Maintenance

Wet and cold and miserable. So a good day to fettle the outboard.
A bit of a clean up then down to business with the spark plug out (rather oily) and the carburettor off. A check on the float chamber revealed some dried sediment but in the slow running jet was a wee foreign body. This looked like the cause of the starting problems back in the summer. A poke with a pin cleared it, and in another 15 minutes all was back together again.
I then braved the elements, put the flushing muff on and put some petrol in the fuel tank. After a bit of faffing around filling the carb it fired and ran smoothly for about 15 minutes. The cooling water flow was healthy and so I shut off the fuel and ran the carb dry.
It is now dried off, safely in the workshop and listed on E-bay.