[Rhodes22-list] ALICE WEISZ - my comment

[Paul Krawitz]

Alice,
I too expressed distressed helplessness, directly to
Stan, when my engine died on me a minute AFTER
starting, leaving me a dead duck on my mooring.
And I'm out frequently - three times per week - so
all the disuse/old gas explanations didn't apply.

And like you, I used to be "hands off" with the engine.

I've done less than you, but with the guidance of the
good Rhodies and my Yamaha mechanic, have figured
out the problem with these Yamaha 4-stroke engines
(Stan previously used the 9.9, but is now using the 8HP).

Previous posts have correctly noted that Ethanol, (ethyl
alcohol), binds with water, resulting in a gas-water separation,
with water at the bottom where the hose rests in your tank.
This is primarily a problem with lengthy cold weather storage
of incompletely filled tanks.

But because Ethanol is a small
molecule<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Physical_properties>with
a small carbon chain,
it acts not only as a water soluble solvent but also as an organic solvent.
This latter characteristic is why Ethanol is able to dissolve crud
and old plastics, dispersing the material in small
particles<http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/westadvisor/10001/-1/10001/Gasoline-EthanolYourBoat.htm>that
foul up the engine.

Now here is the Achilles heel in the whole system...

Unlike two stroke engines, which have large jets
that vacuum the gas/oil mix into the carburetor, those on the
four-stroke engines are so narrow that my mechanic cannot even
use his normal tools to clean them out. Instead, as he showed
me yesterday, he burns the end off of a twist tie and uses that
to thread through the carburetor jets.

The jets are so narrow that holding them up to the sky,
I could barely see daylight through them. And that was
after they were cleaned out.

The bottom line?

You could clean out the fuel line, filter, and carburetor itself
till you were blue in the face, and fail to fix your problem.

In fact, my engine, which failed me for the second time
this weekend, had NOTHING VISIBLE blocking the the
gas flow. But after my mechanic threaded the twist ties through the
carburetor - Voila! It started.

Once the jets are cleaned out, the answer to reduce these incidents is
to get an inline filter that fits immediately after the gas tank.
My mechanic said he would have recommended a 10 micron
filter, such as this one previously
posted<http://www.crockersmarinestore.com/servlet/the-44/Yamaha-10-Micron-Fuel/Detail>,
but that "because
my boat was so small," he'd put on a tiny one inch filter instead.

That's not a problem, I told him. Give me the big sucker.
Thanks to the excellent design of my Rhodes
22<http://www.rhodes22.com/contruction_detail.html>,
I've got plenty
of room below my cockpit bench.

He's actually recommending another filter that's similar, but
not identical. Apparently, the Yamaha filter isn't entirely
aluminum. The screw of the top rusts inside; he showed me one
that this happened to.

My mechanic said that new boats should be installed with
the filter already in place and that the ethanol related fuel
problems are ubiquitous on four stroke engines, both large
and small.

I expect that this filter will reduce, but not eliminate the
starting problems that I've had. It's a system destined for
failure, with the constant battle raging on between the
Ethanol-laced gasoline and those puny carburetor jets.
And I hate feeling so  paralyzed on a day that I really
want to get out and simply sail. After all, one of the
characteristics of Rhodes 22 sailors <http://www.rhodes22.org> is that we
actually
use our boats.

Now don't laugh, but during my second painful fiasco,
I entertained the idea of having a backup electric battery outboard
motor, such as the Torqeedo electric
outboard<http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/producte/10001/-1/10001/265317/377%20710%20884/0/Electric%20Outboards/Primary%20Search/mode%20matchallpartial/0/0?N=377%20710%20884&Ne=0&Ntt=Electric%20Outboards&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial&page=CategoryDisplayLevel1&isLTokenURL=true&storeNum=5005&subdeptNum=10&classNum=820>.
It's portable,
takes only a few minutes to assemble, and would be terrific
insurance. Unfortunately, even the long shaft version, which I
envisioned hanging off the transom while my outboard gets its next
inevitable
service call, is too short as described on the Torqeedo web
site<http://www.torqeedo.com/us/hn/products/base-travel/technical-data-measures.html>
.

A final recommendation about the choke on these engines from
my mechanic. He said not to try to start them with the choke
fully open unless the weather was cold. First, try starting
them with the choke closed. Next, start it with the choke
closed and during the cranking, open the choke for three seconds
before closing it again. If that doesn't work, open the choke halfway. Only
as a last step should you start with the choke fully open.

One more note to SS: The technique of putting the throttle
in gear and opening the throttle back and forth a few times
before putting it in neutral and starting doesn't work on the 8 HP engine
because there is no accelerator pump in the carburetor on that engine
(per my crusty old Yamaha mechanic).

The bottom line? We're going to all have to take measures to reduce
these engine failures. But be prepared for more frustrations, because the
engines are not yet designed to counteract the minefield of gasohol.

Paul Krawitz