Two/four stroke engines – servicing after down-time

I am no mechanic but I would drain the old fuel out of the tank and also in the bowl, change the oil and sparkplug and fire her up.

hi gordon
old fuel left usually slowly evaporates leaving an orangey/ yellow gum in the carby that can cause the fuel needle and seat to stick which is part of the fuel float inlet assembly it will probably need cleaning and also the gum sediment will be in the fuel bowl and the fuel in the tank will also need to flushed out
you may be lucky if the engine was stored in a cool place and had a reasonbly full tank during the 3 year period
but if it was in a hot shed with not much in the tank
i have no doubt that there will need to be a cleaning of the above parts you may have to buy a spray can of carby cleaner from an auto stockist if realy gummed up but otherwise new petrol and a brushmay/ will do to clean the parts
cheers barry

G'Day Gordon,

Yep. Sound advice already given.

Do not try to start it with the old fuel. I used to repair small engines & one of the biggest service issues is stale fuel gumming things up. I use a product branded STA-BIL fuel stabilizer to keep the fuel going off. There is another brand available from outboard motor suppliers but I can not recall the brand name.

Cheers
Stu

I am a mechanic and forgot to drain the carby for a few months. This gummed the idle circuit and it took me some time to clear it all out. Probably beyond some people without some degree of skill. It is not a standard carby on a Eu20 Honda.
Speed control is done via a servo motor and idle circuit is non removable idle screw. The very small holes got blocked and hard to clean out. I modded mine to get it out and adjusted it after running again.
Hope this helps.

Ross M