2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

[wysocki389]

just wondering if anyone has tried this.
seems every time I get ready to take my boat out something comes up and its weeks until I can get back to the water. Living in Florida, the gas evaporates from the carbs real fast leaving gunk behind. I was wondering if I can save my self a carb teardown by removing all the fuel in the float bowl through the main jet access plug. Any comments thoughts suggestion woul dbe welcome.

I can rebuild carbs in my sleep (and often have nightmares that I am)

thanks

 

[Laddies]

Re: 2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

Up here in the North we always recommend to anyone leaving a engine for more than a week to run their fuel system dry to prevent varnish, we have done it for 50 years or more and never had a empty fuel system build varnish when ran dry. I try to stay out of the stabile arguments as some swear by it. I think it's a bandaid approach to the problem in fact stabile when used improperly and it is recommend to be used at so much per gallon for a given period of time Most don't bother to read the instructions, will make a bad matter worse. Marinas love to sell it as it has a good markup. Then comes those that use seafoam for storage and every thing else If you think pouring alcohol in you fuel will help for storage then just pour in alcohol. A dry fuel system will not crude it up, any other way in time will.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: 2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

The only problem with running a multi-carbed engine dry is that all of the carbs do not run dry at the same time. No fuel -- no lub. Ever tried to start an oil injected engine when the float bowl is full of oil? It happens. Carbs also don't run completely dry anyway. Treat the fuel with any of the popular fuel stabilizers and forget about running the system dry. If the carbs are dry its because the engine was tilted up and fuel ran out, not because the fuel evaporated. Products like Stabil are fuel stabilizers -- they do nothing to keep the fuel system clean. Products like SeaFoam do both and also have another benefit in that it removes carbon deposits and can be used as a decarb agent in engines that have become carboned up. As Laddies said, there are generally several points of view on any topic and you've now seen mine. I'm sure there are others.

 

[wysocki389]

Re: 2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

thanks for the info...
I think based on what I've read here in the forums
I am going to disconnect the oil injection;
run premix
run the carbs dry

I took the carbs off and disassembled them (I had stabilized fuel in the tank)
and after two weeks in the Florida sun the carbs were full of sticky gunk


I really appreciate your views; thanks for responding
sorry it took so long to get back to you with a word of thanks

 

[UpstNYer]

Re: 2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

A few thoughts:
1) Nobody really answered your question. Draining the carbs through the jet access plugs seems like a good idea. I'd like to know if that's workable myself.

2) Running the engine dry has always been the shutdown ritual for my little single carb Merc 9.8s. It's worked fine for decades. However, for my '04 90HP elpto with three carbs, I've shied away from it for Silvertip's reasons.

3) I think reverting to pre-mix and then running dry is a rather drastic step that doesn't address the issue of lack of lubrication for the cylinder whose carb runs dry first.

Why not give your idea a try and let us know how it works out. I can't think of any issues it might cause.
Bob

 

[Laddies]

Re: 2003 75 hp elpto - drain carbs prevent gunk?

1. Removing the jet plugs will drain the carbs.
2. If a engine is being fogged properly at shut down there is much more lube in the engine than when it is normal running.
3. I agree that converting to premix is a overkill.
4 normally when running a engine dry the choke/primer is used to speed the burning of the fuel and the engine is in a very rich condition so it will not be harmed by lack of lube.
5. A average carb holds 2oz. of fuel when running a engine dry 1 carb will run dry while the others may contain as much as 50% of their fuel. Could someone explain how the other two carbs can possibly run the engine long enough on 1 oz of fuel to pump the empty carb full of oil. Sounds like a stabil commecal to me.