Don’t leave gas in your power equipment. Please.

On a positive note, my Arens 9.9 snow blower started right up yesterday! That was non-oxy gas with Seafoam stored late March.

-J.

tim hurley wrote:

2 questions for Grouse: 1. Shade tree mechanic told me the best thing you can do for engines that take straight gas is to run some 50:1 gas that you might have around for your outboard, running a bit will not foul your plugs and will lightly coat cylinder walls before storage. True?
Thanks FG

I dunno, seems like kind of a generic mechanic approach to me. So much about engine storage seems to be driven by what makes owners feel good rather than what’s really needed or beneficial.

If you think about it, in a 4-stroke engine, your cylinder walls are already coated with oil. For short-term / over-the-winter storage, I don’t think anything else is needed. All the moving parts in a 4-stroke engine should be lubricated by the engine oil to begin with.

IF you really feel like you need to do something, then…

For long-term storage or short-term storage in corrosive/saltwater environments, IMO the engine should be “fogged” from the intake using a quality fogging oil.

You can certainly fog an engine for short-term storage, again I just question if there’s any real benefit in our climate/environment.

tim hurley wrote:

Your separate tanks you have for various motors should be filled up at the end of the year. True?
Thanks FG

For short-term storage, if you’re running non-ox gas, IMO the benefits of filling the tanks are marginal, but I know it makes some owners feel better. If it makes you feel better, fill-er-up.

For long-term storage, the fuel should be drained or pumped out of the tanks.

For the pressure washers, I just bring it to the basement. Not worth messing around with trying to get the water out.

What’s a carburetor? And gas?
Signed,
Electric Guy chased chased jester

This. Never looked back.

Grouse,

Do you have a good video or training guide for cleaning a carb that you recommend? My 9 year old and I are planning on pulling the carb in his go kart tonight to attempt to get it running. Gas sat in it for 1-2 years since it became an issue. I’m not the most mechanical person, but if we can learn a skill together, we will both come out ahead!

^Jake, I’d recommend looking up the exact carburetor you’re about to clean. Sometimes people post super helpful videos on the exact thing you need. Otherwise, this video from MC Garage is a good intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p44VNddZ7Zc. Just be careful with carb cleaner and rubber seals. It will likely cause those seals to swell and damage their integrity. Also, if you don’t have an air compressor, using a can of compressed air for computer dusting works good for an one off project like yours. Bristles from a shop broom are also a good tool to poke through tiny carb holes and won’t scratch/damage any passageways.

As for fuels, Just wanted to share some things I’ve read/experienced in case people didn’t already know some of this.

#1. About oxy (ethanol) fuels. The ethanol helps to ad oxygen to the combustion (hence the name) and results in a more complete burn. Not necessarily more powerful, but more complete. MODERN engines are designed to use these fuels. You won’t hurt any seals or anything in the engine by using this fuel. I’d recommend using whatever the manufacturer designed the equipment for. Additionally, just using “Premium” doesn’t ensure that there isn’t any ethanol in your fuel. Premium is just a nickname for a higher octane fuel. High octane simply means that it takes more compression to auto ignite the fuel which reduces the chance for engine knock in higher compression engines. Make sure that the pump says, “Non-Oxy” or something similar.

#2. Ethanol gum. Ethanol begins to break down roughly 90 days, but takes much longer to seriously break down under normal circumstances to the point where you will have any problems. To the point of many posts on here, if you have fresh gas in your system in the fall, you will in all likelihood be good in the spring to start it right up. An EVEN SAFER bet, which is VERY EASY to do, is to just run your stuff dry of gas like people have already said.(based on 15 years of anecdotal evidence with boat, mower, leaf blower, weed whip, snowmobile, etc.)

#3. Ethanol gas and water. Ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning that it does absorb water from the air. However, E10 gas will absorb about 0.5% of it’s total volume depending on temp. before “breaking” and causing issues, so that’s not something that any regular joe will have to ever worry about. On the flip side, Non-Oxy gas will not absorb any water. Because of this, if you have a permanent gas tank in a boat, tractor, etc, that could experience regular condensation and only run non-oxy in it, there could be a layer of water at the bottom of your tank depending on where your pickup line is. Ethanol gas’s ability to absorb some water will result in that small amount of condensation being burned up during normal use. So as long as you don’t dump a big chunk of snow or a shot-glass worth of water in your gas, you likely never have to worry about this and it could even be a benefit in certain situations.

Non-oxy gas has a shelf life of around 2 years though, so if you use an engine every other year and can’t be bothered to take care of it. Consider using Non-Oxygenated fuel.

#4. Fogging your engine. Like Grouse said, unless you live in an extremely corrosive environment like the coast, with heavy salt in the air, there’s no need for this. Both 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines already have a light coating of oil on the cylinders from regular use and won’t rust/corrode.

TL:DR is, Ethanol gas is not the devil and in certain situations is preferable to non-oxy. Letting gas sit in your engines for 6 months+ is the devil and should be considered small engine abuse.

