I Found the Problem & Am Now Looking for The Answer!

SHIP'S LOG:

It was another case of a doohickey being the wrong doohickey for a particular gadget. I tried once again to coax my dinghy's outboard motor into starting but despite all of my efforts it was still an NF - a Negative Function. So I rowed the dinghy, motor and all, over to a near by boat where they had two dinghies and asked for some help. The two guys were seriously into a couple of cases of beer but talked me through the procedures of checking out the engine. "Always start with the assumption that it is a fuel problem. 90% of the time it is a fuel problem," one burbled. They had me take the top off the engine and find the bowl under the carburetor. This is where the water in the fuel would end up . . if there was any water in the fuel. I opened the tap and nothing came out. That was both good and bad, good because there was no water, bad because there was no fuel either. "Looks like a fuel starvation problem to me," the other burped. They had me disconnect the fuel line from the carburetor and pump the bulb on the fuel line which gets fuel from the tank into the fuel line and so into the carburetor. After a couple of pumps, it was determined that the fuel wasn't getting into the fuel line in t he engine. That meant that a.) the hose was blocked (nope), b.) the bulb pump wasn't working(again nope), or c.) there was a leak some where.

Now the fuel line has two doohickeys( hose connectors) one to connect the hose to the fuel tank and one to connect the hose to the engine. They are made up of a grasping clamp to hold the connector tight in place and receiver that takes a fuel prong through which the fuel is passed. One of these connectors, the one at the engine didn't fit tightly enough and so the fuel was dribbling into the dinghy.(Thank goodness for water in the dinghy). After I rowed back to my boat, I tried the fix the limp clamp so that the connector would fit tight. Instead I broke it. I t was merely plastic and probably had seen to many years of sun and the ethanol in the new gas and just didn't have the strength it once had. Now I have to hunt up a new connector for the Honda engine. And that's not as easy as it sounds.

I contacted West Marine and one store had what I needed but it was 12 miles away, one way! That's a hell of a walk. I found a couple of Honda Outboard dealers closer, but none are open until tomorrow and I don't know if they have the part. I 'll call tomorrow and find out but it will still be at least a 2 mile walk one way if the nearest one has the part and 4 miles one way if he doesn't and one of the other two do. Well the weather's nice for walking. It will mean however, that I will also have to join the Miami Yacht Club for the day($18) so I can land my dinghy. At least I'll be able to get a shower and a check out their bar wand restaurant which are supposed to be quite good.

The weather today was disgustingly the same - 80/sunny/humid/light breezes and I spent a lot of time, after the rowing swimming. No sharks down here . . .at least none that I saw, though a large, sofa-cushion-sized Manta Ray launched itself out of the water and belly-flopped back in which served to launch me out of the water as well. Actually I went back in but those things give you one heck of s surprise when they do things like that. Spent the rest of the day enjoying the rest of the day.