[Alberg30] gas leak from carburetor

[Bob]

On Monday, June 17, 2002, at 09:50  AM, J Bergquist wrote:

> Dear Albergers,
>
> I have a gas leak

JB,

I had the same type of leak when we first got our boat. Apparently 
corrosion in the fuel tank caused fine particles to develop that caused 
the float valve to stick and dump fuel, I cleaned the carburetor and  
float valve and everything was fine for a couple of weeks and then it 
started to dump gas again. This time I checked the (mechanical) fuel 
pump and found it loaded with the particles. I checked the output of the 
fuel filter by filling a glass half full of gas from the filter and 
giving it time to settle and found it clean. Then I cleaned lines, fuel 
pump and carburetor and made sure that the float adjustment was at the 
spec in the manual. This fixed the problem with the following exception:

Months later, on our summer cruise we had a long and rolly spinnaker run 
from Block Island to Cuttyhunk, Rough seas and wind dead aft so we 
really were rolling. As we arrived at Cuttyhunk we dropped the spinnaker 
and ran the blower for 5 minutes. When I sniffed the vent I smelled gas 
and when I ran a finger under the carburetor it came away wet with gas. 
We anchored in the outer harbor under sail. I took off the carb again, 
found no particles that could make the float valve stick. Figuring that 
the dumping of gas was caused by the rolling I then readjusted the float 
to reduce the level of gas in the float chamber. As I remember the float 
adjustment was given to the nearest 64th of an inch and I made what 
seemed like a big adjustment from this value (maybe 5/64ths, but I am 
not sure). Anyway, that was about 24 years ago and I have had no problem 
with fuel spillage from the carburetor since and the engine has not 
seemed starved for fuel with that new setting of the float.

I hope that this helps. Good Luck.

Bob
Wind Call #397

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
 |  Boatowners Mechanical And Electrical Manual by Nigel Calder  |
 | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/007009618X/alberg30-20 |
 +---------------------------------------------------------------+

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