This is for you Do-it-Yourself boat motor mechanics out there and I know
there are a few of you, or at least I hope I'm not the last. As you may know
from my earlier articles I have a new boat and it was having some issues.
These issues were a result of it sitting for almost 2 years with the new gas we
have to buy with up to 10% ethanol added sitting in her carburetors. If
you have done any reading on this new ethanol gas you will know it can cause
some big problems if the gas is not used quickly. Point is the gas goes
bad and if left in carburetors once it goes bad it will form a varnish that
will clog up all the jets and ports.
My motor is a 1990 Yamaha
150 Pro-V and from all the research I've done on this engine I've found they
are pretty bullet proof if well taken care of by the owner. That the
previous owner had taken good care of this engine was very evident in its
appearance. In fact when I asked to look at the boat
he even drained the
old gas and put some fresh in the tank. When we tested it on the hose she
fired right up and idled smooth. So I ended up buying the boat only to
find out she wouldn't get on plane and wanted to die if you pushed her past
2200RPMs under load. So my research began into troubleshooting this
problem. I did all the easy things first like changing the filters, fuel
pumps and spark plugs. This didn't help so it was time to dig in and
rebuild the carbs. This sound like it might be a big job, but it really
isn't so bad at all for us Do-it-Yourself mechanics. The fact is this
isn't my first rodeo on rebuilding carbs as that started many years ago when I
was racing stock cars. It continued on as I worked on all of my vehicles, well
up until the time that you had to own a NASA computer to figure them out.
I also did all the maintenance and repairs on every boat motor I've ever owned
including rebuilding the Johnson 88spl on my Cajun Bass Boat I still own. By
the way my old Cajun is for sale and would make someone a great bass boat.
OK enough with my history
of being a Do-it-Yourself mechanics and on with the actual rebuilding of the
carburetors. I started at about 7:00 AM Friday morning and had the carbs
off and the first one disassembled by 8:00 AM. I had taken out all
the brass jets and other screws from the main body and removed the bowl, floats
and valve assembly as well as all the plastic parts. I then submersed themain body and bowl in some Berryman's Chem-Dip. The Berryman's
Chem-Dip come is what looks like a paint can and it has the solvent in it as
well as a dip basket. You just place what you want to clean in the basket
and dip it in. The directions tell you how long, but for what I was
doing it would be 2 hours. Now I must warn you there are two versions
of the Chem-Dip, one is a California version that is also sold in some other
states as well as on line, then there is the original version. From what
I understand the California version doesn't work very well, but I'm in Texas so
I was able to easily find the original. I also have to warn you not to put
any gaskets or plastic parts in the Chem-Dip as it will eat them. The original version
does work awesome for cleaning carbs!!! Now to clean all the jets and
screws
that I removed I used Berryman's B-12 Chemtool. I put them all in
a glass jar with a screw-on lid then sprayed them down with theB-12 until they
were all covered. Then I placed the lid on the jar and from time to time
over an hour I'd shake and swirl them around in the jar. After an hour I carefully
removed them from the jar and then took a copper wire brush and a small piece
of copper wire to clean them out good. Let me tell you some of these jets
were completely clogged from that ethanol gas. It took me some time to
get them all perfectly cleaned. This process was to clean some and let them
soak some. Once I was happy with how they looked I blew them all out with
my air compressor air gun. I made sure that air could easily flow from
all the jets. I then started to dissemble the second carb. When
finished I put the second set of jets in the same jar with the B-12. When
this was finished it was time to get the main body and bowl out of the
Chem-Dip. I removed them then placed them in a water bath. Water is used
to disperse and neutralize the Chem-Dip. I then placed the second main
body and bowl in the basket and lowered them into the Chem-Dip.
At this point I took a short break to go check to see if the mail had come
and if my if my Carburetor Rebuild Kit was here. I had ordered and
aftermarket kit made by Sierra because I could get it here in time for Friday
or so I hoped and also because it was about $40.00 cheaper than the OEM Yamaha
Kit. When I got out to the mailbox I found my kit inside and was very
happy. I took it in the shop and made sure it was the right 18-7759 part
number and that all gaskets and parts were in the package. Once I knew the kit was right I started putting the first carb back together. Again I took my air compressor and air gun and completely blew out
both the
main body and bowl. I made sure that air
could easily pass through all the ports on them before I started to reassemble
the carb.
