Hi: I have a 3 gallon small portable tank with a fairly new (< 3 years old) fuel line. I keep mixed 2 stroke fuel in the tank. When I'm not using it, it is either in a shed, but sometimes in the boat. Regardless, the air vent is closed when not in use. The hose is connected to the tank at all times (merc. type quick release).
The fuel is never more than a couple months old since start fresh every spring.
When I go to use this tank after, let's say a month or two, the fuel in the tank looks and smells fine - clear blue (from the 2 stroke oil), and smells like fresh gasoline.
But apparently the fuel that is in the line gets funky somehow. I can pump fuel out the engine connector at the end of the hose by pushing the ball valve with a screw driver. When I do this, funky yellow-ish, bad smelling fuel comes out. It looks and smells NOTHING like the clear blue fuel in the tank, and eventually nice clear blue fresh smelling fuel comes out of the hose when it's fully "purged".
Now that I know this is an issue, whenever I haven't used the tank for a while, I just "purge" the hose so I don't pump that nasty foul fuel into the motor's carbs. and I don't have any problems. I really chased some frustrating starting issues before I figured this out, you can imagine!
I have NEVER had this problem before -where just the fuel in the fuel line gets messed up, not the fuel in the tank. I've been around outboards for more decades than I care to talk about. I've had fuel get contaminated, yes, but never just like this.
I do not use fuel with ethonol, I am 100% sure of that. On the other hand, the fuel line is less than 3 years old, so I doubt it would be affected by ethanol anyway. However, I just noticed that the fuel line is not specifically marine, I think I got it at an autoparts store. But it is fuel line, not plain rubber hose! (it has an SAE spec. on it, didn't note the number).
Another factoid: the primer bulb is not OEM (Sierra? some other). Even though this bulb is also fairly new, I do know that the check valves on this bulb allow some back leakage when pumped. I plan to replace the bulb w/ OEM shortly because of that check valve issue, but hasn't been a priority since the engine primes up and runs fine.
Could this bad bulb somehow be allowing air/moisture to be sucked into the fuel line through the little ball valve in the engine connector... thus slowly contaminating the fuel in the hose? I can see how this is possible, but on the other hand, the pressure in the tank is usually (always?) positive, not negative in that vapor escapes whenever I go to open the air vent.
Thanks for any insight you can give.
The fuel is never more than a couple months old since start fresh every spring.
When I go to use this tank after, let's say a month or two, the fuel in the tank looks and smells fine - clear blue (from the 2 stroke oil), and smells like fresh gasoline.
But apparently the fuel that is in the line gets funky somehow. I can pump fuel out the engine connector at the end of the hose by pushing the ball valve with a screw driver. When I do this, funky yellow-ish, bad smelling fuel comes out. It looks and smells NOTHING like the clear blue fuel in the tank, and eventually nice clear blue fresh smelling fuel comes out of the hose when it's fully "purged".
Now that I know this is an issue, whenever I haven't used the tank for a while, I just "purge" the hose so I don't pump that nasty foul fuel into the motor's carbs. and I don't have any problems. I really chased some frustrating starting issues before I figured this out, you can imagine!
I have NEVER had this problem before -where just the fuel in the fuel line gets messed up, not the fuel in the tank. I've been around outboards for more decades than I care to talk about. I've had fuel get contaminated, yes, but never just like this.
I do not use fuel with ethonol, I am 100% sure of that. On the other hand, the fuel line is less than 3 years old, so I doubt it would be affected by ethanol anyway. However, I just noticed that the fuel line is not specifically marine, I think I got it at an autoparts store. But it is fuel line, not plain rubber hose! (it has an SAE spec. on it, didn't note the number).
Another factoid: the primer bulb is not OEM (Sierra? some other). Even though this bulb is also fairly new, I do know that the check valves on this bulb allow some back leakage when pumped. I plan to replace the bulb w/ OEM shortly because of that check valve issue, but hasn't been a priority since the engine primes up and runs fine.
Could this bad bulb somehow be allowing air/moisture to be sucked into the fuel line through the little ball valve in the engine connector... thus slowly contaminating the fuel in the hose? I can see how this is possible, but on the other hand, the pressure in the tank is usually (always?) positive, not negative in that vapor escapes whenever I go to open the air vent.
Thanks for any insight you can give.