I have a Champion 181 w/XR6.. I have not used the boat for 3 years for medical reasons. The gas tank has 15/30 gal. in it with Stabil. The question is, should I drain the tank before use, or just put in Dry Gas and fill it up with the additional 15 gal.?
Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
The smart answer would be to dump all the gas.
If you think of gas like food, it generally has a shelf life of 6 months. I know I’ve gone longer, but not 2 years, and definitely not 3.
My neighbor was a well none small engine mechanic he would always love when people said they had old gas he would always say drop it off I can take care of it. He never bought a gallon of gas in his life. It really depends if it had ethanol or not and how much the temperature swings where the boat was stored. If it was ethanol free gas and the tank was mostly full I would not hesitate using it. I am not a big fan of stabil but what I know is if you decide to use the fuel you need to run it out and get new fuel in.
I would not take the chance on 3 year old gas. No matter what additive was added to it. Its just 15 gallons. I would get it out of the tank and fill with Fresh. Just not worth the risk in my opinion.
I would get it out of there.I was told by a wise man-if you have 10 gal.of old gas and add 10 more,now you have 20 gal. of old gas.
2 stroke or 4 stroke? If 4 stroke, I’d top it off with new stuff and run it.
I work on this stuff every day of the week and have for many many years, throw the sh!t out !!
I dont care how you blend it, if you put 15 more gallons of the freshest stuff in the world in it you will now have 30 gallons of crap fuel.
stabilizers mean absolutely zero after one year.
old fuel blended or not will cause problems first and foremost being that it will not burn as it should giving crappy performance, hard starting, stalling, etc.
IT WILL stick injectors, foul plugs, leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere, and make you hate life in general, do you really want to consider all of that to save 40 bucks??????
here is a couple of pics that I took of fuel that is five years old that had stabilizer in it, your fuel wont be far behind this.
KIMG1086-scaled-1.jpg
KIMG1085-scaled-1.jpg
How do you get rid of the old gas
This is where my dad would say “I’ll just dump it in the tractor.”
How do you get rid of the old gas
Your local recycling station
I would listen to iowaboy on this one.
I will happily use the boat and keep it warmed up for you. I’ll even drain your old gas and pump some new good stuff in
Dispose of it ASAP. For a few $$$ it is not worth taking the chance with your outboard. A stalled boat is a lot different than a stalled car.
How do you get rid of the old gas
leave it outside somewhere and wait for somebody to steal it 
For me the easiest way to tell if gas is bad is just smell it it it smells like varnish dump it. At three years old I would drain the tank no matter what. I would also pull the fuel line off of the outboard and use the bulb to get fresh gas to the engine.
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