Wish me luck!

[Ralphie ★]

I ordered yet another carburetor for my Subaru generator engine after getting two of the wrong ones previously. I need to get it running to keep the hurricanes away. No pressure though.

 

[Further]

Good luck   

[maddmaxx ★]

Sounds like you need a Fish.

 

 

 

 

(potato points available here)

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

1 hour ago, Philander Seabury said:

I ordered yet another carburetor for my Subaru generator engine

If you order one more carb and an adapter plate, you could have the only 4-barrel generator on the block.

[bikeman564™]

good luck

[Airehead ★]

When does it arrive?

[Kzoo]

50 minutes ago, Airehead said:

When does it arrive?

The carburetor or the hurricane?

[JerrySTL ★]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Sounds like you need a Fish.

(potato points available here)

I see what you did there. The Fish carburetor was supposed to be a super carb that would get much, much better fuel mileage and power. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reece_Fish_Carburettor

[Parr8hed]

1 hour ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

If you order one more carb and an adapter plate, you could have the only 4-barrel generator on the block.

I would not be so sure about that.  Are you familiar with the term "red neck"?

[Parr8hed]

2 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

I ordered yet another carburetor for my Subaru generator engine after getting two of the wrong ones previously. I need to get it running to keep the hurricanes away. No pressure though.

 

So seriously, what is wrong with the carb?  Can you not just take it apart and clean it out.  Use some cab cleaner, spray out all of the jets and needles.  repair/replace the float?  Gaskets CAN be furly universal.  You can get rebuild kits.

[Kzoo]

Hey @Philander Seabury, I just checked on the delivery of your new carb.  You could have it tomorrow but there are storm related logistical delays.  Promised delivery right after the storm.

 

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

I would not be so sure about that.  Are you familiar with the term "red neck"?

Good point.

Philander would have to recite the obligatory"Here, hold my beer!" first!

[Bikeguy]

8 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

I ordered yet another carburetor for my Subaru generator engine after getting two of the wrong ones previously.

Have you looked here for the correct part number?  https://subarupower.com/products/parts/

[Tizeye]

5 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

I would not be so sure about that.  Are you familiar with the term "red neck"?

Then I guess solar is out of the question.

[Ralphie ★]

1 hour ago, Bikeguy said:

Have you looked here for the correct part number?  https://subarupower.com/products/parts/

Thanks!  My part number has no leading letters. Seems like all the cheap Chinese carbs list product numbers with either EX or SP in the first two characters.  I ordered one that said SP because it looked identical. 

[Randomguy]

Good luck!

[Ralphie ★]

6 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

So seriously, what is wrong with the carb?  Can you not just take it apart and clean it out.  Use some cab cleaner, spray out all of the jets and needles.  repair/replace the float?  Gaskets CAN be furly universal.  You can get rebuild kits.

You mean before I effed with it or after?   Allz I know is the engine dies after a few seconds, as soon as the gas I pour in it is gone. It is clean as a whistle so I really don’t think it is gummed up.   The float seems fine. 

[Parr8hed]

3 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

You mean before I effed with it or after?   Allz I know is the engine dies after a few seconds, as soon as the gas I pour in it is gone. It is clean as a whistle so I really don’t think it is gummed up.   

float bowl needle? 

[jsharr ★]

6 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

I would not be so sure about that.  Are you familiar with the term "red neck"?

vaguely

[Ralphie ★]

2 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

float bowl needle? 

The bowl is always full so seems ok. 

[Ralphie ★]

8 hours ago, Airehead said:

When does it arrive?

Wednesday!  Very quickly. 

[Prophet Zacharia]

Good luck, Ralph, we are all counting on you! I have two Subaru engines in my garage, you may have both of them if you will take the WRX that one of the engines is in and the other is from. My son is away at college, he’ll never know it’s gone (until Thanksgiving !).

[Prophet Zacharia]

26 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

The bowl is always full so seems ok. 

If you were to “empty” the bowl, all of your stresses would be gone.

[Prophet Zacharia]

On 9/27/2022 at 4:24 PM, Prophet Zacharia said:

Good luck, Ralph, we are all counting on you! I have two Subaru engines in my garage, you may have both of them if you will take the WRX that one of the engines is in and the other is from. My son is away at college, he’ll never know it’s gone (until Thanksgiving !).

Offer still stands.

[Ralphie ★]

12 minutes ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

Offer still stands.

That would be a Br46/Tim Allen generator for sure.  

Actually I am l intrigued by the “solar generators” I see advertised now. I am not that good a planner though, to make sure it is charged up before the hurricanes move in. Of course if the battery leakage is low enough it might not be that hard. I just need to run the fridge and sump pump in an outage. That would probably only be good enough to run the sump pump for a couple of days though. 

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

A solar generator will charge a battery, or a set of batteries.  If you're experiencing a serious storm, the solar generator output will be pretty low, and likely won't recharge the batteries as fast as you draw from them, and in a longer storm you'd eventually exhaust them.  Once the storm passes, the utility will be soon restored and can be used to recharge the batteries, and of course run the refrigerator and the sump pump.

