Clean your carb!

[CP241]

How does one go about cleaning this carb?

I pulled this off a Honda recon I bought. Didnt even bother lol it went straight to the trash bin

[Fairtax4me]

Drop it in a bucket of alumi-bright acid cleaner and stand back?

Majority of that crusty stuff would probably come out of the bowl but no way that carb would ever be right. If the idle ports and air bleed holes actually did clear out, they would be so oversized it would be almost impossible to tune.
Was the throttle slide stuck in the bore?

[CP241]

Lol

Honestly I dont remember the slide. I remember cracking the bowl, seeing all the powdery stuff in there, and thinking "wow" and took a pic. I started to clean and when I saw that most of the aluminum around the jet and the supports where the pin for the bowl float go had eroded and disintegrated, I said "no way" and tossed it in the garbage.

I have (and love) my ultrasonic cleaner, but some things just arent worth saving.

[mrlmd]

I was going to start a new thread but since this one is still active, I'll add to it here.

Since I last posted about the gel/gunk inside my carb bowl that I cleaned out, my cart has been running great, Until a few days ago.
It was a little slow to start, ran OK when I took off but was not as fast as a week before when I previously used it. At a distance of about a 1/4 mile or less it started to slow down no matter what I did to the throttle, then it died and could not be restarted again.
I towed it home, recharged up the battery I thought was a little low, but still won;t start. If I remove the air intake hose from the filter to the carb and spray a little carb cleaner in there it will catch and run for a second or two.
I removed the carb again thinking it was dirty again, and found some more of that yellowish gel in the bowl - see the pics. This was way much less than last time when I started this post.
I cleaned out the carb jets again, which seemed to be clean, and put it back together, but it still won't start, so I thought maybe the fuel pump is at fault, either dirty with the same junk inside or the vacuum hose is cracked or there is some other problem, But, if I remove the fuel hose as it attaches to the carb and crank over the engine in maintenance mode, gas comes flying out the hose, so the pump is working fine.
I also pulled the plug and cleaned it and I don;t think that's the problem because it catches with the carb cleaner so I know it's getting spark.
So, I have fuel, spark, a clean carb, what else do I look for?
A bad tank of gas that's been sitting a while, altho it ran fine a week before?
Suggestions are welcome. Thanks

PS - I also have 2 fuel filters in the line, one before and one after the fuel pump and both are clean inside as far as I can see. I don't know how this gel stuffr gets into the carbbowl, other than condensed moisture. And I am already using ethanol-free gas in the cart.

[CP241]

Id dump and clean the tank. replace the fuel lines and both filters and make sure the carb is clean. That gunk can get between the float needle and seat and prevent gas from getting in.

I'm not sure what the brown gel is, but I'd bet the black stuff is deteriorating fuel lines

Make sure you blow all the carb passages with compressed air too.

[mrlmd]

CP - Went to the store before I read your post, but it was spot on.
Emptied out and flushed the tank, replaced the fuel lines and 2 filters, put fresh fuel in and it runs great again. My engine runs so smooth it actually has a VERY slow idle for a long time now when I pick my foot off the gas instead of shutting off, and I prefer it like that so I never looked into fixing it.
Anyway, the gas initially came out looking pretty clean using a siphon, then turned milky, cloudy, yellowish in color, as you got near the bottom of the tank, with "gook" mixed in. Since gas floats on top of water, this was probably in the lowest forward recess of the tank, and since the pickup line goes to the bottom, when you suck up this crap, it won't run. I flushed the tank a little by dumping in more gas, this time draining it out through the regular pickup tube and again got out some really nasty looking stuff. The pics below don't do it justice. One more flush and it came out clean.
I really wish there was an easy way to remove the tank but there is not, I think you have to take the body off to get to the strap that holds it in.
The pics below show the kind of nasty stuff at the bottom of my tank, probably accumulating over the last 19 years plus all the incredible moisture down here. And I do use only ethanol-free gas in the cart.
Look at the pics - does anybody else think the gas was bad? (LOL).

[CP241]

When I clean a gas tank, I use TSP it does great at cleaning all the sludge and stuff out.

I'll dump a bottle in and fill it half way with water. If it's really nasty I'll throw some chain in there too. Shake it up really good and dump it. Then I turn the hose on, stick it in and let it run for a while, 20 minutes or so. Then drain it, remove the chain and let it dry in the sun. Usually only takes a few hours on a hot day until all the water is gone. Then reinstall and go! I've cleaned some NASTY gas tanks and never had a problem :)

Glad you got it going. Hopefully you got it clean enough without removing the tank. I didnt know how difficult.access would be, my carryall is super easy lol

[mrlmd]

You can clean a tank like that if you can get it out, and turn it sideways and upside down, etc, like with a motorcycle. I can see no way to get my tank off my 2000 Club Car Fairway Villager without doing some MAJOR work.

[CP241]

Maybe. Like I said, I have a carryall which is basically a DS with a 4ft x 4ft dump bed. I could have the gas tank out in 5 minutes. A regular DS would probably be more work. Hopefully work you wont have to worry about doing