Mercury Barb Male / Female Connection

[buffetspoorcousin]

Hi All!
I moved to the Netherlands and bought my first small outboard engine boat last year. Complete newbie to all this, enjoyed my first summer, and i'm just about to get her out of winter storage. Thinking of a couple of things from my time last summer, i wanted to check if this was "normal" or whether I am doing something wrong.
The set up is a mercury 20 EFI outboard engine, with the male barb quick connector on my plastic quicksilver fuel tank and the female quick connector at the end of the fuel hose. When refuelling, i simply unclip the male to female with no issues. However, when i go back to couple them together after filling the tank to the safe level marker, fuel tends to spurt out of the female connector as i'm pushing them back together. Anything i can do to prevent this? Once its connected there isnt a fuel leak, but the process of connecting them causes some fuel to spurt into the underseat fuel tank location, and thus keeps a strong smell of fuel there.

 

[mr 88]

I would run the engine ,then disconnect the fuel line at the tank . Then fill up the tank and reconnect the fuel line . There is probably some pressure in the fuel line and when you connect the fittings you're releasing that pressure ,gas . Or put a rag around it to catch the gas before it hits the bilge .

 

[rxl650]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall those fittings having the female end on the tank. Either way, they're messy. I disconnect from the motor and leave the line on the tank.

 

[JimS123]

The female ends are on both ends of the hose. Always open the gas tank cap before disconnecting a hose.

I disconnect the hose almost never. I simply fill the tank in the boat from a portable gas can. When we had carburetors we disconnected the motor end after each outing and ran the motor "dry".

 

[buffetspoorcousin]

thanks all for the responses. greatly appreciated.
i picked her up this weekend and opened the valve on the fuel tank to release the pressure before reconnecting the tank and the fuel line as suggested and all went fine.