Wednesday or Thursday I'll have to put all my power equipment up until probably late March. Normally I run everything at least once a month year round but do to surgery work and winter I doubt that will happen this time. Anything I should do different to the two cycle stuff. Normally I just run them till they die from no fuel and call it good but that's only for a month or so of none use
I've always been lucky with access to 91 octane e-free gas plus Red Armor has stabilizers in it as well so the only time I can think of having fuel problems was when I loaned out a pressure washer to someone I thought was a friend. Took months to get it back and by that time the fuel had gone bad. Who knows what kind of crap he had in it.
That's what we do. Run them up to operating temp., drain the fuel tank, start them and let them run until they run out of fuel, crack the bar oil tank so there's no pressure. Put them up.
Pulled out my MS460 yesterday and after doing some cleaning it fired up on the second pull. I was a little over a year since last used and was drained of fuel.
I would dump any tanks that already have months old fuel in them. Otherwise 6 months shouldn't be a biggie so long as they don't sit anywhere that gets real hot.
I'm wary of hot environments for fuel these days. Referencing a friend's dirtbike that spent a few days in an enclosed trailer sitting in the sun after coming home from a race. Unknown what exact temps were reached but the gas in the bike was cooked to the point that the bike wouldn't run. A 2T engine. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't witnessed it. I'm sure they'll be fine. Good luck with the yucky stuff!
Had the bike run on that exact fuel previously? I seen a customers 3 wheeler years back that had a new tank of fuel from the local chain store/fuel station (usually good fuel) and it would not start when cold on this gas...it looked fine, smelled fine, but would not continue to burn once a flame source was removed from it. His machine was kept on the back of his pickup (local game warden) so no extreme temps.
The toy hauler turned into a 'oven'. Yep, it'd been raced on the same tank of fuel. I'm sure you're familiar with stale gas and varnish smell...this was different. The fuel had a rotten/acidic type of smell. I'm guessing it was an oxidization thing.
Yup, sounds like the volatiles "boiled" away...liquid gas doesn't burn, it's the fumes/volatiles that does... so I'd say you are exactly right.
