Problem with out board!

[Glenn Basore]

As to the Sea foam,

I've watched a couple of you tube videos on using this product on cars, the amount of smoke while treating the vehicles was shocking, I couldn't help but think if I was to use Sea foam here in Sothern Calif. I would have the EPA authorities after me!

Salty,

I will look for a carb kit but will try running a tank of high octane gas through it first just to see if it improves.

Glenn

[moonlight]

Skip hit a homer on this one, with a good assist by Salty.

You've got to pull that carb down, unless MacGyver's tricks work.  In my experience, they haven't.  Tuning carbs on 350's or 454's you've got some room for error, as it's burning bucketloads by bucketloads.  Your engine, just by it's size, idles on three gnat's asses of fuel.  Oh, the gnats must also be male, between 18 and 18.25 hours old, on their standard organic high protein diet.  If one of the gnat's eats junk food, or gets too fat, or doesn't follow the norm, your fuel mixture is off and everything goes south.

By using the choke, you're artificially enriching the mixture.  Making up for the phat gnat's ass that's stuck in the idle jet or port.  Tear it down, soak it, and blow 90~120psi shop air through everything.  Reassemble, find out it's better but still off, throw it away.

I did a small Tohatsu for a guy years ago; and just again this year.  This year I learned that he fumbled with "the best we could do" (three years ago) for a year; bought a carb from somewhere, ran it two years; and now we're back out there doing "the best we can do".  These jets are so tiny and so microscopic; and technician time is high, and the carbs are remarkably cheap.  I HATE that we're becoming such a throw away society, but if the mechanical bill is $200+ and a carb is $130, even I know what my customers are gonna do.  But I can't pull off other jobs any cheaper, and these small outboards are just crap.  That's why I recommend to him, and you, and others: Propane.  Or Electric.  Either fixes this for the last time.  Pretty soon we will have to be north of 25 HP for gasoline.

[Tim Gardner]

As I remember, from my time in Baton Rouge & NOLA, three gnat's asses could draw a lot of blood!

TG

[MacGyver]

 
Listen to the MacGyver theme song while you work,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGIo-tqQkoQ

When I play this in my shop while I work, awesomeness happens...... not that it doesn't happen when I am working without the musical assistance....... 

Mac 

[Glenn Basore]

Hi all,

I just finished reading a few links on the problem of my Mercury OB not idling at low rpms.

One indicated he removed the on off fuel switch and remove a hose which contained a small screen filter, he also change the small dia fuel line to a little bit large line for more volume of fuel flow. He indicated this solved his problem with his Mercury 4 Hp , 4stroke.

I'm going to look at my OB again a see what I find with the switch.

Just thought I would pass the info along.

Glenn

[skip1930]

Brackish asked about Carb heat: Getting the engine warm on cold water days or winter operation.
Or fiddling with the choke to keep it running. Carb heat will make...

1~Slight Power Loss
2~Enrichens Mixture
3~Decreases Air Density

To clean the idle jet and the high speed jet once they are extrapolated from the carb [count the turns on the idel screw, doesn't mater on the high speed jet. Just snug it up.] while on the water, grab your can of WD-40 and give her good shot, clean through the hole in the jet. And while the jet is out, flush out the fuel bowel, don't even bother taking the bowel off the carb. Just flush through the jet's threaded hole. Jets are a shaped bore. DO NOT ROD THE BORE OUT WITH A STIFF WIRE.

Hint -->For the steel parts...screws, washers, ect. I made a 4" x 4" balsa wood flat piece that has a raised 3/16" surround around the square edge. In the bottom of the square I glued on those flexible rubberized magnetic refrigerator magnates, [advertisment side down, brown side up] to hold these parts from being lost.

ALSO keep a screw driver handle/flexible spring/magnetic tipped tool on board in your ships tool bag. Someday you'll have to dig out what you dropped down into the O/B casing.

And NAPA sells a handy spring loaded twist flat screw driver type blade that you cock to a flat blade position, then insert the flat blade into the jet's slot, and release the lock. That way the brass jet is stuck on the flat blade and ready to be unscrewed or screwed in. Clear as mud?

skip.

