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From the power lawn tools that maintain our yards to the motors that power our flat bottom boats, small gas engines are the source of it all. From farm to small business to guide services, to emergency service small engines are essential to keeping all of them running.

Maintenance of your small engines, or lack of it will determine whether you get a few years use from it or decades of use. It all lies in how well they are systematically checked and maintenance performed. Small boat motors typically are still running twenty years after they are purchased if the simple yearly maintenance is consistently performed.

The first step in properly maintaining your small gas engine is to obtain a service manual for it. This is not the owner’s manual that comes with just about every device sold new. It is a manufacturer’s manual with exploded graphic views of the engine, all service specs, and troubleshooting guide. Manuals for old engines may be difficult to locate, but you can find one for almost any engine if you are determined and spend some time online searching for them.

There are basic problems that arise with any gas motor over time starting with the fuel system. And the fuel system contains quite a few parts for which you will need your service manual to identify and effectively service. Taking care to check the most basic issues like possibly being out of gas is always a good idea, even for experienced mechanics. Fuel filters eventually cause problems in both large and small gas engines and should be one of the first components checked when experiencing poor performance. Moisture in the fuel system is another common malady that every engine manufacture has a procedure for alleviating.

If the peripheral systems of a small engine are determined not to be the problem, an engine compression test is in order to see if there is an actual problem with the engine block or cylinders. While it can sound complicated, it is actually a simple procedure that will be detailed in your service manual.

For any engine of any size oil maintenance is critical. For two stroke engines, correct oil/fuel ratio must be maintained. Often sluggish engine performance can be traced to a mixture too rich with oil. In four stroke engines just like in a car, correct oil level and clean oil must be maintained to keep a motor running strong and extend its life.

In the case of water cooled engines, this is another critically important point of maintenance. Keeping the cooling system free from residual debris that is caused by the agitation of the parts against one another is the only way to keep the cooling system operating at peak efficiency. This is another area that is necessarily properly maintained in order to get maximum life from your engine.

But before any of this can be achieved, getting the service manual is the first step. Taking the time to do that and then following it step by step at proper intervals will give you maximum life from your small gas engines.

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