Carburetor Issue!

[yeahjohn]

Hi Friends.

It’s been a while! My trusty A4 has just been chugging along. Then the water jacket developed a hole. After a simple patch job with JB Weld it started to leak a lot more! So we replace the water jacket. All went well but now the engine will not start!

The engine would turn over. Start for half a second and then die. I thought this was a fuel delivery issue. So I started to troubleshoot. I replace fuel filters. Made sure the fuel pump was working well. And then cleaned the carb. Now the engine won’t start at all! It seems like there is still a fuel delivery issue but no spark or no fuel to spark?

To make matters worse now the carburetor is just leaking gas every where! I was thinking maybe his must be related to a float issue? But even with gas leaking the engine didn’t turn over or spark. Any ideas? I feel like I am battling I few issues at once.

John

[joe_db]

Hi Friends.

It’s been a while! My trusty A4 has just been chugging along. Then the water jacket developed a hole. After a simple patch job with JB Weld it started to leak a lot more! So we replace the water jacket. All went well but now the engine will not start!

The engine would turn over. Start for half a second and then die. I thought this was a fuel delivery issue. So I started to troubleshoot. I replace fuel filters. Made sure the fuel pump was working well. And then cleaned the carb. Now the engine won’t start at all! It seems like there is still a fuel delivery issue but no spark or no fuel to spark?

To make matters worse now the carburetor is just leaking gas every where! I was thinking maybe his must be related to a float issue? But even with gas leaking the engine didn’t turn over or spark. Any ideas? I feel like I am battling I few issues at once.

John

Step 1 - remove carb, plug fuel line, clean up all gas.
Step 2 - make SURE all gas is gone.
Step 3 - Get ignition working.

Then proceed with rebuilding the carb and putting it back on.

[yeahjohn]

Thanks! I quickly cleaned up gas and actually just pulled the carb and headed home. Trying to figure out what’s going on, at this point I am just frustrated that a carb clean didn’t fix the issue. And honestly the carb looked pretty good when I opened it up.

[sastanley]

yeahjohn, you have a lot of symptoms but no clear path..work on one at a time. The water jacket should be unrelated to the carb. If the carb is leaking gas everywhere, then it is not a fuel delivery problem, unless you have other carb problems. keep coming at us bro...we can solve tihs.

[zellerj]

Check for spark. Once when I was working on my engine, a wire was knocked off of the coil. I was pretty inexperienced then, and Don Moyer helped me through the troubleshooting. I ran a purple wire from the key switch all the way to the coil on my Catalina 30 to bypass the trailer plugs.

[yeahjohn]

What’s the easiest way to check for spark? Pull the plug and let it ark on the block?

Also drumroll please… after spraying myself in the face with carb cleaner I must have been delusional. Put the carb gasket on backwards 😅

[yeahjohn]

So… if you put the gasket on backwards the motor will not run. And gas will go everywhere.

I flipped the gasket so it matched up with the carb outline (imagine that) and it worked perfect! Engine ran solid. Thanks for reminding me why the Moyer marine forum is amazing.

Love
John