Full Moon was looking a bit scruffy and had a little slime here and there below the water line so she got a quick cleanup last Sunday, to be followed with a more proper scrub and polish as soon as I can get a weekend and a few of the crew together.
Unfortunately, the usually reliable Yamaha F8 outboard would fire and run but not idle without stalling - the minimum running speed would have been a bit scary for shifting into gear. How does this happen when it ran perfectly a month ago??? Without a proper shop manual (Yamaha charges way too much for these and the aftermarket manuals don't cut it for me), I was reticent to mess about with the carburetor but with the first Duck Dodge looming and no time to haul the outboard to a shop, I returned to the boat Tuesday evening and (very carefully!) removed the carburetor.
Fortune smiled upon me - the Yamaha carburetor is a much better design than the one on my old (vintage 80s) Honda 7.5 and it proved easy to access the jets for cleaning. Reinstallation was a bit fiddly lining up the bolts with the air intake, carb, two gaskets, and a spacer (all this was done from the dock with the boat backed up to the dock as close as I dared) but the end result was perfect - the motor now idles very smoothly with no hint of wanting to stall.
There's always more to do, of course, but Full Moon is ready to go for Duck Dodge Committee Appreciation Night next Tuesday. I can't wait!
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