Technical Difficulties

Last week I went to start my boat.
I started it in the Spring (was that so long ago?) and it started right up.
Then the rains came.
And when it was sunny I was at work.
When it was rainy, I was at home.
And there was some nice weather where I had other obligations.
Distractions like working on vehicles, church, wedding receptions, graduations, visits with good friends, all the stuff that will get in the way of going out on the boat.

So the boat sat a lot. Clean, shiny, waiting for me.
Sort of like my dog.

Cali

And then it came.

The day to boat..

After charging the batteries, I cranked her over.

And over.

And over.

So the gas had probably gummed up a jet in the carburetors I figured.

This happened when I had the boat painted some years back.

A two week paint job had lasted two months and the boat had sat in a hot paint booth for that time.

We took some friends out on the maiden voyage and didn't realize that as we were tooling slowly around, one of the carbs was not delivering the fuel oil (oil being the important word here) to the two cylinders it was supposed to be feeding.

That cylinder seized up right after I attempted to go full throttle.

I did not want to have that happen again.

I did not have the time to rebuild and re-synch the carbs.

I didn't have time to tow it to a shop, and so:

Last Saturday, I drove Scherie to breakfast, then to Meijer's so she could shop.

As she was shopping, or more accurately, while I was waiting for her, I drove over to the boat shop.

As I was was looking at the various fluids on the shelf, the owner asked what I was looking for.

I said "something with 'miracle' or 'magic' on the label".

He asked  what was going on and I told him.

I was hoping to find some way of cleaning the jets with no disassembly.

He said I didn't need to.

I needed to get the bad gas out of my carbs and good gas in.

My engine has carb bowl drains (which I couldn't find, given the cramped quarters).

Drain them and put new gas in.

Run only premium with synthetic oil mix.

I'll explain why later.

I bought some additives, synth oil and went to get Scherie and go home.

When I got home, I got a fresh marine gas tank, took it to the station, filled with premium, added synthetic oil and some fuel additives that were recommended.

I have three carbs stacked vertically and the pump feeds the top first working down to the lowest.

I pulled the fuel line off the lowest carb and put it in a glass cup.

I attached the new tank of gas and squeezed the primer bulb until I filled the cup.

I was amazed.

See the difference in color between the fluid on the bottom half and the top?

The bottom is the old gas. It shocked me when I saw it come out that color.

Then the new came out and floated on the old.

And they won't mix!

I took another sample from the old tank and although it was flammable it looked like it had water in it.

When I've found water in a gas tank, say in a lawn mower, it always stays on the bottom but it wouldn't mix with the gas.

Here's what I think happened.

The unleaded regular I buy is not E-85 but it does have a lot of ethanol in it.

Ethanol is like alcohol. It mixes with water.

It also mixes with gas.

The tank sat all summer (humid summer) with it's vent open, sponging up the moisture.

I've never had a problem with last years gas in the spring because winters here are low humidity.

Premium has less ethanol.

If Pascal Fervor is reading this maybe he'll chime in.

So I still couldn't start the motor because I couldn't get the old gas in the bowls out.

You can't use starting fluid in a two cycle because the cylinders won't get oil to lubricate them.

So I took a spray bottle I had, filled it with new fuel mix and squirted it in each carb, flooding them.

Then I puffed some starting fluid (ether) at them and spun over.

One cylinder catch or two.

Repeat.

Brief run.

Repeat.

Engines starts and runs rough.

Then it starts and runs like new.

Thank you Jesus!

And the I-94 Marina.

So this is ethanol.

Grow corn, use fuel to do it.

Subsidize it with our tax dollars.

And screw up our vehicles.