4. Fogging your engine. Like Grouse said, unless you live in an extremely corrosive environment like the coast, with heavy salt in the air, there’s no need for this. Both 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines already have a light coating of oil on the cylinders from regular use and won’t rust/corrode

So is this a gimmick to get some dollars?
Every walleye/bass pro has videos talking about fogging their motor for storage.
I get they are paid to market products but have seen plenty that are not promoting a product.
Mercury for sure recommends it in both the manual and on the videos on line.

Dogfish wrote:

^Jake, I’d recommend looking up the exact carburetor you’re about to clean. Sometimes people post super helpful videos on the exact thing you need.

Good idea, thanks.

Dogfish wrote:

Just be careful with carb cleaner and rubber seals. It will likely cause those seals to swell and damage their integrity.

Is this advice to not use carb cleaner at all or use it sparingly?

Look up Steve’s Small Engine Saloon on youtube. He has some pretty good videos and depending on the brand of carb I am sure he has one that will walk you through it. Other than carb cleaner one of the best tools to have is a small wire for clearing all the small orifices. You can use a bread tie and strip back the plastic coating to expose the wire and this is about the perfect size for most the holes on the various parts in a carb. I like to give all the orifices a spray with some compressed air as the final step in the cleaning process.

Wear safety glasses to when using the carb cleaner and the small hose. It is really easy for it to spray back and get in your eyes. It burns really bad!

Just remove any rubber or gaskets before cleaning and be careful of any rubber seals. Check where the gas comes into the carburetor float bowl (Fuel Needle). I’ve seen some hidden ones in there before. Then feel free to go crazy. Also, 2x on the safety glasses. That carb spray has a way of shooting back into your face unexpectedly…..

As for fogging. It’s just the process of putting a thicker oil film on your cylinders/intake(depending on how you do it). If you were to leave it sit for an extended period of time (like a year or more) then maybe it would start to show it’s merits. Likely the longer you leave it sitting, the more fogging would be a good idea. However, in the upper mid-west where my boat sits unused for 6 months max, the oil already on your cylinders and inside your engine won’t drip off or go away. So if it makes you feel safer to fog away! You’re not hurting anything, but for shorter periods of time, I really doubt you’d see any difference in engine longevity over the lifetime of the machine.

Follow up on the original post about the Honda-powered pressure washer.

After cleaning the badly messed up carb twice, I did get the machine to run well enough for the owner to use it and get his deck pressure washed. Thus saving his marriage.

By cleaning the carb twice, I broke a rule I have against cleaning any carb more than once and I paid the price. Because rarely does the second time prove to be any better than the first. This Honda was a perfect example, the machine didn’t run well, it was still “surging” after the second cleaning and the float would sometimes stick, so I had the owner bring it back to me and I put a brand new carb in it. Started on the second pull and ran like a fine Swiss watch after that.

With the price of replacement carbs for many modern machines, unless you have endless time and patience, it’s often better to try cleaning once and then get in a replacement carb and be done with it.

How expensive was the carb for the Honda PW Grouse?

MX1825 wrote:

How expensive was the carb for the Honda PW Grouse?

They are typically around 40 bucks if I remember right

MX1825 wrote:

How expensive was the carb for the Honda PW Grouse?

$30. I can get them cheaper from other sources but I was in a hurry to wrap this one up. This is an aftermarket carb not a Honda original. The Honda original is almost a hundred bucks. Which is typical for Honda.

Grouse you do realize that if people follow your advice that you may be out of business.
I drain my fuel and run them until they stall out and they last forever until they rust out.
I guess you’re ready for retirement.

Tom schmitt wrote:

Grouse you do realize that if people follow your advice that you may be out of business.

Well the good news for me, I guess, is that I don’t do this for a business. I only do it to help people out.

And besides, with apologies to Oliver Hazard Perry, “I have met the enemy and they are us.”

Given the mechanical aptitude and skills of my average “customer” there is no way that teaching a few men to fish is going to result in a lack of fish for me.

I don’t write about the ones where a baffled owner brings in something that “won’t start and I’ve tried everything” and the spark plug turns out to be disconnected. Or believe it or not, I get at least 1 per year where the machine is out of gas.

The only places I buy the non-oxy gas for the equipment sell “top tier” fuel. I don’t buy at Qwip Rip or any of the other places where they sell the non-oxy for sports use.

I fill the tanks prior to storage with the non-oxy that has some Stabil mixed in and have never ever had a starting issue in the spring. But then I take time to start and run each of these units every month while in storage.

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this tactic on this subject but on my current rider and the past one, I installed a basic fuel shut off valve. So I can store the mover full of gas but turn the valve off to limit the fuel that goes thru and also shut it off for the final time of the season with the fuel shut off. This kind of started when my past mower had the seat in the carb go bad after 20 plus years and the gas blew by the carb and filled the crank case and I had a puddle on my garage floor. It was really easy to install and then I would just turn off after every use and turn on before every use and that mower is still running after 25 years. I only run non-oxy for anything I own under 150 hp and store everything with non oxy for the winter. On small items like my single stage snow blower I will run that little 1 gallon tank right out of gas every spring and just start fresh in the winter.