Baja 226 with a 540. Last weekend I filled up with $100 of Shell 93 Octane and a local station. It sat on my trailer in my driveway all week, today I went to fire it on the hose and it wouldn't pull fuel through the boosters without my hand over the carb. Pulled the bowl and jets and metering block were perfectly clean, checked the filter and it was clean. Boat has a MagnaFuel 275 pump and a MagnaFuel regulator return style set up. Pulled the return hose out of the tank put it into a tank and turned the pump on to take a sample and this is what I got. [IMG][/IMG] Is this just water in my fuel? It did rain during the week, but I don't know how it would get in the tank like this, and would this cause the fuel not to pull through the boosters?

That picture looks like the fuel has phase-separated. Water and ethanol causes this, the fuel wont burn. You will have to remove and discard the fuel in the tank.

I was reading into it and that's kind of what I thought, it's not even a week old though??

That condition occurs when the ethanol is saturated with water, just condensation in the fuel tank can cause that.

Fuel won't pull out of the boosters until enough airflow goes thru them that their venturi starts to pull fuel.

Get that stuff out of the carb and don't install until you know your fuel is back too 100%.

Man, that suks.

+1

Btw: You may also need to find out where it came from...in case it's an issue with your boat.

True story - I found mine. Years ago I was washing my boat with no head on the hose. Friend came buy and we got talking. I turned around and saw I had the hose pointed at my fuel tank vent fitting. Perfect shot !

Fkin' Ehh.

A buddy of mine went to Florida with us for vacation one year and brought his Baja down with him. Sure as hell, a hurricane made a 90* turn and started bearing down on us. After all the rains had subsided, the weather actually got decent enough to take the boat out on the bay. Ran like schit. Couldn't even get up on plane. Dikked around with plugs, carb, etc., and finally figured out that he had water in the gas. Added several bottles of drygas to it, and a fresh top off, and all was good. Best we can figure is that the 60+ mph winds may have driven moisture into the vent, or the humidity was simply so high that it was condensing on the inside of the tank. May be something similar with yours. Or possibly a problem with the tank at the gas station where you bought it. I would check to see if others have been getting bad gas from there. You may be due a refund. Good luck.

I guess I should have added, that I did wash the boat right before I fueled it up, so there's a possibility of water getting in the vent there I guess, and it has been hot and humid and rained pretty heavy after I filled up. I just pulled the carb and cleaned everything, I'm about to try running it off of a 5 gallon container of fresh fuel. Sucks I have to trash $100 of unused 93 octane
But the fact remains that it still won't separate after siting, I think it's a phase separation type of deal with the ethanol, I'll have to ask that Shell station if they've had any problems.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys I'll see what happens with some fresh go-juice in a minute here.

You need to check the O ring and or seal for YOUR GAS CAP. I see this all the time with boats that sit out in the weather from rain or humid condensation or when the boats get washed or waves slapping up against the gas cap, Also at times the O-ring or seal for the gas cap will dry rot and fall into the gas tank or fall off when you remove your gas cap. Also they dry rot crack and remain in place plus look fine but CAN NOT seal water out from entering. The O-ring and or seal is there for a reason - helps keep water out.

You 4 sure have water entering into your fuel. Also yes that is called phase separation. The water pulls out the ethanol, then they mix together inwhich is heavier than fuel so it settles to the bottom of your fuel tank when the boat sits. This phase separation forms into acids and this how internal fuel components especially aluminum form that white powdery substance called aluminum oxide corrosion.