Some days the universe kicks you in the teeth, but today wasn't that day!
I swapped out the old filter assembly for the new one: a Racor 120AS, with no center bolt. Basically almost the exact same thing, but with one less place to leak.
I don't want to say the engine started right up, but... in fact, the engine started right up! And ran perfectly, which is a huge relief. So that's all it was: a simple air leak at the top of the filter housing. It's really nice to not have to feel like our first trip out will be with a dodgy engine, since the problem was elsewhere.
I learned a few things that with any luck I won't forget by next year. First: my fuel tank is higher than the filter (at least when the tank is 80% full), and I just realized that this means I don't even need to pre-fill the filter and bottom cap with fuel before screwing it on the top housing. All I have to do is undo the "metal vent plug" (the silver bolt on the center of the top housing in the picture) and open the petcock on top of the fuel tank. You can see the filter filling up with fuel through the clear bottom housing, and just wait until it starts coming out the hole where the vent plug is, and screw it back in. This actually gets it much more full than I could have before by pre-filling the filter. It only took me 18 years to figure this out...
On the flip side, when I remove the old filter, if I can remember to close the fuel petcock first, the clear bowl should tell me when the fuel is all drained. If not (i.e., most of the time), I end up draining out about a pint of fuel before I realize that I'm essentially trying to siphon out the entire contents of the fuel tank.
I swapped out the old filter assembly for the new one: a Racor 120AS, with no center bolt. Basically almost the exact same thing, but with one less place to leak.
I don't want to say the engine started right up, but... in fact, the engine started right up! And ran perfectly, which is a huge relief. So that's all it was: a simple air leak at the top of the filter housing. It's really nice to not have to feel like our first trip out will be with a dodgy engine, since the problem was elsewhere.
I learned a few things that with any luck I won't forget by next year. First: my fuel tank is higher than the filter (at least when the tank is 80% full), and I just realized that this means I don't even need to pre-fill the filter and bottom cap with fuel before screwing it on the top housing. All I have to do is undo the "metal vent plug" (the silver bolt on the center of the top housing in the picture) and open the petcock on top of the fuel tank. You can see the filter filling up with fuel through the clear bottom housing, and just wait until it starts coming out the hole where the vent plug is, and screw it back in. This actually gets it much more full than I could have before by pre-filling the filter. It only took me 18 years to figure this out...
On the flip side, when I remove the old filter, if I can remember to close the fuel petcock first, the clear bowl should tell me when the fuel is all drained. If not (i.e., most of the time), I end up draining out about a pint of fuel before I realize that I'm essentially trying to siphon out the entire contents of the fuel tank.
