liquid in carb

[ahargrove]

Hi all. I have a 1990 sp that has been sitting for 3-4 years that I just purchased last month. I am just now getting around to looking through it to see what it will take to get it running and have pulled the plugs, battery and (what I call) the airfilter off the carb. When I look into the carb, there is some dark liquid in there. There are also a couple of random tubes pulled. It is possible that the previous owner winterized it and that could explain both the liquids and tubes but I am not certain and am not experienced with jet skis at all.
I am going to attempt to put a charge on the battery and wanted to try to fire this thing up but am looking for guidance as to if there is anything I should do first before hitting that start button. It does have a waterhose hookup so that part is a no brainer....I assume.
Should I drain the engine and carb of any and all liquids before trying start?
I am prepared to buy a carb rebuild kit but wanted to make sure this thing is worth putting money into before I start making additional purchases.
I plan on doing a compression test on the cylinders, that is another reason I want to be able to turn this thing over.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Andy

 

[Bills86e]

That year had black fuel lines, but if it were mine...I would disconnect them from carbs, then remove the plugs, put a 50/50 oz of premix in the *holes, put one *plug wire on the ground lug, the other hold plug on wire to a cleaned head bolt and spin over to see if electrical works. If so, I would remove tank & replace lines, insure the fuel delivery everything was clean. Re-build the carbs, not just clean. I do not run an an maintained engine, thats me. Bill

 

[ahargrove]

Thanks Bill. You are correct, it does have the black lines. One question though, where exactly do I put the 50/50 mix? By 50/50 mix, I assume gas/oil.

 

[Bills86e]

A little down the plug holes and carb throat, like preliminary fogging to save raw parts from spinning the engine over while doing the spark check. Keep us posted!

 

[super1c]

I wouldnt fire them up without a good cleaning of the carbs and fuel system at a minimum. You can check comp without starting them up to get a close idea if it would be worth it to you. But if it were me i would go bills route for sure. CCC

 

[ahargrove]

electronics

Ok Bill, you made me a little nervous about the electronics. I had never thought about that being an issue so last night I hooked my jumper pack up to see if it would at least turn over and.......nothing!
I had questioned in another thread if it was okay to use a jumper pack and based on the response I assumed since it is basically a battery with jumper cables on it, it would be okay. It has an on/off switch so I hooked it up, turn the switch to on and hit the start button.
When I turned the jumper pack on, I could hear something inside the grey box electrical box, like something was getting current, but nothing happened.
I do recall when I was snooping through things last weekend that the solenoid looked pretty rough....rusty and such. So...I'm hoping maybe that could be the issue.
Any suggestions to further test the electronics?