Sunday at M’s Dome the generator, securely strapped to the Jeep’s trailer, worked just fine. Monday when I took it down to the Lair it wouldn’t start at all. I noticed a strong smell of gasoline and it looked as though gas had poured right out through the air filter onto the trailer’s boards.
Pulled the spark plug – soaked. Cleaned the plug, ran the engine through the empty hole to clear fumes out of the cylinder, put it together again – still wouldn’t start.
So I’m thinking its bouncy ride back home unseated the carb needle, flooding the whole shebang. Which means I’ve got to remove and fix the carb before this thing will be doing anything. Bother: I really could use some power tools at the Lair. Guess I’m back to cordless.
It’s beginning to look a lot like winter around here. Yesterday the wind blew all day, and I mean a grit-in-your-face, lean-over-or-fall-over wind. Cloudy, cold. Finally got a little bit of rain after dark. Today dawned shiny and still and it still isn’t the least bit cloudy. But the wind came back up around 2 this afternoon and it never did warm up. Warning signs.
Might want to check/change the oil too. Sometimes so much gas gets in the cylinder that it washes pat the rings and thin out the oil to the point it won’t lube any more.
Yup – that was the first thing I did. In an extreme case, I’ve seen a crankcase filled with more gasoline than oil. Not the case here, but I’ll likely be changing the oil anyway.