Onboard, Inboard, Outboard Repair

     "and you say, 'Baby, have you got enough gas?'"

                                                  -Prince

     Last Saturday dawned cloudy, rainy and cooler than the past sweltering week.  In short, a generally crappy day for sailing .    After scanning the sky over my morning coffee, I decide to take advantage of the somber overcast and declare a maintenance day.

     Quack's  little outboard was unhappy.  It would light upon the first or second pull and run like an overcaffeinated mosquito with a Napoleon complex... for about 10 minutes.  It would restart on the first pull and run like a mildly sedated chastened mosquito... for 5 minutes.  Then it started like a dead mosquito.

     Quack is our link to civilization.  Without our doughty little rubber duck, our access to fresh water, showers and friends on distant, lesser, lower-case "d" docks is severely hampered.

     What was that?  What about those oars hanging on the side, you say?

    Oh, sure, I could row, it would probably even be good for me, (as SWMBO has gently, if repeatedly, pointed out), but that doesn't fix the ailing outboard does it?

    So, I decide to perform exploratory surgery on the Yamaha's innards.  Wanting to stay dry as the skies dropped an apathetic drizzle on the Dock, , and as insurance against parts and tools taking a swim, I opted to transform Whickeyjack's cockpit into an impromptu  repair shop. 

  The presence of the toolbox and socket set are deceptive.  I needed one wrench, two screwdrivers, a pair of pliers and ten minutes to remove the covers, the fuel tank, the carburetor and  the fuel filter. 

 I stripped down and cleaned the Likely Culprit, the carb, and the Likelier Culprit, the fuel filter

  The fuel filter may very well have been the original unit.  Clearly, it had been filtering for a long long time, and now was less finicky about what passed through it's mesh... like fuel.  I spritzed it and the carb with some carb cleaner and fresh gas and alcohol and rinsed them...

   Slapped everything back together, and...

    Same result.

     Sigh.

    Unsurprised, I re-removed the re-reinstalled motor, stripped it back down again, rummaged through some spare parts and came up with an anonymous filter, trimmed the fuel lines to fit, installed it, added some fresh gas and....

Quack's performance is now Finnegan and SWMBO approved!

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