[wes]

Every idling and stalling problem with my Mercury (Tohatsu) 5hp has been traced directly to debris in the carb jets. Those jets are incredibly tiny, and the slightest spec of grit will clog them up. Clog the idle jet and the engine stalls below high idle. Clog the main jet and it runs erratically and stalls. You have to be religious about keeping the fuel tank and host connectors clean. The surest way to fix a clog, if you don't mind disassembling the carb, is to run a small wire or needle through the jets. Otherwise you can try the chemical cleaners (and prayer).

"Tiny engines have tiny jets" is what my mechanic says, and boy is he right. On those honking big 250 hp outboards the jets are the size of a garden hose and they're a lot more tolerant of debris.

Wes

[Bob23]

Iv'e toyed with installing a separate Racor fuel filter on my 23. Iv'e seen it at the boatshop...cute little thing that gets bolted somewhere semi-permanently and has a spin off filter. Not real expensive and maybe it's a possibility for you small jet guys. Removes water, too. My old Nissan 8 2 stroke seems to be the motor from heaven. Always starts...always runs...never breaks. Oh man...I'm screwed now! I never should have said that.
Bob23

[moonlight]

Racors are great, for what they do; which is remove trash and water.

Rarely, in my experience, is trash and water the problem with small outboards.

It's fuel, and inconsistent use.  And not really the fault of the fuel either; but more of the inconsistent use.  Drain your carb ALL the time or run the motor dry ALL the time, and the problems vanish.  Put the boat up with the carb wet because we're going back out next weekend, and then:
1) next weekend it rains.
2) the following weekend is someone's baptism.
3) after that there's the art show in town and she really wants to go.
4) let's not forget little Johnny's birthday party.
5) darn it's raining again.
6) ball game.  Got tickets from a pal at the office, so we gotta go.
7) we haven't seen Mother in such a long time, better make a stop by.
Hey, let's go sailing!  What do you mean the o/b won't start ... it ran great, oh yeah, 8 or 10 or 12 weekends ago.  Man, if I knew it'd be that long I sure woulda drained the carb!  Or at least let it run dry while freshwater flushing.  But geez, since the thing idles on three gnats asses of fuel per minute, and we spent the last 8 or 10 weeks evaporating the light ends out of the bowl, what we have is not trash or water but something more akin to the varnish we put on the bright work, just AFTER it skinned over, and now we have those flakes trying to go through the jets, and boy are we screwed.  Here we all everyone's ready to go but no o/b.
9) and it'll be another four weeks to get that straightened out.

EMPTY THE CARBS BOYS.  ALWAYS.  kinda like putting the plug in the flat boat before launching, just make it a habit.

[Shawn]

I have the racor on Serenity. Installed above the fuel tank.

Shawn

[Bob23]

Shawn:
   Was there enough room? That was one reason I haven't persued this... any photos?
Moon:
   You are right and I should remember to do that but my outboard literally starts first pull 98% of the time. The other 2% it's on the 2nd pull. Another thing to remember is to close the vent on the tank when your'e done sailing. Usually that's in the afternoon when it's cooling off and the humidity in the air is increasing. As the fuel and tank cool, it creates a sort of suction, drawing moist air into the tank which is what we all don't want.
   Using premium fuel with Stabil and high quality 2 stroke oil and closing the vent, I have no problems thoughout the season. But, when I haven't used the motor for a few weeks, I'll on occasion just go out and motor around for a half hour just to let Miss Nissan know I still love her!
Bob23

[moonlight]

It's only a semi-related story, but very early in my career I had a guy here once who wanted his starter changed, on his inboard chris craft, in the spring.  Amazing that due to the angle at which one had to stand on one's head, and the wiring that couldn't be removed until the starter was, and with only two bolts holding the starter to the block; it was two hours each way.  Oh, remember that stud coming through the air cleaner/backfire flame arrestor on the carb; that's right, it nestled straight into the sternum or just below, conveniently so one didn't slide all the way upside down into the bilge.  But I digress; we're talking fuel.

So we got his starter replaced, and the motor cranked freely.  It would not fire though, without pouring gas down the carb (and I tell you, those jets are much better at regulating fuel delivery than a guy holding 2 gallon can on a tilt at the backdown ramp).  Ran great though, as long as we poured.

So we then pulled the fuel line to the carb, and extracted a 4" snot ball so compacted it looked like the stone filter that is supposed to go into a Rochester carb.  And then we pull a fuel sample; 70% water.

