sandkicker
Outstanding Contributor
"I have an elderly BF75 long s
"I have an elderly BF75 long shaft. It spends most of its life hanging out and only occasionally does it get called on to move my sailboat from its slip to where the sails go up... and back.
Several seasons ago I (with much help from forum members here) managed to finally get all the gunk out of my carb that was deposited there when the old aftermarket fuel line's lining deposited itself in the carb. Besides an adventure cleaning the idle jet with a 30ga copper wire strand and liberal use of carb cleaner, my "fix" included a brand new "alcohol resistant" Sierra fuel line and bulb.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I went out and because my back was killing me decided to "just motor around a bit"... Engine acted up... limped home after cutting my afternoon's "cruise" short.
It sounded like fuel issues again... I've been busy and only this afternoon got to tend to the motor... (Wife works some Sundays)
What I found:
a) idle jet plugged again (sigh).
b) Carb float passage before the valve...plugged
c) some minor amount of gunk in the bottom of the bowl.
I'd noticed two weeks ago that when I opened the petcock on the bottom of the carb to drain the carb, that only a small spurt of tea colored fuel came out. I was puzzled and of course when I found the pluged passage I wasn't surprised.
Before I took the carb off, I attempted to to run SEAFOAM thru the system by sticking the tank end of the fuel line into a jar with a couple of ounces of SEAFOAM in it as I could get the engine to run at high revs ( 2000 ish) for 4 to 10 secs at a time. Given how long the engine will run on a bowl full of fuel, I decided to drain the hose of the gas after giving the primer bulb a squeeze so there was some gas in the carb and then the fuel pump would be sucking straight SEAFOAM to mix with the gas...
What shocked me.... the fuel that ran out of the hose from the tank was tea colored, while the fuel in the tank was crystal clear!!!
Given how long the engine ran two weeks ago, this is not "old gas" in the fuel line, it's just gas that sat in the fuel line for 2 weeks!!!
If everytime I've used the boat after it sat for 2 weeks for the last three seasons, I gave the engine a good dose of crappified gas, no wonder
things got plugged up.
The question is of course... What reaction is going on in the fuel line over 2 weeks that isn't going on in the tank?
I'm in the habit of runing the gas out of the bowl on the way back into the slip...Am I going to have to find a way to drain the fuel line as well???"
"I have an elderly BF75 long shaft. It spends most of its life hanging out and only occasionally does it get called on to move my sailboat from its slip to where the sails go up... and back.
Several seasons ago I (with much help from forum members here) managed to finally get all the gunk out of my carb that was deposited there when the old aftermarket fuel line's lining deposited itself in the carb. Besides an adventure cleaning the idle jet with a 30ga copper wire strand and liberal use of carb cleaner, my "fix" included a brand new "alcohol resistant" Sierra fuel line and bulb.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I went out and because my back was killing me decided to "just motor around a bit"... Engine acted up... limped home after cutting my afternoon's "cruise" short.
It sounded like fuel issues again... I've been busy and only this afternoon got to tend to the motor... (Wife works some Sundays)
What I found:
a) idle jet plugged again (sigh).
b) Carb float passage before the valve...plugged
c) some minor amount of gunk in the bottom of the bowl.
I'd noticed two weeks ago that when I opened the petcock on the bottom of the carb to drain the carb, that only a small spurt of tea colored fuel came out. I was puzzled and of course when I found the pluged passage I wasn't surprised.
Before I took the carb off, I attempted to to run SEAFOAM thru the system by sticking the tank end of the fuel line into a jar with a couple of ounces of SEAFOAM in it as I could get the engine to run at high revs ( 2000 ish) for 4 to 10 secs at a time. Given how long the engine will run on a bowl full of fuel, I decided to drain the hose of the gas after giving the primer bulb a squeeze so there was some gas in the carb and then the fuel pump would be sucking straight SEAFOAM to mix with the gas...
What shocked me.... the fuel that ran out of the hose from the tank was tea colored, while the fuel in the tank was crystal clear!!!
Given how long the engine ran two weeks ago, this is not "old gas" in the fuel line, it's just gas that sat in the fuel line for 2 weeks!!!
If everytime I've used the boat after it sat for 2 weeks for the last three seasons, I gave the engine a good dose of crappified gas, no wonder
things got plugged up.
The question is of course... What reaction is going on in the fuel line over 2 weeks that isn't going on in the tank?
I'm in the habit of runing the gas out of the bowl on the way back into the slip...Am I going to have to find a way to drain the fuel line as well???"
