Now this is weird. Last night I removed the 40 LA engine from my plane and removed the carb to clean and check. And what happens? At least a half ounce of oily fuel comes pouring out. No wonder it is hard to start, runs poorly and quits suddenly. I don't think I am running it too rich since I have tried leaning it out til it almost quits. I have a few theories. The first is that my fuel is old (bought it about 4 mos. ago) or dirty from pumping out the tank back into the gallon bottle (I'm down to about 1/4 gallon) or that the engine is for some reason blowing some of the burnt exhaust back down the intake. The last makes sense, since what I poured out of the engine was mostly oil. Lately the engine seemed harder to turn over like it had more compression, but this had to be caused by all the oil in the crankcase. Once it started running it probably couldn't suck the heavier oil into the chamber to burn. Maybe I need a drainplug to drain the engine before each flight :-). I think I will try some fresh fuel and see what happens. Does any of this make sense?

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