20hp honda outboards

[bruce_brighton]

Hello all
I have a 3 month old honda 20 that i bought new. i am having trouble with cold starting in that it fires up first touch of the elec start button and runs with the auto choke for about a minute as it should but as the choke turns off it idles back and stops.
It then takes a fair bit to get started again. Once going and warmed up a bit more its fine for the rest of the day. To me it sounds like the choke is not on long enough. Rang the dealer today and he said he has not had any problems with them. HE then said do i run it out of fuel after the days outing. When i said no he said thats your problem. He reckens the fuel evaperates after 2-3 days leaving a residue in the carby which then clogs the pilot jet. He said that he tells all new buyers to run them out of fuel after a days fishing. Funny thing he did not tell me this when i bought it. Sounds like a load of s...t to me. The motor has never sat more than a week between trips and have never had fuel evaperate in a carby like this and cause problems. Any one else had this sort of problem with same outboard. It going to the dealer this week to have the carby cleaned and fix the problem so he says. good advert for honda at the boat ramp every weekend with me saying dirty words to it.
Besides that i love it.

[Spaniard_King]

Patrol89

One thing you will find with the Honda's is that they like clean fuel. I look after quite a lot of 20hps and I advise people to fit a small viewable water trap/filter. The honda's are very fuel efficient therefore use very small orifices to meter the fuel in the carbies, it only takes a small amount of water/moisture or dirt to block these holes and then it will give you problems.

Heres a good tip for you, ask the dealer to show you where the mixture screw is and the carby drain. When you get it home and its running nice mark the position of the mixture screw with a permanent mark of some sort, then carefully screw the screw all the way in counting the turns until it seats lightly then undo the screw to the original position set by the dealer.

next time you have this problem, Drain the carby incase there is some moisture in it then get the engine going and keep it running using the throttle then undo the mixture screw 2 -3 turns and rev the engine hard, this could suck any small amount of moisture thru the carby and clear the blockage.

I have done this a few times and some times you can be lucky

A small water trap will save most of these types of problems

cheers

Garry