Post Sail Float Bowl Drain On 2 Cycle?

[Kper]

I have never drained the float bowl on a 2 cycle unless it was at the end of the season but, I had another boat owner tell me his mechanic recommended he disconnect his fuel line and run his 2 stroke dry after every sail to keep oil from settling in the bowl. Is there any validity to this?

 

[Winkfish]

Kper, I've heard both arguments for and against from experienced boat owners and boat mechanics. I asked that of my own outboard mechanic, who has kept my 1985 Merc 90 hp purring. He said he used to recommend running it dry, but in the last 5 or 10 years or so, he has not seen that it makes any difference whether you do or don't. I do have a fuel/water separator.

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

A major cause of outboard problems is ethanol containing fuel. If you do anything to prolong the useful life of the engine and avoid fuel problems, use av-gas which can be found with little difficulty in any metropolitan area.

In any case, my suggestion is to drain the fuel and run the engine dry in a fresh water tank at the end of the season.

 

[Kper]

I am reviving the engine on our boat which wasn't run in 2 years. I found a dauber nest plugging the intake and removed/cleaned the carb the best I could without drilling out the lead plugs only because I didn't have a rebuild kit. It's running fairly well and getting better with every sail but I don't want to drain the carb because I'm running seafoam to help clear passages and want that soak time.

 

[WayneH]

I'm in the "run it dry" group. I had a boat with a '74 Evinrude 6 on it's stern. When I got back to the house, I would run the motor in a bucket of water until it ran out of gas. In my opinion, this did two things for the engine. First, it cleared the jets on the carburetor to prevent them from plugging up. And second, it severely diluted the salt water that I sailed the boat in normally.