Help with primer

[BennyB]

I have an old 440 that cranks forever (a couple minutes of on and off) before it slowly rumbles to life. Once it's running, it continues to run great. If I pour some premix straight down the carb it fires right up. I figured a quick fix would be to just install a primer and squirt some fuel straight into the carb every time to help it start faster. I Tee'd into the reserve pickup line coming from the tank (red hose in the picture) and ran that to a piston primer. For some reason I cannot get it to pull any fuel from the line. I pulled the hose off the piston primer and gave it a quick suck to see if fuel flowed freely and it did. I grabbed a known working piston primer and tried it with the same no fuel result.

I've installed primers before and had no problems but I'm stumped here. I'm using a quality made in USA piston primer, not Chinese. And a working primer from another ski still didn't make a difference. Does anyone know of something obvious I'm missing here?

 

[spinyard]

Honestly it’s pretty simple , you must not have any fuel in your return line or air… maybe try to put the “pull” line in a can of gas and see if it pumps, that would rule out the primer

 

[JC-SuperJet]

Looks like the Hoses are attached to the correct Nipples: Attach supply line to angled port. Straight port routes to Carburetor.

However, if the Fuel Cock Valve is set to the "ON" position, then NO fuel will be allowed into the RESERVE line. That's how it's supposed to work.

If the Fuel Cock Valve is set to RES, then Fuel will be allowed into the Reserve Line. Then the Primer can draw fuel and pump into the Carburetor.

Can also tap into the RETURN line...

 

[aboarder]

Looks like the Hoses are attached to the correct Nipples: Attach supply line to angled port. Straight port routes to Carburetor.

However, if the Fuel Cock Valve is set to the "ON" position, then NO fuel will be allowed into the RESERVE line. That's how it's supposed to work.

If the Fuel Cock Valve is set to RES, then Fuel will be allowed into the Reserve Line. Then the Primer can draw fuel and pump into the Carburetor.

Can also tap into the RETURN line...

The lines are free to pull from the tank anywhere before the cock. They just can't feed the main line between carb and cock if that line is turned off. Don't tap into the return line. That will just suck air from the top of the fuel tank. The reserve line is correct.

As spinyard said, put the red line into a container of fuel and see if it will suck. If it doesn't, swap the nipples that the red and blue are on at the primer and see if that works. It looks like they're hooked up properly though.

 

[BennyB]

maybe try to put the “pull” line in a can of gas and see if it pumps, that would rule out the primer

Thanks, just tried this and it pulls strong from a jar of fuel

If the Fuel Cock Valve is set to RES, then Fuel will be allowed into the Reserve Line. Then the Primer can draw fuel and pump into the Carburetor.

Yeah I had tried it with the selector set to reserve and didn't help. Even sucked on the end of the tube to make sure fuel was flowing through the line and got a mouthful of gas with very little effort.

The lines are free to pull from the tank anywhere before the cock. They just can't feed the main line between carb and cock if that line is turned off. Don't tap into the return line. That will just suck air from the top of the fuel tank. The reserve line is correct.

As spinyard said, put the red line into a container of fuel and see if it will suck. If it doesn't, swap the nipples that the red and blue are on at the primer and see if that works. It looks like they're hooked up properly though.

When I pulled the red line to drop it in a jar or fuel it started spraying out of the tee because the tank had pressurized sitting in the sun. I put the line back on while it was spraying and was able to pump some fuel through the red line until it stopped. When I pulled it off again, fuel started spraying again. I repeated this process a few times and then started the ski from the reserve line. I noticed once the ski was running you could see a good amount of fuel running through the inline filter. I'm wondering if this inline filter in front of the tee to the primer might be causing my issue.

 

[BennyB]

I'm going to try switching the positions of the primer tee and inline filter and see if that makes a difference