"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"William Andersen" wrote in message
...
I run both my lawn mower and weed whacker out of fuel in the fall, then
clean them and put them away for the winter. If I have any fuel left in
the gas cans, I add it to my car or motor home while it's still fresh. I
don't like the idea of keeping gas in containers in the shed all winter.

"HK" wrote in message
...
JR North wrote:
Just fired up Cruis'n Rulz! after sitting all winter with a full tank
of primo. Ran well, no problems. JR

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:17:18 -0400, HK wrote:

I wonder.

My two stroke chainsaw fired up on the second pull today. I haven't
used it for about a year, and there was still gasoline/oil mix in its
tank.
HOME PAGE:
http:/www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
--------------------------------------------------


I sure like that old truck you've kept up and restored.




Maybe it's just a ritual offered to gas engine gods, but in the fall I
treat all the remaining gas in my various toy's tanks with Stabil and
forget about them for the winter. Last fall I shut my Scag riding mower
off in one of the horse paddocks that I was mowing and there it sat all
winter through rain, snow, freezing weather, etc.. It has two tanks. One
side was almost empty, the other was half full. I had already put a small
amount of Stabil in the tanks the last time I filled them, anticipating
that it would soon be retired for the winter.

Today I went down, tried to start it and of course the battery was dead.
Jumped it, using the battery in the JD Gator, and it turned over about 4
times and fired right up. Let it run on fast idle for a minute or two,
then pulled the throttle back to dead slow. The engine just purred along
with no hic-ups or stalling. Drove it away and it ran fine.

I believe in Stabil. But, you have to add it when the gas is still fresh.
You can't re-vitalize or stabilize gas that has already gone stale.

Eisboch
My experiences with old gas have been that if it's no more than a couple
years old it will probably still work even if it was not treated with
stabilizer. I do add stabil to my gas as well though. I have an old tiller
that sometimes I do not use for several years and it still runs when I try
to start it. Generally needs a shot of ether to get going. It has one of
those carbs where the tank is directly under the carb and the carb does not
have a fuel bowl. Most of the problems I've had with equipment that has sat
idle for a long time is related to the gas drying out in the fuel bowl
rather than the gas deteriorating. I have a 4k watt generator that seldom
gets run and I turn off the gas when I'm finished with it and let it run the
carb dry. The idle and slow speed circuits on those small carbs have some
really small openings so they are affected by deposits.