Once the first carb was back
together it looked almost like a new carburetor. Then over the next few hours I
completed the process on the second and third carbs. Everything was going
smooth or maybe it was too smooth so to speak. I had the carbs back
on the motor and hooked up by my planned 3:00PM and she was ready for a
test. When I was pumping up the bubble to push gas into the carbs it
seemed to get hard faster than normal but I didn't pay much attention to it
until after the motor wouldn't start. It was then that I realized the gas
wasn't flowing into the carbs. I checked a few things and tried to pump
the bubble some more but nothing.
I
pulled one of the drain screws to be sure I wasn’t getting any gas and it was
bone dry.
By this time it was after
4:00PM and time for me to get ready to take my wonderful wife out for our
weekly "Date Night". The motor and carbs would have to wait
until Saturday morning which meant I'd likely not get any fishing in this
weekend as Sunday was Mother's Day.
Saturday morning found me up at my normal 5:30 in the morning. I got
the coffee on and waited for it to get light enough to start work, but that was
over an hour away. I had finished 2/3 a pot of coffee by the time
6:45 rolled around and I could get to work. I took all the carbs off the
motor and into the shop to see if I could find out what was wrong. I knew
it had to be something with the floats and shutoff valves but what. So I
pulled the bowls off and did some adjusting to what I thought was right and put
them back on the bodies. Only way of knowing if this was the fix was to
put the carbs back on the motor. I had that finished by 8:00ish but
my wife was still asleep. Now most of us smart married men know that a
happy wife is a happy life and so I didn't try to start the motor yet. It
was just an extended coffee break. In fact it was going to be one of
those two pot mornings as I got the second going.
My wife crawled out of bed about 8:30 and with the excitement of getting the
boat going good plus all the coffee I had drink, I was wired. I warned
the wife what I was going to do and headed out the door. I started by
pumping up the bubble again and this time I could tell gas was
flowing. However this time is seemed to take longer than normal but
I counted that to no gas being in the carbs at all. When I started to
smell gas though I looked and saw it pouring out of the front of the
carbs. So I had gone from the floats and valves not letting gas in carbs
to them not stopping the gas once the bowls were full. It was back to the
drawing board or in this case work bench. I took the carbs back off and
headed back into the shop for more troubleshooting. This time when I
tried to pull the bowl off the first carb I found the float was stuck and the
bowl wouldn't come off. In fact I ended up having to break the one float
to get the bowl off. I also had difficulty removing the bowl on the other
carbs as well. What this told me was the floats were bigger than the
original floats. I was a little mad as there was no instructions in the
kit that told me the floats might need to be sized and after paying $120.00 for
the kit one would think all the parts would be right. Well I was
lucky as all the original floats were in good shape besides being pretty
dirty. I cleaned them up and put them in the carbs.
I got the carbs put back together with the old floats and back on the
motor. I pumped up the bubble and everything seemed to work as it
should. Once the bubble became tight, I turned on the water to the hose
and then tried to start the engine. To my absolute pleasure the engine
purred to life at the first bump of the key. It sounded really good and
would rev up, but of course that was with no load so a water test was in
order. I knew I wasn't going to get a chance to put her in the water today
as we were now babysitting our granddaughter. Also my wife had plans she
needed to do in the afternoon and so there would be no water test for the new
boat. However my wonderful wife knew I was disappointed and came up
with the solution that I loved. She asked for me to take her on a
morning boat ride for Mother's day. Hey what better way to test my carb job
than with the woman I love, right?
Sunday morning found us launching the boat about 10:00AM on Dickinson
Bayou.
I could tell the motor had more
power as I backed her off the trailer.
I
watched with much anticipation as my wife parked the truck and trailer then
headed to the dock.
