"Lawrence James" wrote in message
hlink.net...
If the
carbs are still in good shape you can disassemble them and clean the
passages with wire drills.

I have taken apart and cleaned a number of carburetors. I must admit,
however, that carburetors and I don't get along. A pre-smog carb is Ok. A
later model and I tend to end up with a pile of parts that I can't find a
place for.

I have the can of carburetor cleaner, but my wife hates it when I do
anything with that because it ends up stinking up the whole house for days.
I just finished rebuilding a carburetor for a 1925 Model T! There was only
a handful of parts to the whole carb, so that wasn't much of a problem.

The carburetor for the ski boat I took to carburetor repair shop and paid
them to rebuild it. A Holley double pumper 4 barrel. They do great on
things like that. When I broght them the carburetor for my Onan generator
they just shook their heads and said they couldn't help me. It wasn't that
the carb was complicated it was an issue of getting parts. I finally found
a source of parts and rebuilt that one myself.


If you are careful the gaskets should be ok.

Paper gaskets might be okay, and I could always cut new ones if they aren't
too delicate. It is the rubber diaphragms that can tear and leave you with
nothing that concerns me.

Most of the 'epa' carbs have no mixture adjustments.

The Mercury carbs had brass plugs inserted over the idle mixture adjustment
screws. The mechanic drilled out the plugs and then the standard adjustment
screws were accessible. He was supposed to re-plug the holes, but since
this issue hasn't been resolved yet he left them open.

If the carburetor was really meant to not be rebuildable then it is possible
(even likely) that the carburetor won't come apart in a way that will allow
it to go back together.

A big issue here is that the motors are bolted to the back of the pontoons
of the houseboat. If you drop a screw, bolt, washer, clip, etc. it ends up
either down in the lower unit or overboard. Yeah, I can stuff rags in the
cowling to keep stuff from going down, and maybe fabricate a "bib" of some
sort to catch other parts, but it is still going to be a major hassle. There
is so much linkage and "stuff" involved with getting the carburetors off
that I doubt I would be successful doing it with the boat in the water.
It's going to cost me ~$600 to have the boat hauled out, so I want to be
sure that I have my ducks in a row when I do this so I don't have to do it
multiple times.


Rod McInnis