Carb freezing up?

[tenn_blue59]

I have an early 2 stroke cart - been running good for several months. Saturday, was puttering down the driveway to check the mail (we have a long driveway...), and it sputtered out, seemed to lose power and die. It acted like it was running out of gas or fouling a plug.

Oh, did I mention it was COLD outside?!?!? While some of you might think 30 degrees is a warm day, for this transplanted Floridian, it was pretty cold...

Anyway, cart died and couldn't get it going again. Walked back to the barn and got tools- plenty of gas in tank (added some anyway to be sure - premix, injector pump removed), cleaned the plug (but was getting good spark anyway, both before and after cleaning).... Turned over fine, and sputtered a couple times but wouldn't run. Quickly checked the fuel lines and couldn't feel any breaks or leaks. Still no run. Let it sit in the "sun" for 30 minutes or so, then it started back up and ran good for 1/4 mile - just enough to get back near the barn and it died again. Again, nothing obviously visibly wrong. But the intake manifold/carb felt really cold - rest of engine was warm.

So to my question... I don't have much experience with these things, and most of it is in warmer weather. Could my carb have frozen up from the cold? I run the usual ethanol pump gasoline with 50-75 to 1 premix. Never had carb problems before with this cart, but this is it's first winter. Pretty sure it is a fuel system issue since spark is good and it still wouldn't run. Are fuel pumps temperature sensitive? The fact that it would run again (for a short while) after sitting makes me wonder...

My garage isn't heated full time (yet), so I want to explore all I can sitting inside in the warm before I go take a wrench to it! Thanks in advance for the help!

[Dave Box]

Temperature should not affect your 2PG engine, especially once it is running. It is unlikely that anything has frozen as the freezing point of gasoil is way below what you have seen, in addition water in the system could freeze but as the carburetor feeds from the bottom of the bowl there should be no accumulation of water. What is more probable is that the cold weather has caused your worn out crankshaft seals to become more brittle and lose some seal. This will affect the fuel pump performance so that once you drain the carburetor bowl dry the cart gives up. Give it a rest and the seals loosen up a little to the extent that the fuel pump starts to work and you can limp home.

Why don't you remove the fuel line to the carburetor and crank the engine. You should see a healthy spurting jet of fuel, not a trickle, not a dribble. Let us know what you see and we can take it from there.

Good Luck
Dave

[Dave Box]

BTW 50-75:1 is a little heavy there. EZGO recommend 128:1 which is 1 ounce of oil to 1 gallon of gas

[caddymankc]

Some times a hotter plug will help,if u got old fuel in there buy a bottle of the gas additive stuff like fuel injector cleaner(most has anti icing stuff in it) the new ethanol fuel does absorb water in the fuel.

[BrewCityMusic]

Dave's right RE the 2PG's doing great in the cold - it's in the teens here in WI and after our first 4" snowfall on Friday night I've been powersliding all OVER the place, heh heh heh ...