Local track is inviting me down to drive the track before it opens as soon as it is paved. So could be any time within the next 40 days. I just put my kart back together just in case I have any unexpected issues and need to order new parts so I don’t miss testing days. I just had a few questions on storage to keep it track ready for the next few weeks, but also make sure that it sitting is not going to hurt it.
I plan on adding a little fuel just to get it started up on the kart stand and give it some throttle and make sure everything is running smoothly, so is it okay to only add about ~32oz of fuel just to start it and rev it for a minute or so.
Once I am done, how crucial is it to get every last drop out of the fuel line and what is the best way to go about doing that.
I am going to take the carb off and spray it with carb cleaner and keep it in my house, is that all I need to do as far as making sure there is no gas left in the engine to harm it for a few weeks? I just put a fresh carb kit in so I was not wanting to add another carb kit just to run it for 30 seconds.
Can I leave the spark plug in or do I need to take it out and store it?
Lastly this is random but does anyone know the best place to just get an assortment of metric hex cap screws as used on the KA100 and an assortment of metric locking hex nuts. Seems to be more SAE hardware in the US than anything.
Not really, it’s more important for there to be little fuel in the carb, with that said, I’ve left fuel in one for a month and it did no damage just replaced the gaskets. Fuel in the line isn’t a problem except for the fact that the line can harden. What I do which isn’t necessarily the healthiest is to disconnect the fuel line from the carb and blow into it. No, fungus won’t start to grow due to the bacteria in your mouth! A healthy spit-free way would be to take a large syringe and attached it to the line to push the fuel back into the tank. But like I said earlier it’s not really an issue for fuel to sit in the lines for a bit.
Yes the carb will be completely fine, honestly even spraying it with carb cleaner is not needed but if it makes you feel better I would say go for it! you can easily drain the fuel out by just unscrewing the white fuel inlet cap and pouring the fuel out of the carb, very little will come out as the Tillotson carbs don’t hold fuel like a float-style carb.
Actually better to leave the plug in, prevents anything from getting into the cylinder. I normally change the plug for the first race.
Mcmaster - Carr and Belmetric sell 50 and 100 packs of bolts for dirt cheap. I can get 100 hex screws from one of them for the price of 3 at a store, plus they are very good quality and ship the next day.
Just a note, My X30 sat untouched for 5 months during covid (Fuel Drained) and it fired up first try with no issues. While they should be started every few months in that situation, letting them sit for a little while will do no harm.
thank you so much. makes me feel better. I am so nervous about causing damage to the engine by my lack of 2 stroke knowledge. I am 20 and studying and work 2 jobs to be able to do this and still pay bills at home. So I am trying to baby this thing to prevent any harm to the engine and take all preventative maintenance precautions very seriously. would it hurt the kart to leave fuel IN the tank? or is that a no go.
No Problem! I understand, I’m too young to have kids but I feel like sometimes maintaining a kart would be harder than raising a kid! (for the fathers and mothers out there I’m joking, thank you for all that you do).
No problem in leaving fuel in the tank, I’ve found that since 2 stroke’s have the oil and fuel mixed together for some reason the tank hardly gets stained whereas with my 206, the straight pump gas stained it quicker. Could also be that the tank on my Margay was a different material than the OTK. Anyways! No worries leaving the fuel in, it won’t do any harm especially for such a short time period.
Is this a new motor or freshly rebuilt? If it ran previously do you really need to run it? I get the urge but it is unlikely there is an issue and if you are over a month away whats the rush?
If you do run it, I assume you are using race gas and not pump gas. If you are not using race gas I would suggest to not do this.
A few years ago I bought a hand pump that I use to prime the fuel line and I also use it at the end of a day to clear the fuel lines and empty the tank is necessary. I got this at Tractor Supply:
I have had good luck finding hardware on eBay. Monster bolts out of FL has usually had what I needed and free shipping.
I’m using 100LL avgas. the engine is 3 hours old. My only concern is when I bought the engine, it would not start because of a faulty kill switch, which took me weeks to figure out because that was the last thing I would have expected. So now I have this irrational fear that as soon as I try to start it, something else will go wrong. I also just installed the mychron, changed a couple components in the engine and a new carb kit, and while I have a decent background in fixing my own vehicle and working on various mid size vehicles, I am just not 100% confident yet that I know what I am doing. So that worries me that I messed something up.
