Gas Issues
 

Came down with the boat to finally use it down here in my place in Islamorada
Went out yesterday to look for some lobsters
On the way out the engine boged downed and turned off
Checked the racor and took out the gas from the bottom bulb and was able to get it going for 1/2 the way back before it shut down again
Got a tow from some really nice people to my cousins house right next to the CG station.
I had run the battery low so I charged the battery overnight.

I took a 5gal tank of fresh gas with me this morning to see what was up
I took the filter off and it had all kinds of junk on the top and the gas was very cloudy and looked like it had water in it
Luckly I did not fill the tank full did 25 gals
Connected the 5gal tank and it fired right up and I got back to my marina

Looks like I need to pull the tank, clean it out, replace the gas and the racor and motor side filter

DAMM

And in this heat

Oh well it could be worse>>>>>>

How old was the gas? Ethanol and the dreaded phase seperation, i subscribe to the 1/3 out , 1 /3 in and 1/3 reserve and no more fuel in my tank than that, for all you old school guys who say fill er up or you will get to much condensation . I change my racor at least every 50 hours. Good luck

Should the gas tank be topped off & filled right up if storing the boat for winter ?

While you're doing that, you might want to check the O-ring on the gas fill to make sure it doesn't leak rain/washdown water and also make sure your vent line is raised up above the overboard vent to sea water can't get into the tank when it gets sloppy! (Ask me how I know!) I've gotten into the habit of draining a little fuel out of the Racor after every trip. On my 2010 700 mile S. Fl. Circumnavigation trip, I did that at every fuel stop and found water after refueling at Clewiston and every west coast marina between there and Flamingo! Thankfully it was all non-ethanol gas, so no worries about phase separation. Got no water at Flamingo or from any marina on the east coast.

gas was put in on the way down there may have been maybe 10 gals from before but maybe 30 days no more than that
.
I think it maybe that the ethonal "cleaned" the inside of the tank an then the only place to go is towards the engine

Welll this week I will get as much gas out of the tank, see if I can pull it without taking the whole boat apart, cleaning it out and then back in

What a pain in the a$$

Hey Jorge

I know of someone who thought it would be OK to put some of the old "well it looked good" gas from their boat into their truck.....too cheap to throw it away. He said, "shoot I only did like five, maybe ten gallons or so at a time". Anyway, $2500 later his truck is running good again because he has new fuel injectors......oh yeah, it was NOT covered under warranty!! :(

i did that in my truck. ran horrible while i had that gas in it but there are no problems with the injectors.

I keep my boat very low , but the longest it sets it maybe 2 months . whenever i get ready to run it for spring i change racor filter, put 20 or so gallons of new gas and run it. after i change or check the racor immediately . My feeling is that any moisture i get through condensation can be handled with the racors if changed enough and i feel it is the lesser of the evils . I would rather deal with that than phase separation from ethanol gas. Trick is to run as often as possible i keep my boat in dry storage 5 minutes from my house and live in va beach va and can always find a nice day to run it in feb or march . My 2 cents

Jorge, I was flushing my '95 mariner 200 last night and it shut off after 30 sec at idle. I knew something was wrong because I ran it last Saturday right before Isaac and it seemed fine. I turned it on again with a little throttle to try warming it up and cleaning the carbs out. Well I realized it was running very rough, woulnt stop smoking, dumping lots of oil from the exhaust, and would not stay on at idle.

This morning I put the fuel hose from the engine with only the primer bulb into a 2.5gal tank of gas with oil premixed 50:1 (I had the oil pump removed last year when the powerhead was rebuilt) and got the engine running good as new after a few minutes on that fresh clean gas. So I cleaned out the racor and all the fuel lines and siphoned out about a gallon of gas straight from the tank into a bucket. That's about as much as it took to come out noticeably clearer that at the start. I hooked everything back up and then the engine ran great after that.

Seems like I got some water and/or condensation during the storm and the humid days after. Try what I did before you go pulling the tank, shouldn't take more than an hour or so. Try keeping the boat level with the front jacked up for several hours to let any water settle near the pickup tube before siphoning.

The last boat I had the owner put nothing in except non-ethanol gas. Boat ran fine. I like a dummy when the boat was being serviced filled up car and boat with ethanol. Car ran great boat did not....I had use some startron and had to change the filter every 10-15 hours until I sold the boat. I guess the ethanol cleaned the tank (tank was 10 years old). I guess until it cools off I would just keep changing filters until you feel up to pulling the tank.