Winterizing or longterm storage?

I just went and got e free gas yesterday in my 6 gal can, put about 3oz of Sta-bil in, like usual , but yesterday also put in 6oz of seafoam and put the other 10oz of that in my truck.
I leave gas in the saws and other things, all the time , the big difference I have noticed since I started using e free is the lawn tractor and snow blower start up easier and run better after setting for a while.

 

I run e-free gas with Seafoam and Stabil mixed with Stihl Ultra year round. Also keep full tanks, the most anything sets without starting is probably 5 months for the blower and trimmer-never a problem.

 

I store all small engines empty. When not run for 6+ months I add some sea foam to e free gas. I use Stihl ultra in my saws (it has stabilizer in it). I've never had a problem.

 

Well, I try to always keep gas with some kind of stabilizer/ethanol treatment in it in all my small engines unless I am sure that it will run regularly (like the mower in the summer) If I know something is going to sit for an extended period I like to run treated fuel through it and then drain/run it dry...you can never get 100% of the fuel out of it so that's why the treatment...for something that is easy to empty the fuel tank, like a chainsaw, I'll go ahead and dump it out too...

 

I work on motorcycles as my daily. I've seen some nasty stuff.




If you plan to leave it sit for extended periods and use fuel with eth, use caution. Every fall we run treatment through every bike. I run my saws regularly to prevent any issues. I know, erl has additives, but I've seen some nasty saw carbs too.


Moral of the story, when in doubt, buy yourself a can of trufuel and worry no more.

 

What's interesting is the water settles on the bottom.
The green is again probably a reaction of the alcohol presumably settling at the top.

 

And the very bottom of my bowl was where I got the green.


Bow my boats, they always get E free fuel but the carbs still plug up but it's from drying out and the oil and the gas leaving nasty gunk in there but really it's a thick like tar in the main jet in the bottom from the fuel evaporating. There none of the crystals though.

 

I can't get e free fuel, so it gets dumped and ran dry, and then I put true fuel in.

 

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If you've been working on bikes any amount of time I'm sure you've seen way worse than those too...that chainsaw carb is pretty crusty. I cleaned the carbs off my buddys Polaris sled a few years back, he said he always used Seafoam in it...dunno what happened because it was all kinds of nasty...I don't use Seafoam, didn't before, definitely don't after that.
Its kinda weird, it seems some guys do everything right and still have trouble, and others don't do anything special and seem to get away with it...although I'm sure it bites 'em in the azz sooner or later...

 

I didn't realize the HP ultra had stabilizers in it. Good to know. I always add a little seafoam to all my gas cans when I fill up and when I store my saws, trimmer and mower for the year my tanks get filled up with fresh gas and more seafoam. I've never had a problem in the spring starting these machines after storing them like this.

 

I've never seen a carb as krusty as that saw one I pictured. It came off a 55 my son was given. In fact I just had a scooter carb last week I had to pull twice. The pilot jet was clogged up with a very hard substance(for lack of a better term). Then another microscopic piece gets sucked in... Leaving stuff sit is the worst thing you can do with the ethanol used today. I've seen plenty of nasty stuff as a result. I personally have never had one problem with it. My tiller and seasonal 4 strokes get this.

My 2 stroke oil has stabilizer and gets ran frequent enough to prevent problems.


I've used seafoam on 2 autos in the past, but not as an additive in my gas. I pulled a vac line and slowly drew it through the motor, eventually stalling it out. Let it sit for a while then fire it back up and watch the smoke show!! I'm a logical thinker type and the claims and how it works makes sense to me. Did it work, I dunno. I didn't tear down the motor to see specific parts.

 

A question for someone with more experience in this subject . Most first tier 2 cycle oils have a stabilizer in it . But, my question is ,how effective is it at such a low dosage ? At 50-1 that’s 2.6 oz of oil,detergent ,stabilizer ,etc per gallon . I think that There just can’t be a lot of stabilizer in that mix . Am I offbase thinking this way ?

 

I'm not the math wiz... that straight gas stabilizer is 1 oz for up to 10 gallons.

 

Around here e free fuel is like hens teeth. I've had real good luck with: Star Tron Enzyme Fuel Treatment I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. I run it in all my ope. For saws I clean em up and put em up with whatever is in the tanks and haven't had any issues with them the next season.

 

I have been using that some too...seems like it works good.

 

Yeah found it a few years ago while looking for something to put in the generator. Been pretty good stuff.

 

As a few guys here have mentioned, the Stihl 2 stroke oil has stabilizer in it...I imagine any name-brand 2 stroke mixing oil does? I personally never add any Stabilizer to my 2-stroke fuel cans, the Stihl oil seems to do the trick nicely.

Ive never done anything special, most of the time my saws are stored with empty tanks, then I fill when Im ready to use it again. Typically I cut until the fuel runs out, thats my natural stopping/rest point in my projects most of the time, so the saws are usually empty when stored. They've been stored empty for 3-4 months at a time, usually over winter when Im not cutting frequently. Zero issues (I have an ms260 and two ms261s btw).

I just recently found a place that sells 91 octane Ethanol free, so thats whats in my tank now...even better.

 

Just re-looked at my bottle of Stihl HP Ultra and my bottle doesn't say anything about stabilizers. Maybe a new thing or seasonal?

 

Same here. No mention of any stabilizer.