I figured I would share this with you guys. A neighbor asked me to look at her snowblower the other day and I said yes. She thought the spark plug was bad because it wouldnt start or run. I said no prob, Ill fix it as soon as I can. Today I looked at it and it would start on choke but not run once I took it off choke. The carb has a drain on the side that allows for easy draining so I unscrewed it and caught the gas that came out in a white lid off spray can. i took it outside and ran it in some snow and it just didnt sound right so I took it back inside and dropped floatbowl and found more nasty fuel in it. Put it back together and she ran fine. Oh ya I put a new spark plug in it too. Here is the pic of the nasty going bad ethanol that was in the bowl and the clear is after I let the gas flow for a minute. When I first pulled the plug I thought she mistaked her 2cycle gas can for the 4 cycle. But then I looked in the tank and it was clear. The moral of the story is ethanol sucks and pull the float bowl off to clean out carb.
Is that a deteriorating "O" ring or fuel line making it dirty ? Many small engines don't do ethanol well. Some mfgr's are slowly changing components in the new ones so they don't react badly to ethanol Older engines, . Drain when not using for a while helps. Chinese engines, not sure which ones or if any have ethanol friendly parts.
Very nice write up Rookie1! Many more people need to know the effects of Ethanol. This stuff will wreak havoc on a fuel system!! Keep it clean and fresh, keep it empty, or run ethanol free fuel. Period.
I googled this real quick. The dark color is the phase separation. The link doesnt show it but search it on the web and see how we are being forced to use substandard fuel for every gas engine we have. http://www.enertechlabs.com/fuel_phase_separation_in_ethanol.htm
Gotta run them dry & use fresh fuel. Forced is right, not an economic or energy independence reason. In the case of two-stroke engines, this water-ethanol phase will compete with the blended oil for bonding to the metal engine parts. Therefore, the engine will not have enough lubrication, and engine damage may result.
Ethanol "enhanced" fuel is particularly rough on snow blowers due to the fact that they operate in a wet environment. Ethanol + water = trouble. The other issue for snow blowers is storage related. And it has little to do with the ethanol. The fuel itself has been "re-formulated" and in the process we have wound up with junk. The fuel is designed to be consumed by automotive commuters filling their tanks at least once a week. The fuel begins to degrade after as little as 2 weeks of storage without treatment. So you can imagine how problematic storing equipment through a hot, humid summer can be.
I'm so glad we don't have ethanol fuel here! I usually don't get fussy about fuel in small engines. Park it when I'm done... Might be for the day or 6 months.
