Don’t drop that nut!
Yesterday we had plans to make a quick run in to Basseterre, the main city here, to stock up on groceries. Alas, quick was not meant to be. When I went to fire up the engines prior to raising anchor, I found that our port engine was on vacation. Sigh. A fair amount of troubleshooting went on following that discovery. Perhaps I’ll write about that later. What I will say is that, at one point, I removed the carburetor and the most difficult part of that job was trying to get the two main nuts back onto the bolts when I went to reinstall it. I really didn’t want to drop the nuts in the water. Seriously!
4-stroke carbs are definitely more complicated than 2-stroke carbs!
After a few tense moments fiddling with the nuts, trying to squeeze my fingers into a space too small for them to fit, I remembered a tip that our friend Kirk shared with me, illustrated in the following pics. Of course, when he described the trick, he suggested using grease. As I didn’t have any immediately handy yesterday, I improvised with toothpaste. Guess what? It worked perfectly! I would recommend that, if you decide to use toothpaste too, you wash all of it off your tools and parts when you’re done. I have no idea what the long term effect of toothpaste is on metals.
A “touch” of blue painters tape works pretty good too!
I bet it would. I would have had to look even harder for that then I would have for the grease.
VERY cool innovation! That’s the kind of “outside the box” thinking I like to see. I’ve run across similar situations with automobile repairs where I could use an idea like that.
This idea just went into the mental toolbox to be used later.
Mike
http://www.siochana.us
Old mechanics work smarter! 🙂
Brilliant idea! When I first looked at this post, the thing that crossed my mind was that every cruiser who has a blog, at some time or other, will have a photo of his carburetor.
Of course, the parts that fall into the water are the ones for which you have no replacement. When I was working on mine, in addition to a pan underneath to catch the parts, we had a sacrificial beach towel that we placed between where I was working and the side of the boat. Parts have a built in desire to escape and go swimming – and will use any opportunity to bounce on a hard surface inevitably toward the side of the boat. The towel kept them from bouncing and thwarted most (not all) of their attempts to escape.
Larry
The trick for me is getting it removed and into the cockpit. Once it’s there the parts aren’t going anywhere.
Sheer Genius!
I use electrical tape to keep the screw attached to the screwdriver.
So after all this, did you clean the carb and things started working?
Eric
Yes, I cleaned it. No, it’s not yet working. Not sure it is fuel now.
Did you check for spark yet?
Remember the 4 cycles
Suck-Squeeze-Bang-Blow
We are leaning towards SPARK being the culprit. Unfortunately that is a bit harder to troubleshoot.
What is a wood screw doing next to the carburetor? or is that just for illustration ? : )
You mean that wasn’t supposed to be inside the carb? Perhaps that was the problem. 😉
Toothpaste is also the standard advise for ball bearings in furlers and travelers, where you can’t use grease and want something that will wash out with water.
Sometimes a dab of grease on the fingertip can be the trick as well. I don’t like painters tape so well as you have no feel if it s blind and can’t feel the nut catch or start to slide. But it can work for larger nuts.
Really? And here I thought that I invented the toothpaste thing!!!
A vet once told us to shampoo our dog with Crest toothpaste if she was ever sprayed by a skunk. Something in Crest cuts through the enzymes in skunk juice.
So yes one must wonder what it does to metal.
For those “olde” enough to remember chrome bumpers on cars….Coca Cola to remove rust.
I have heard that too. There is NO rust in my stomach. Guaranteed.
Did you know that in NASCAR they glue the lugnuts to the wheels? Of course they’ve shaved much of the threading off the bolt as well to increase tire installation speed. They use a 3M product, something like a weatherstripping adhesive. Loctite might have a similar product.
The toothpaste was a good idea for a washable solution.
I did not know that. All I know about Nascar I learned on that Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder.
To get nuts to hold in a socket for installation, rip a piece of paper a bit bigger than the socket and push paper and nut into socket. Holds it great. Give it a try. Mechanic of 25 years here.
Another great idea. Thanks David.