She climbed aboard
and secured her PFD in place before taking a seat.
I eased the boat towards the “No Wake” buoy
as the excitement about what would happen started to rise within me.
I glanced at my wife and could tell she didn’t
know what to expect either.
I was
somewhat concerned as we did have 20mph winds gusting to 30mph out of the southeast
and with Dickinson Bayou pretty much running east to west this meant a crossing
wind.
I wasn’t concerned about waves as
no matter how much wind we have the bayous really never get rough.
I was concerned with this wind getting under
the bow once we were on plane.
As we
pass out of the “No Wake” zone I stepped down on the “Hot Foot” and my girl jumped
forward way quicker than I had expected.
She was on plane in a second and moving fast.
I didn’t get her wide open at this point as
we need to cross under the railroad bridge first.
Once we clear the railroad bridge there is a
pretty good straight and wide stretch that is fairly protected from the
wind.
When we got to this point I opened
her up and she responded by bringing tears to our eyes and the skin on our
faces started to flap.
She quickly ran
up to the 5600RPMs she was supposed to get with the new prop and was picking up
speed fast.
At about this time the cross
wind came into play and started to make her get a little squirrely so I backed
off some.
Needless to say I was very
happy!!!
We did spend the next hour
riding up and down the bayou to my wife’s delight and mine as well.
Now as far as the Sierra Rebuild Kit, I’ll never get one again unless a
Yamaha OEM kit is not available.
I don’t
believe that you should have to make modifications to parts after spending that
much money and if modification are necessary Sierra should have pointed that
out in their sales description and also in instructions contained in the
kit.
The Berryman products are top
notch in my opinion but be careful not to get the California version of the
Chem-Dip and you should be very happy as well.
Until next time, Tight Lines and Take a Kid Fishing!!!
You can also Follow me on
Twitter -
@BHOAdventures
FaceBook -
Bounty Hunter Outdoor Adventures
YouTube -
Bounty
Hunter Outdoor Adventures
Also Checkout the great folks that help make my fishing adventure possible and
the tackle I use and trust.
Santone Lures
Throw-n-Thunder
Creme Lures
Dunamis Rods
Liquid Mayhem Fish Attractants
I had really looked forward to a special fishing trip last Thursday and even took vacation from work. My plans were to go to Lake Bastrop and meet up with Scott Dorsey of Throw-n-Thunder Lures. As it turned out on Thursday morning a front was pushing through the
area around Bastrop and it didn't look good. With both of us having
over 3 hour drives to get to the lake, we decided that with the forecast
it was best to cancel the trip. I was really looking forward to fishing with Scott for the first time. Fishing with Scott meant we would be throwing spinner baits and by spinner baits I mean those Killer TNT spinner baits I throw all the time. There was a bit of a problem though as my research on Bastrop didn't find a lot of folks fishing spinner baits or reporting catches on spinner baits. This meant I had to come up with a game plan to not only fish spinner baits on this lake but also hopefully catch bass on spinner baits. So why don't we take a look at this game plan and the research I did during its development. 
After studying my research materials I decided to start off in the north end of the lake where Scouts Creek enters. The water in the area should be moving a little, but it also might be a little stained as well. Bastrop is noted for having fairly clear water and we all know that clear water can be tough to fish. So I was looking for something with a little stain and with all the rains we have been getting it should be stained some at this location. Looking on Google Maps I could also tell that this area had some standing timber and a flat along the creek channel that looked like it might have some grass on it. Prime territory for spinner bait fishing if you ask me. Now if the Scouts Creek area didn't pan out to produce some bass, our next stop would have been heading over to Hot Water Flats and working the weed and grass down towards Tower Point. There is also supposed to be a stump field in the bend in the creek called Stumpy Bend on our way to Tower Point. If we hadn't gotten anything to eat our spinner baits by the time we got to the end of Tower Point then we would head to Stumpy Bend and see if anything wanted to eat a jig and craw. We wouldn't stay at Stumpy Bend long fishing jigs as the goal of the day was to prove we could catch bass on Throw-N-Thunder Spinner Baits.
