Gas Engines

That’s what filled my day—apart from picking up our bathtub-future-pond and running Penny to Jo-Anns. I did some clean up and maintenance on the generator to make sure it will run if we need it. I’ve been able to keep the thing working for a few years now by cranking it up about once a month and fixing anything that broke. I’ve replaced the starter rope twice now. We’ve actually used the generator a few times and it’s good to know we have the capability.

Next I moved on to my outboard motor. I removed the carburetor and opened it up. As I suspected, since it’s not been used in a decade or so, the float was stuck to the bowl. This carburetor is a beautifully simple device. I’ve cleaned up a sufficient number of these things now in lawn mowers to appreciate the simplicity of the one on this motor. Apart from freeing the float and making sure all the ports are clean I didn’t see anything that would prevent it from working properly. I cleaned the fuel filter and figured I flush out the plastic fuel tank. That’s when I got a surprise. The tank leaked! The seam on the tank had cracked somewhere along the way as I shuffled the thing from one storage location to another. I think I can fix it with a product called JB Weld. It’s an epoxy that should do the job. I quit at this point.

It was cloudy and windy all day but rain never came. I was surprised that I actually spent the whole day playing with motors.