Yamaha Four strokes

[Fathead]

Hello all,

I have had a 50hp yamaha 4stroke for the past two fishing seasons. This will be my third year running one. I have a question for whoever is running 4 stroke engines.

According to the Yamaha 2000 manual, when winterizing your motor, it is recommended to run stabilizer in the gas lines and ok to leave that gas in your motor. It does not recommend to drain the gas from the engine. I did this the first year and had problems with the motor running rough the following spring. After speaking to a couple of certified Yamaha mechanics, they recommended to run the gas out of the motor when storing your engine for the winter. I did that this past winter. I removed the gas line and ran the motor until it conked out.

Anyways... This spring I wanted to get a professional tune-up and have them Link-n-sync the motor. When I brought the rig in to a local dealer, they informed me that my carburators were gummed up due to winterization.

They now recommend that you not only run the gas out of the motor, but drain each carburator individually. This is quite in contrast with what Yamaha recommends in their manual.

I was wondering if anyone has had similar experiences with their 4 strokes as well?

How does Mercury or any other manufacturer of 4 strokes with carburators suggest this be done?

Apparently the fuel injected systems do not have a problem. Obviously, because there are no carburators to deal with, but even the injectors seem not to have problems either.

I sure like how the Yamaha runs, but this is definetely one thing to consider the next time you shop for a 4 stroke. Hopefully by the next time I am ready to buy. Yamaha will have a EFI mid-range unit available. Otherwise I will seriously consider the others out there.

[Pherris]

I have a Yamaha 80 4 stroke and I only ran stabilzer and left the gas in as you did. You mentioned that your motor ran rough the next year. I have not had mine out yet but was wondering if it is running rough what you needed to do? Did you have to bring it in or just run it for awhile?

[Fathead]

Hi Pherris,

It took about a whole tank of gas before things smoothed out. It may have been the gas itself, or the burning off of the carburators. I didn't bring it in, but I was close to doing so.

[trouter]

Hi fathead

I just bought a honda 90hp motor last year, in the owners manual it said to drain the carbs, but said nothing about running the motor dry. I'll know in a couple of weeks if I did it right. I'm having a kicker motor put on my boat this week and the deeler said to drain the carbs dry if it was going to be moore than three weeks in between use. So even in the summer with the smaller motors you can have problems. What I have heard about EFI is they are vary fussy because the injectors are so small.

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trouter

[Scupper]

My 1999, 25 hp honda calls for the carbs to be drained for storage. I have not experianced any problems. I also add a cap full of "Sea Foam" to every gallon of fuel I burn.
Good Luck...