No fuel shutoff valve??? 99 Johnson

[Ryan0186]

I noticed that my 1999 Johnson 115 PLEEM is getting kind of hard to start. The engine even has a hard time starting on occasion after running for a good while and then sitting for about an hour. On every outboard I have owned I have always had the luxury of just disconnecting the fuel line and running the engine till all fuel in carbs in burned up before storing for anymore than a week of so. My theroy is that fuel and oil mix is sitting in the carbs and gumming them up. The outboard on my boat (which i have only recently bought a month ago) has one single tube that holds all the lines and runs into the cowling. I took a look in there to see if the engine perhaps had the OEM style OMC fuel disconnect and did not see one. I am thinking of putting some sort of ball valve inline on fuel line so that I can shut fuel off before storing the boat for some time. Am I missing something here and there is an existing fuel shut off that I don't know about? I am guessing the line is just plumbed straight to the VRO system but I am not an expert on these things. Any advice on this is much appreciated. Thanks

 

[Chris1956]

A fuel cutoff is not practical on a oil injected motor, nor will it fix your issue. Your theory about carb gumming due to fuel sitting is correct, except your time frame is wrong. It doesn't happen over a week, it happens over years..... You need to troubleshoot your starting issue, starting with your starting procedure and moving on. When were the spark plugs last replaced?

 

[Ryan0186]

Not sure when the last plugs were replaced or if they were properly gapped by the PO. They could be fouled. I am going to rip int them this weekend and clean and properly gap them. The usual procedure that I use to start the engine is prime the bulb, advance the throttle a little and push the key in to choke it while starting. When I tryied to get her started this past Saturday at the landing it took a good 5-10 mins to get it started. Also has a rough idle when in the water. The motor starts just fine and idles great on the muffs.

 

[Ryan0186]

I kow this seems like a total rookie question but I am running 87 octane gas in this engine and the last wo times I filled up I forgot to treat it with StarTron. The PO used to add Star Tron, Sea foam, and stible to the fuel before every trip. Maybe this is the problem?

 

[Chris1956]

87 Octane fuel is fine. No additives are necessary during the season. Some folks use a fuel stabilizer over the off season.

I would recommend you replace the spark plugs with the correct ones, rather than clean and gap the old ones.

 

[metriccrescentwrench]

......

I would recommend you replace the spark plugs with the correct ones, rather than clean and gap the old ones.

Absolutely. The description of what the engine is doing sounds very much like fouled plugs. New ones are cheap, I get 'em from Rock Auto for much less than anywhere else I've found.