no oil warning after long idle

[timeking]

After trolling for hour or so at 1400 rpm, got this gigantic bonito on and it got all tangled up, so had to idle for 10 minutes to untangle when horn and no oil warning light came on. Immediately shut it down. Headed back in at 3200 rpm and no warning, no light, but when at ramp idling while I retrieved the trailer, the horn and light came on. Oil is being used because oil reservoir is going down. What's the first thing to check?

My guess is there is a leak in the hose somewhere, but that hose and the bulb by the tank seems to be all one assembly (no hose clamps, just crimps of some sort). How do you deal with that?

I'd rather not blow up this Johnson 2001 150HP Model J150VXSIF !!

[timeking]

more info

This pump is the 5004558. One of the screws on the front of the vro2 is stripped -- this is the chamber where the oil goes to and where the No Oil sensor is located. If I take all 4 screws out what will I find? Is there a gasket there? And if yes, where do you purchase that gasket?

[timeking]

Since nobody seems to have any comment on any of this, in the interests of the forum, I'll tell you what I found:

I followed the hose from the VRO2 face to the supply tank. One of the crimps was missing at the bulb. There was also a junction halfway to the motor. I removed all of the clamps, cut off a bit of hose, and reinstalled all with new hose clamps.

I took the 4 bolts out that hold the face of the VRO on, noticing none of them were tight. There are 2 O-rings behind it, and a short plunger rod that could easily be screwed up if not careful ... probably a bad idea to have taken this apart and would recommend not doing this. A good o-ring seal requires all the screws being tight, so I tighten them all and replaced the stripped screw with a slightly bigger diameter screw with the same general thread pattern.

I also noticed that the oil feed line into the VRO2 was able to be rotated by hand; it was loose. I removed that hose, cut 3/4 inch off the end, and reinstalled using a hose clamp rather than the little springy thing that was on there.

I then hooked up a piece of clear 1/4 inch hose to the oil intake, filled it with 2 cycle oil, and measured how many pulses it took to suck down 3 inches. Seven pulses sucked down 3 1/4 inches. Specifications are 3 inches in 6 to 8 pulses. (You can visually see the pulses in the hose as each pulse sucks down a visible "gulp").

So maybe fixed this thing without buying new one or going to pre-mix. Bottom line is that VRO2 requires an absolute perfect no-leak connection between the motor and the oil reservoir. The reason that becomes obvious when you do all this is the way it sucks in oil in little-bitty gulps. It seems a better way to have done this was to PUMP oil into a secondary reservoir in the engine compartment, and then feed that into the VRO. Of course I am not an engineer and don't work for Johnson, who is now gone bye-bye.

[arneoe]

Thanks a lot for the information. I'm just struggling with the VRO2 pump in my 92 50 hp J50BELEIA. Seem like the pump is shot and waiting for a new one to arrive. rgrds Arne

[timeking]

lack-o-trust

After discussing with my local outboard mechanic, the fact that he said 90% of the people around here just disconnect the thing ... well ... that is what I did. From what I've read in the forums the "variable" part of VRO2 is to reduce oil flow at idle down to 60:1 then back up to 50:1. that doesn't seem like much VRO-ing going on to me, and was the straw that broke the camel's back regarding whether this thing is working or malfunctioning or getting ready to quit.

The hardest part was adding all that 2-cycle oil to my half-empty 67 gallon tank and then driving round and round the neighborhood to make sure it was all mixed. I then filled the tank, and siphoned 5 gallons out the fuel intake at the motor to make sure 50:1 was in all the lines/filter.