Overheating? or is it the Fule Filter?

[martgibson]

Hi.

I Just bought a Cal 27 with an Atomic 4. The engine has been running great so far, but the other day I had it running for about 3 hours and it suddenly stopped and I couldn't get it restarted. I'm wondering if it's overheating or if this may be a fuel line/filter issue. Any thoughts?

[baileyem]

In order to come up with an answer to why your engine stopped we need more informations about how it stopped. Did it make any noise before or during shutdown? Did it sputter and die slowly? Did it lose power before stopping? Did it simply stop, as though you had turned off the key? Is there oil in the crankcase? Will the engine turn over?

There are a lot of possibilities and most of them boil down to either fuel or ignition problems. Don has some good checklists for running down problems with either.

Mike

[martgibson]

I had been running the engine for several hours and it suddenly stopped.
No sputtering. no loss of power. As if I turned off the key. It does turn over however, but that's about it.

[baileyem]

A sudden shutdown of the engine indicates that you probably have an ignition problem. Chect to see, with the ignition switch turned on, if you have power to the positive side of the coil. If you don't you have a break in your primary ignition circuit. I think that Don has an ignition checklist stashed somewhere in the forum. It would be a big help to use it as a guidline.
A sudden shutdown doesn't sound like points, condenser or coil either, as they normally give indications of going bad before cutting out completely.

Good luck
Mike

[martgibson]

Thanks, Mike.

I'll check it out.