We just bought a pontoon boat that has a Yamaha 50 4stroke.They said it cranks right up, but when you put it in gear it will die. I talked to Keith at Charlies and he said they are a nightmare with their carbs.And has never had any luck with re building them . If not Charlies who I thing is the best , then who ?

I have a 2001 Yamaha F80TLRY and it has four carburetors. I finally got tired of paying someone to clean the carbs. I did it myself and it wasn’t that hard. If you’re mechanical at all I would recommend doing it yourself. Worst case scenario is you take a box of parts to the mechanic and say fix this. Good luck

I know most of this sort of trouble is from old and nasty fuel. Our fuel at best is not good. The single biggest issue here is our fuel getting to old, being left in the boat to long. Best if we can use most if not all fuel when at the lake, then only buy the fuel for the boat on the way to the lake. This way you get fresh fuel every time to the lake. Don't buy a full tank of fuel either if your not going to use it. I have rigged up me a 12 volt pump setup and when I get back from the lake, if it's going to be more than a month before I am going again, I pump the fuel from my boat to my truck or wife's suv. Point here, you only use fresh fuel in the outboard motor.

Now on another thing here, what is the problem with rebuilding these carbs on these motors? Now I must say I have not rebuilt any of them on one of these motors, but I have so many other motors and yes they do take time to do right and jimo, if your not doing it right; don't do it at all.

Now the part this guy is saying they are a nightmare, I know some motors are harder to work on than others, maybe this motor is one of those, so doesn't mean it can't be, good greif it ain't that big a deal, or Yamaha would have done something else. Still doesn't mean they can't be rebuilt.

Maybe this guy just has so much to do already and stuff he would rather work on, for me just working on the outboard motors that are on pontoon boats are harder to get to things on the motor, that is probably the issue here, not that motor. Working on the front of the outboard motors like where the carbs are, is hard to get to and see what your doing, you put the outboard motors on a pontoon boat it gets even more difficult. A simple task just gets to be a big challenge on this type of boat.

It's worth more money to work on pontoon boats because of this. Heck there are certain situations you may need to take the motor off the boat to repair this and then just mount the outboard back on after its been repaired, that is not such a problem other than a little more time.