Now it's time to call the guy to tell him of our progress!  He assures me that the boat ran fine last season, in fact, he jacked it way up on the trailer and ran it completely out of fuel before storing for the winter.  Completely out, so he says.  And he'd tossed 30 fresh gallons into the tank just while bringing it to us.  Into the 100 gallon tank that was 3/4 full.

So I started puling fuel out through the line, while another tech set about cleaning the nice 4bbl carb.  After extracting 30 gallons we sampled and had about 50% water.  We pulled another 15 gallons out and were about 20% water.  Ten more gallons and it looked pretty clear.

Morals of the story:  He didn't run it "out of fuel".  He did run it til it quit.  He then stored it, outside, where we found his fuel fill was improperly installed; it had a half-moon splash lip to stop anything from overflowing into the boat (should be oriented fore-aft) which was improperly angled (port starboard) acting like a small well or dam to hold water running down the side deck.  When we removed the spin-in plug it had, not a cracked or old O-ring, it had no O-ring.  So after angling the boat last fall to clean the tank (by pumping all the trash to the carb since the boat had no fuel filter) before putting it up and letting all the winter's rain flow into the tank too ...

He got out of there with a pretty hefty bill later, but a boat that ran.  I must admit there were lots of uncorrected deficiencies he wouldn't allow us to address, but we did what we could. 

OH, the starter?  Why did it go bad?  He hadn't removed the plug before said winter's rains, and it had gone underwater. 

Sad state of affairs that sometimes Sailors must work on Stinkpots who know no better to feed said Sailors kids!

[skip1930]

Whoa! TMI. There is a reason why on a 80+ year old Ford Model 'A' that sees a similar storage as my boat, starts on the first try by the second go round of the crankshaft. Unlike the 2 cycle boat engine that is run dry to remove the gas and the oil. The gas evaporates out the vents in the carb and fuel bowel and the oil stays, so run'er dry.

But the 'A' has a full 11 gallon gas gravity fed tank full to the brim to limit sweating/displace air and formation of water through condensation.
Fuel from the tank is collected at a height [one inch] above the bottom of the tank through a brass screen. So water could pool below the pick-up.
The 'A' additionally has a clear glass settling bowel. Water falls to the lowest point in the bowel. Fuel bleeds off the top of the bowel.
If there was ever water, you can see the water harmlessly waiting to be dumped out.
On the way out of the settling bowel, the fuel once again goes through a very fine screen. Down a steel line to the carb and through yet another screen in the carb.
Unhook the line, pull out that screen and check for daylight. O.K. Put it back together.

The point is unpressurized fuel delivery can be very clean and water free. Fuel deliver at gas stations 80 years ago was very 'Iffy' and dirty, poured out of open metal cans.

I'm pretty sure these motorcycles never saw SeaFoam, but they started after decades of sitting...In Glenview, Illinois on West Lake Street along side Glenview Naval Airbase fence.

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skip.

[brackish]

Well I can't say I'm in the drain everything dry camp.  Just the opposite, I want to keep everything filled to capacity.  What causes problems?  Water that corrodes the metal surfaces of the system or enters the cylinder if it is there in great quantities.  Where does it come from? condensation from the air on the surface of the various parts of the fuel system due to temperature differentiation.  How do you stop condensation?  Don't allow any surfaces to be free to condense water from the air.  How do you do that?  keep the system full of gasoline.  I shut mine down, give it a bulb pump and leave the fuel line hooked up with the tank vent closed.  Try to keep the tank full also, but that's not possible.  If a tank is going to sit there for two months, I switch it out and burn it up in my truck or lawn and garden stuff.

On the motor for this boat, I've been doing that for the three years I've owned it.  The only running problem I have is a rough idle that requires about 15% choke in the winter, but not in the summer.  I think that is t-stat related.

[Shawn]

Bob,

"Was there enough room? That was one reason I haven't persued this... any photos?"

Yes, it fits under the cover with the 3 gallon tank in there. Next time I am on Serenity I will take a shot for you. Basically the filter is mounted on the rear of the compartment up high on starboard edge. I use a  2x4 spacer to keep the fuel tank on the other side to make sure it doesn't hit the filter.

Shawn