Ladies and Gentlemen,

Reading the various posts on this subject made me think of the problems I had with my new 15 hp Yamaha powering my inflatable.  I was bringing the new big boat home from the builder in Maine and stopped in an East Coast HArbor and took the inflatable for its first real ride.  It quit and I had to be towed baqck to the big boat by a couple kids putting abut in the harbor.

It was clear the problem was lack of fuel.  It seemed like the primer bulb wouldn't work and never pumped fuel and got hard.  I thought it must be a problem with the check valve in the bulb.  The motor had run for an hour or two of casual use at the builders.  The boat had a triangular shaped red plastic after market tank.  Finally I took it apart and found that the dip tube on the inside of the tank had split just below the barbed connector at the top of tank fitting.  It worked fine when the tank was full but once the level dropped below the split it sucked air.  The dip tube was a translucent plastic tube that had a fulllength seam that was obviously bad.  I did eventually get a replacement free from the tank manufacturer.

Lesson learned is if I had tipped the tank so fuel was against the  top fitting that the hose connects to it would have run.  If I ever have fuel troubles like this again I will try that. 
 

Gary Hagstrom
Iron River, Wisconsin
 CRACKERJACK a MAINECAT P-47

ghagstrom@yahoo.com

One caution;
Not all outboards require a hard fuel line bulb any more.
Yeah that is one thing I look for. But I now own a 150hp Mercury Optimax in
which the bulb is NEVER hard but draws fuel properly. This is a new factory
design.
R.

-----Original Message-----
From:  On Behalf Of Gary Hagstrom
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Reading the various posts on this subject made me think of the problems I
had with my new 15 hp Yamaha powering my inflatable.  I was bringing the new
big boat home from the builder in Maine and stopped in an East Coast HArbor
and took the inflatable for its first real ride.  It quit and I had to be
towed baqck to the big boat by a couple kids putting abut in the harbor.

It was clear the problem was lack of fuel.  It seemed like the primer bulb
wouldn't work and never pumped fuel and got hard.  I thought it must be a
problem with the check valve in the bulb.  The motor had run for an hour or
two of casual use at the builders.  The boat had a triangular shaped red
plastic after market tank.  Finally I took it apart and found that the dip
tube on the inside of the tank had split just below the barbed connector at
the top of tank fitting.  It worked fine when the tank was full but once the
level dropped below the split it sucked air.  The dip tube was a translucent
plastic tube that had a fulllength seam that was obviously bad.  I did
eventually get a replacement free from the tank manufacturer.