Good news and question on 90hp I-6

nathanhooper

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
176
Well after about a month of messing around with the motor I found I fired it up in a bucket of water yesterday. I had fired it up with a pull rope about two or three weeks ago with a gas mix sprayed in the cylinders, twice was enough for me. But yesterday was the first time to have her run at idle on her own, started from the starter. The reason for the pull rope previously was the previous bendix was shot, combination of my ignorance and just plain wear and tear.

She took a little bit to start, I was kind of worried at first. Had to choke the heck out of it. But after she ran the first time each time I shut it down and started her back up she fired off real quick. I have to admit, she sounded pretty darn good. But I have always been bad about not being able to tell what a engine is saying when it runs bad. I know she was running on all three carbs because I closed each one down one at a time and she would start to run real rough until I backed the screws back out. She acted the same with each carb.

The only problem and question I have is that when I hooked up the fuel I started priming it and I noticed fuel coming out from around the fuel pump. I was a bit frustrated because I wanted to see if it was going to run, so I did not worry about it running out of fuel. I figured I would just run a carb bowl of fuel through it and be done. The strange thing is that I never could get the bulb to get hard, which is probably due to the leak at the intake on the pump, but it never leaked when running, and never ran out of gas.

It idled for a good 5-10 mins or longer and never needed more hand pumping. I would think that it would run through a bowl of fuel in that amount of time, wouldn't it? Could it be that it was pumping good enough while at idle despite the air leak, but when I run her at a higher rpm she would eventually starve? Anyone have fuel leak from around this spot before? It is the intake on the fuel pump, black plastic cap with the screen underneath it.

All in all I have to say that I truly think I had a gem fall in my lap. This motor was very clean when I got it, no signs of abuse(none of the bolts have had a wrench on them, paint is intact unless they had repainted the motor to factory condition), and looked almost like it had a very limited amount of hours on it. I am going to tackle the link and sync later this week, but I would like to deal with the fuel leak problem.
 

Chris1956

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Mar 25, 2004
Messages
27,501
Re: Good news and question on 90hp I-6

Sounds like you have a winner. I would rebuild the fuel pump. They were marginal at best at high speed, so why mess around? Under the plastic cap is supposed to be an oring, on top of the screen, to seal it.

Have you checked the compression?
 

nathanhooper

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
176
Re: Good news and question on 90hp I-6

Yea I have checked the compression. Not since I have ran it now though. In fact I thought the thing was locked up when I first looked at it. I really didn't have much hope for it till I checked the compression. They were all within 5-10 psi of each other and around 100, which is really about 105 or better on my gauge. And that is after the motor has been sitting in this field for who knows how long. A good 5 years or better is what I am guessing.

I took the fuel pump apart to clean and check it. Looked good on the inside. I am going to bet I might have put that o-ring back in underneath the screen and that is why it is leaking. I will check it out tonight.
 
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