Eskimo Auger Bogging Down

I have an Eskimo Stingray that I bought 3 or 4 years ago. This is the first year I’ve had problems with it and they just started recently. It starts up just fine and idles fine like it always has. When I move the choke lever to run I can maybe drill 1 or 2 holes before it starts to bog down under a load. I have found that if I only give it about half throttle it will slowly drill through the ice but with much less power obviously. Also if that doesn’t work, I have found that if I move the choke lever to in between half and full choke it will drill through the ice but with less power. These are the only 2 ways I have found that actually allow me to drill a hole now. It’s almost as if it is getting too much gas on run with full throttle. I’m assuming it has something to do with the carburetor but I am not a small engines guru. Has anyone else had problems like this or have any suggestions? Thanks for any help.

It’s most likely a lack of fuel at full throttle. Your going to have to rebuild and clean the carb. If your not handy with them then bring it to a small engine mechanic.

I have a stingray as well and it’s been a pain you know where. Last year mine was doing the same thing as your’s, I cleaned the carb twice, changed the plug, changed the fuel filter/tubes, cleaned the air filter and used fresh gas. After all that still was doing the same thing, so contacted Eskimo.

Many say they have great CS but that was not my experience but anyways they said to take it to one of their certified shops. I did and well the dude did nothing but snicker at me and ran my blades into the gravel and mud pot hole behind his shop, i.e. I got to buy new blades.

Well still the same problem so bought a whole new carb which was about the same price as Eskimo’s carb kit. Well never got to try it out after that but this year did good the first run but second time out did the bogging down stuff again. After convincing myself not to blow it up, I started to make carb and throttle adjustments and I think I finally got it going good.

So I would look at anyone of those things to see if one is the problem. Make sure you have fresh gas and a little seafoam might help as well. Run a strong mix of seafoam for five mins and let it sit over night, see if that helps any.

Your’s might still be under warranty so I would check that out if you can not get it to go. You tube is your friend when working on that stuff, so I hope my ramblings help some. Good fishing.

The fuel now days sucks!!!! Run Non-Oxy fuel after you clean the carb. I have a guy in the St. Francis area if you need service.

Hey Luke,

I Have a Mako and had issues with the engine not running well, and bogging down, and gas leaking all over the place, EVEN THOUGH I ran fuel stabilizer through it and then emptied the tank and ran the carb out of gas for the summer months. I’m pretty familiar with small engine carbs and they are fickle beasts, so when I saw that the carb kits were almost as expensive as brand new carb, I just bought a whole new carb(time is money after all).

After install and upon starting, it still wasn’t running great. I took off the air filter and noticed that at full throttle, the opening for the carb into the engine was only at about 3/4 open, so I adjusted the cable by screwing out the cable connection(gold color) till the opening was fully open at full trigger squeeze which made it run MUCH faster at top speed. I then looked at the side and noticed that the little silver screw above the place where the cable connects wasn’t even touching the piece that rotates. Screwing that screw IN will increase the amount of air+gas that the engine gets at idol, so if your engine is sputtering, and you have to play with the throttle to keep it going, try screwing that in/out.

As far as gas mixture goes, everyone says to use their own preferred mix of special gas and ratio of oil, I can only imagine that helps, but it’s a dangerous game to use less oil than manufacturers recommend, as that’s the only thing keeping the engine running smoothly. Give it a try, but make sure you measure accurately! I’ve always just used regular gas and the special auger oil, I think it’s supposed to smoke less.

Good Luck! Feel free to send me a message if you want any tips with anything.

A lot of good advice already posted. Has to be a fuel/carb problem. How old is the gas in it? Non oxy or 87? Which oil have you been using?
As stated once fixed use non oxy and run it out of gas every spring

Make sure it is not sucking air around carb gasket. Sometimes it don’t take much to screw up the running of motor.