Carburetor not sending fuel to engine

Hello, all. New to this forum and sorta new to boat engines.

So I have a 1982 3.0 Mercruiser 140hp. I'm having issues with my carburetor not giving fuel to my engine at all! When removing the line from the carb and cranking, fuel will spurt out, so I know the pump is working as it should and giving fuel, but when it comes to the carburetor, it's just not spraying any fuel at all. The reservoir will fill with fuel (I know this because every time I I disassembled it, the reservoir had gas in it), but the jets won't give any. My engine is literally starved.

Currently, I've been trying to remedy this for two weeks now, and I've probably broken the carburetor down 7 or 8 times. I even went ahead and did an entire rebuild kit, and still nothing! I've soaked everything with carb cleaner, taken an old toothbrush to clean everything, and even a small wire brush.

Side note: Other things I've done to the boat are: Fresh oil and oil filter change, dropped the gas to E, then refilled with about 6-7 gallons of fresh gas, new fuel filter for the pump, drained the lower unit oil, changed the impeller and all the gaskets, added new lower gear oil, new spark plugs, a new ignition coil and a new alternator.
The rebuild kit is the most recent maintenance I've done and I'm about to throw this carb over a cliff.

If you CAREFULLY pour a few tablespoons full of gas down the carb, will the motor try to run?

Jeff

I'd say the cleaning when the carb was apart was done thoroughly....compressed air will help a bunch.

Does the accelerator pump work?

once the carb get taken apart, again, make sure the fuel and air passages are open by using a spray can of carb cleaner and make sure all of those passages are open...

fastjeff said:

If you CAREFULLY pour a few tablespoons full of gas down the carb, will the motor try to run?

Jeff

Click to expand...

Yes, the engine acts like it wants to turn over when I give her a bit of starter fluid. But no fuel, so it just ends up acting like its reving for a few seconds before going back to a starved crank.

makomark said:

I'd say the cleaning when the carb was apart was done thoroughly....compressed air will help a bunch.

Does the accelerator pump work?

once the carb get taken apart, again, make sure the fuel and air passages are open by using a spray can of carb cleaner and make sure all of those passages are open...

Click to expand...

When I disassembled the carb this last time I left fuel in the bowl reservoir, put the top of the carb back on and held it down, then pulled on the accelerator pump lever. Fuel came out by the jets, granted not strong, but it definitely came out. I'm not entirely sure how strong it should come out when the carb isn't on the motor

Not sure what you mean by 'strong' ....the discharge rate of the accelerator pump will be driven by the actuation rate of the lever until the max is reached....the fact that it is there is a good sign. as long as you can produce a stream (vs a dribble) I'd check that box for the time being...

Sad part is that circuit is independent of the primary fuel delivery path...

You should throw that carb off a cliff and get a new one. You've already spent way too much time on it.

PROBLEM SOLVED

I yet again soaked it in carb cleaner, but this time, I left it in the bucket for 24 hours. She came out clean and looking good, so I threw her back together and mounted her back onto the engine block and she works.

And after fixing the fuel issue, I changed out the distributor cap/rotor/condenser since I wasn't getting any spark to the fuel. That fixed that issue, and she runs!

But my new problem is that she's idling very high and won't shut off when the ignition key is turned off. Only way I got her to stop was to choke her out.

Any ideas?

you changed the condenser but did nothing with the points?

at a minimum, clean them up and set the dwell correctly...then verify the timing is correct and advances with RPM....but you'll have to get the idle back to normal first.

on the high idle, back off the idle speed screw first...if that's already out, then you have a vacuum leak - new carb gasket before the carb went back on this time???

What kind of carb??? There are some kinds of deposits that build up in a carb with ethanol "enhanced" fuel that no carb cleaner I've ever tried will remove. I usually have to mechanically remove these deposits witha very fine wire, which in my 2BBL TKS MERCARB, plug ups the jets in the venturi. On my engine, at least, the engine won't run under 1500 RPM when this happens. Others on this forum solve the problem by dunking the whole carb in an ultrasonic cleaner, although I guess ( If you have the same carb I have) one could just dunk the venturi block and not just the whole carb in a small "jewelry" ultrasonic cleaner.

makomark said:

you changed the condenser but did nothing with the points?

at a minimum, clean them up and set the dwell correctly...then verify the timing is correct and advances with RPM....but you'll have to get the idle back to normal first.

on the high idle, back off the idle speed screw first...if that's already out, then you have a vacuum leak - new carb gasket before the carb went back on this time???

Click to expand...

Yes, new gaskets and everything went back on when reinstalled. Carburetor works like a dream now.
As for my high idle, I found out that my carb rich/lean setting was running pretty lean, which lead to my mechanical choke allowing the choke valve to open way more than it should before the engine is hot. Fixing that, she idles quite a bit lower now.

As for what carburetor I have, I have the Rochester 2 barrel S/N: 17059052

that's the casting number for the carb...not the S/N...

The explanation on the choke adjustment doesn't make a lot of sense...that said, its sounds like things are better now...