Water in Gas

Friend realized the gas he put in his boat wasn't all gas and had been out in the rain, and the boat has stopped running. Other than siphoning the tank what else should be done? I have heard replacing the spark plugs. It is a fuel injected engine, Mercruiser. I have a feeling I'll be doing most of the work on this....

Put in some injector cleaner and gasline antifreeze. and fresh gas. Change the fuel filter and drain the water seperator if you have one. Then run the engine. It'll be fine.

How do you find the water separator? I've never had to deal with one of those. Not sure if this engine has one.

use an addative that dissolves the water everytime you fill up, i had the same problem with my boat. I forget what its called, you can get it at west marine its like an enzyme treatment

Throw some heet on it
http://www.goldeagle.com/heet/index.htm

Thanks everyone!

Not to sound dumb, but I do need to do the spark plugs since it ran water through?

no, the plugs should be fine

The water separator looks like a spin on oil filter..... if it even has one. I'd follow the fuel lines & look for what looks like a 2nd oil filter. Take it into Napa & have them cross reference it..... they usually come on truck diesel engines.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on June 25, 2008)

Water run through an engine does a great job of decarbonizing it. That will be $100 please.

As mentioned above the fuel tank needs to be completely drained and cleaned out, then refill with fresh fuel. Change the fuel filter fairly often as routine maintenance.

Thanks again everyone! Back up and running.

The boats that I condsider to be of decent quality come with a water separating fuel filter. Like bill said, the filter looks a lot like a smaller version of the oil filter and to work properly the "can" must be on the underside. It is very simple, water is heavier than gas and it will settle to the bottom of the can.

Getting water into the tank of a boat is fairly common. Tiny amounts can pass through your fuel system undetected. Small amounts can pass though with just a little hiccup. A quarter cup of water can shut you down.

Having a fleet of boats I have had to deal with significant amounts of water in the tank from time to time. I bought myself an electric fuel pump and attached long leads with big battery clips. When I suspect water in the gas I will pull the fuel line off from the output of the fuel filter, hook up the electric and start pumping. The first gallon will go into a clear jug so I can inspect it. From there I simply pump the gas back into the tank. I let it run for a bit to "polish" the gas and occasionally check the water trap on the fuel filter.

Unless you drain the tank, take it out and completely dry it out there will be a small amount of water left in the bottom simply because the "dip tube" for the fuel line doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the tank. When you get into rough water and the tank gets shook up this water could end up getting sucked up so your fuel filter had better be able to deal with it.

Rod

Thanks Rod. It does have a water separating fuel filter, which I replaced and will continually replace for the next few weeks. There was a good amount of water in the old one. How bad is it to empty and re-use those? I'm not planning on it just wondered. Changing the fuel filter and running high octane thru it for a while is what I have planned.

2nd the HEET! I run it in every vehicle every winter, and lawnmower when it gets left out in the rain.