So from a cost perspective, you'd be better off just to purchase a set of batteries, a float charger to maintain them, and an inverter to run the refrigerator and sump pump.  By foregoing the cost of the solar charger, you could instead use that money buy a larger battery plant and then use just the utility to keep the batteries charged until you need them.

Depending on the cost of the solar generator and the battery set, you could buy a portable generator for the same amount of money that would run as long as you had fuel, and not worry about running out of battery charge.

Another option, for the sump pump anyway, if you have a municipal water supply, you can get a water powered sump pump that will run as long as there's enough pressure in the municipal water supply.  It may run up your water bill a bit, because the pump uses several gallons of water to pump out one from the sump.

[Ralphie ★]

12 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

A solar generator will charge a battery, or a set of batteries.  If you're experiencing a serious storm, the solar generator output will be pretty low, and likely won't recharge the batteries as fast as you draw from them, and in a longer storm you'd eventually exhaust them.  Once the storm passes, the utility will be soon restored and can be used to recharge the batteries, and of course run the refrigerator and the sump pump.

So from a cost perspective, you'd be better off just to purchase a set of batteries, a float charger to maintain them, and an inverter to run the refrigerator and sump pump.  By foregoing the cost of the solar charger, you could instead use that money buy a larger battery plant and then use just the utility to keep the batteries charged until you need them.

Depending on the cost of the solar generator and the battery set, you could buy a portable generator for the same amount of money that would run as long as you had fuel, and not worry about running out of battery charge.

Another option, for the sump pump anyway, if you have a municipal water supply, you can get a water powered sump pump that will run as long as there's enough pressure in the municipal water supply.  It may run up your water bill a bit, because the pump uses several gallons of water to pump out one from the sump.

My BIL has one of those water powered sump pumps, but I’ve never really talked to him aboot it. Of course he also has a a Generac!  I have a Basement Watchdog battery powered backup sump pump with a deep cycle marine battery, but of course that would only be good for hours, not days. 

The bottom line is I still need to get the /|}%>> gasoline powered generator running!  

[Bikeguy]

22 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Another option, for the sump pump anyway,

I went with another plan...    I'm lucky to have a sloping lot, away from my home.  There is enough elevation drop I let gravity drain my sump.  

I still needed a sump pump, since we had a sump, because 'the code' required one to be in the sump.  

26 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Once the storm passes, the utility will be soon restored

That depends... we had a few storms where soon was a week for the areas hardest hit. 

[BR46]

20 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

The bottom line is I still need to get the /|}%>> gasoline powered generator running!  

What's going wrong with the old carburetor?

Is it from old gas/ethanol?

[Ralphie ★]

4 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

I went with another plan...    I'm lucky to have a sloping lot, away from my home.  There is enough elevation drop I let gravity drain my sump.  

I still needed a sump pump, since we had a sump, because 'the code' required one to be in the sump.  

That depends... we had a few storms where soon was a week for the areas hardest hit. 

I wish I could have gone with that plan. Here in southren nj we have a layer of marl, so high ground water that just sits on it. I am on a hill but there is no drain to the lower elevation. 

[Ralphie ★]

7 minutes ago, BR46 said:

What's going wrong with the old carburetor?

Is it from old gas/ethanol?

I am mystified. It looks clean as a whistle, but no matter what I do, the engine runs for seconds and then dies. The bowl is full of gasoline. 

[Bikeguy]

1 minute ago, Ralphie said:

I am on a hill but there is no drain to the lower elevation. 

Building a new home helps make the installation easy. 

Before they started installing the drain tiles that feed into the sump around the basement footings for the home, I talked to the builder and I picked the location for the sump based on the hill sloping away from the home.  That's when the also installed a tile from the sump to flow down hill. 

[Ralphie ★]

6 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

Building a new home helps make the installation easy. 

Before they started installing the drain tiles that feed into the sump around the basement footings for the home, I talked to the builder and I picked the location for the sump based on the hill sloping away from the home.  That's when the also installed a tile from the sump to flow down hill. 

Dumbass young me trusted the builders. A total recipe for disaster!  

[Bikeguy]

2 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

I am mystified. It looks clean as a whistle, but no matter what I do, the engine runs for seconds and then dies. 

The throttle control...   is that working?   Did a spring or linkage break?   

I killed a spring on the one used in my old lawn mower. That took a while to figure out.     When I mowed under a fir tree, a low hanging dead branch was the perfect height to stab into the throttle control and stretch a spring out way too much,

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

16 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

That depends... we had a few storms where soon was a week for the areas hardest hit. 

A fair point.

There's always that possibility, in which case no matter what system you have there's the risk it won't be adequate.

The generator will consume all the gas you have on hand, and none of the gas stations have power, so your cellar floods and your food spoils.

The batteries of the solar generator run down, the solar generator can't recharge fast enough, especially against a running sump pump and refrigerator, so your cellar floods and your food spoils.

