15hp Merc Kicker flooding - Help

[jm_03]

I have an 03' 4stroke big foot that is a royal pain. If it goes more than two weeks without being run it will flood immediately on start up and stay that way until it is torn down and cleaned. When I say flood, I mean fuel pouring out of the cowling into the water. It has been "fixed" by three different dealers on 4 different occassions in the past two years and this problem persists. To date it has been cleaned several times, more recently the float and needle were replaced (seperate visits). Does anyone have any ideas I can pursue?

Thanks.

[yarcraft91]

Just a question- how are you storing that motor between trips? If it's mounted upright on a boat, OK. If it is laying on a floor, dunno about that motor, but some 4-strokes have specific recommendations for how to do that and it's important to follow that advice. Assuming no problem there...

You didn't say specifically, but is the fuel running out of the carburetor throat? If so, given your experience, I would suspect a problem with the castings/stampings in the carburetor body. You may wind up replacing the entire carburetor, rough parts cost $150, but that should stop the flooding.

[perchjerker]

those carbs had some issues with floats sticking. I dont know what the solution is, maybe they have a revised float to fix it. There are posts in the archives about this problem.

It happened one time on mine, all i did was shake the motor side to side and it fixed it, I imagine that the float was stuck and this shook it loose

try shaking it next time it does it and see if it fixes it, if so then you at least know that the float is sticking

[ffishman]

Yep, sure does sound like a sticking float. That would be the first place I would look.