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| Further Adventures with Ethanol |
| Author |
Message |
    
Robert A. Fierro
Advanced Member
Username: sandkicker
Post Number: 915
Registered: 06-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2009 - 07:05 pm: | 
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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??? |
Joe Cazana
Member
Username: sail4evr
Post Number: 58
Registered: 10-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2009 - 08:43 pm: |
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when you changed the hose, did you change the squeeze bulb as well? |
Robert A. Fierro
Advanced Member
Username: sandkicker
Post Number: 917
Registered: 06-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2009 - 09:12 pm: |
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Yep...bought the whole assembly |
Nick Nichols
Member
Username: pailolo
Post Number: 98
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2009 - 09:26 pm: |
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You might need to add a fuel stabilizer to keep the fuel from going bad so soon. |
Robert A. Fierro
Advanced Member
Username: sandkicker
Post Number: 918
Registered: 06-2008
| | Posted on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 09:46 am: |
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The big question....
If you assume that gas goes bad faster when its confined in a small area and can't (presumably) circulate...or gets solar heated to a higher degree since its such a small mass, then.... Will the fuel stabilizer doseage that keeps it from going bad in a tank work in the hose??? |
Robert A. Fierro
Advanced Member
Username: sandkicker
Post Number: 946
Registered: 06-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 01:23 pm: |
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UPDATE...
There turned out to be two problems...
Per a marine parts dealer that I trust, there is a more recent, more ethanol tolerant aftermarket fuel hose/bulb assembly made by Moeller. I swapped out the line and bulb and ran ran some sea foam thru it. I took a short length of fuel line and hooked it up instead of the line to the tank (about 8" long) I stuck it in a small tin can with about 2 inches of Seafoam in it. Started the engine and it ran crappy until the SeaFoam hit it. Then it smoked like crazy and after bout 20 seconds ran fine. I changed over to new gas and it ran OK.
HOWEVER.. the next am I could not start it. I noticed that the fuel bulb was hard after less than one full pump. Since I'd drained the carb bowl the day before, I was puzzled.
I eventually took the carb apart and after several attempts to solve the problem I discovered that the shaft of the carb float valve itself (that which has the "rubber" tip on one end and the spring on the other) was corroded! I was going to just buy another one until I found out what the price was $15!.
A few seconds with some scotchbrite and a rinse in Seafoam and a double check of the float level (it was OK) It primed OK, started and ran like a champ.
Corroded float valves (it appeared to be aluminum)... brought to you by ethanol!!! |
Nick Nichols
Member
Username: pailolo
Post Number: 99
Registered: 09-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 03:05 pm: |
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Robert,
Thanks for the follow-up on this. I keep have carb troubles also. I,ll try the Seafoam idea.
Nick
The question now is, how to stop the aluminum corrosion problem in the future? |
jamie campbell
Advanced Member
Username: outboard_doctor
Post Number: 664
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 02:27 am: |
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You need to run the engine out of fuel each time and ethanol will always be a problem |
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