Cleaning 5hp 4cycle Outboard Carburetor - Tohatsu, Nissan & Mercury

How to clean a carburetor on Tohatsu, Nissan, and Mercury 4cycle 4hp, 5hp, and 6hp outboard motor.

I did not know how to winterize the outboard. I left the outboard with gasoline in the tank for 2 years. The carburetor got clogged. I am a software guy. I did not know much about engine mechanics. Great tips from my co-worker, I decided to clean up the carburetor on my little Tohatsu 5hp motor.

Looks like everyone around me caught some nice White Sea Bass except me this year. This was my desperate attempt to take my little skiff (Porta-Bote) to remote places where shore diving was hard to access. My buddy and I used to take this little boat out for spearfishing. After my daughter was born, I stopped taking the boat out.

Anyway, I tested the outboard before the trip. This was the smartest move I did in years :) The engine did not start no matter how many times I tried. After few hours of hard work pulling the starter, I started researching on the web. They all say it is the fuel system if an outboard left for long period of time without Stabil or removal of gas from the carb. Yeah, I left my outboard with gasoline for 2 years.

I called a Tohatsu dealer nearby. He was very nice and told me that the carb needed to be cleaned. He said that would cost me a couple hundred dollars. Ouch! My wife would not let me spend that much money on such a toy boat. I decided to clean it myself.

So here I am, I had to make sure that I traced all the stupid things I would do to mess up the outboard. And also, I may have to do this again in the future, so I made this video. I removed all the sound because there was so much noise around my garage. I did not focus right on some of the scenes. I should have used GoPro instead.

At the end, everything worked out great. It was not too hard to clean the carb. It took me around 30minutes of actual work. Here is the actual motor test out in open ocean.
   • 12" Porta-bote - Testing Tohatsu 5HP ...  

Anyway, this cleaning method should work with all similar Tohatsu, Nissan, and Mercury 4 cycle small outboards between 4hp and 6hp.

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