The power outage is widespread, so the municipal water lasts only as long as the water in the tower lasts to supply pressure, so your cellar floods, and your food spoils anyway.

[BR46]

2 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

I am mystified. It looks clean as a whistle, but no matter what I do, the engine runs for seconds and then dies. The bowl is full of gasoline. 

On small engines some of the passages are really small and it doesn't take a lot of gunk to clog them up. 

If it runs for a few seconds with the choke on and then die as soon as the choke is off you have a clogged pilot and or main jet. 

[Further]

Good Luck 

[Bikeguy]

16 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

The generator will consume all the gas you have on hand, and none of the gas stations have power, so your cellar floods and your food spoils.

Yeah I learned about that once after I retired. 

I have more gas now, treated with SeaFoam.   I need gas for the JD tractor and the generator.   I now have 12 gallons of gas in six  2 gallon cans that I used on a rotating basis.   And I have 3 cars with tanks of gas if needed too. 

The generator used about 0.46 gallons per hour running my home for a 24 hour outage.  At 9:30 or 10 PM at night I'd shut down the generator, and we'd put it back in the garage and lock it up (it won't disappear that way).  Then in the morning I'd deploy the generator again.  That was 8 or 9 hours of fuel not being burned.   The fridge stayed cold enough,  and there wat no noise from the generator all night long. keeping us awake. 

[Ralphie ★]

22 minutes ago, BR46 said:

On small engines some of the passages are really small and it doesn't take a lot of gunk to clog them up. 

If it runs for a few seconds with the choke on and then die as soon as the choke is off you have a clogged pilot and or main jet. 

The problem now is I have given up on the original carb but these replacement Chinese carbs are not very consistent in the small details. I think the one I have now is pretty good but I have tried it yet. 

[BR46]

6 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

The problem now is I have given up on the original carb but these replacement Chinese carbs are not very consistent in the small details. I think the one I have now is pretty good but I have tried it yet. 

Do you have a place near by that sells racing fuel? 

When I have a engine that is going to be sitting for a long period of time I make sure that I run some race gas in it. 

I started my blower after sitting all summer and it started 1st pull. Same thing with the snow blower and lawn mower. 

 

[Bikeguy]

7 minutes ago, BR46 said:

Do you have a place near by that sells racing fuel? 

When I have a engine that is going to be sitting for a long period of time I make sure that I run some race gas in it. 

I started my blower after sitting all summer and it started 1st pull. Same thing with the snow blower and lawn mower. 

I use SeaFoam for treating gas that will sit for a while    That's much easier to find (and probably cheaper) than racing fuel.  

[BR46]

1 minute ago, Bikeguy said:

I use SeaFoam for treating gas that will sit for a while    That's much easier to find (and probably cheaper) than racing fuel.  

I just happen to always have a few gallons of racing fuel around.

[Bikeguy]

When I purchsed my Stihl chain saw several years ago, the Stihl dealer told me the best thing to do is drain the gas tank back into the gas can.   Then run the chainsaw until it runs out of fuel.

I do that for the leaf blower at the end of the season, the chainsaw, generator, trimmer and the hedge trimmer.  (yeah I have a few toys) 

The power washer, JD tractor, and the lawn mower get treated gas and they start just fine the next time they are used.  

[Bikeguy]

1 hour ago, BR46 said:

On small engines some of the passages are really small and it doesn't take a lot of gunk to clog them up. 

If it runs for a few seconds with the choke on and then die as soon as the choke is off you have a clogged pilot and or main jet. 

Now that I think about it... 

About 3 years ago I forgot to add treated gas to the lawn mower.   It would not run very long the fist time I used it.   

I drained the gas tank, removed the fuel line(s) blew them out with the air compressor.  Put it back together... same problem. 

I removed the carb, took the bowl off.  Removed the float and needle valve, Then I used the air compressor and blew air thru every passage I could find. 

Reassembled it and it started and ran just fine.  

[Longjohn ★]

10 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

I use SeaFoam for treating gas that will sit for a while    That's much easier to find (and probably cheaper) than racing fuel.  

I don’t know if it is just rural areas but we have always had gas stations that sold ethanol free gas. The closest station to my house sells it. I have three five gallon cans I keep full of it. I use it in the chain saws, mowers, and generator. Now the Sheetz stations have it too.

[Ralphie ★]

1 minute ago, Longjohn said:

I don’t know if it is just rural areas but we have always had gas stations that sold ethanol free gas. The closest station to my house sells it. I have three five gallon cans I keep full of it. I use it in the chain saws, mowers, and generator. Now the Sheetz stations have it too.

I think you only find it around airports here.

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

9 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

I think you only find it around airports here.

https://www.pure-gas.org/

[MoseySusan ★]

Why do you even live there? 
 

[BR46]

3 hours ago, Ralphie said:

I think you only find it around airports here.

No race tracks near by?

[Wilbur ★]

6 hours ago, Ralphie said:

I think you only find it around airports here.

My lawnmower repair guy sells it but it is $45 per gallon.