm.  I think this has more to
    do with angle of the boat as it was still partially on the trailer at
    the time? Has this alarm phenomen happened to anybody else?
    
    Thanks,
    Rob.

    re: .6
    
    Which part is strange: that the alarm sounded when you turned the key
    on the first time, or that it didn't sound the second time?
    
    On my OMC the alarm normally sounds for about 1/2 second when the key
    is turned to the run position to let the operator know that the alarm is
    actually working (or at least that the horn itself works - not
    necessarily that the sensors are working). As best as I can recall this
    happens every time the key is turned...

    The strange thing was that it continued to sound (for 4 seconds and
    probably longer if I hadn't turned the key off).
    
    This is significantly different than the 1/2 second when you start the
    engine as mentioned in .7
    
    Thanks,
    Rob.