Ethanol Crud

[Casey Chinook]

I spoke with a guy from a fuel injector company that flow tests and cleans fuel injectors. He has a friend that rebuilds and repairs small engines in the Northeast. All the lawn mowers and snow plows that sit  during the off season he gets to rebuild the carburetor's on. He does not even look anymore for a cause, he just takes the carbs off and start to clean this white gunk out that sticks to everything. Puts the carb back on and they start right up. He basically stated the same thing that that Rich Thomas said.

That is why I wanted to run the old ethanol out and refill with regular gas if it was going to sit. I am fighting a rich fuel problem now and I hope to get it resolved, so I can go onto to finishing the refurbishing of my chinook. The rich problem I am having may not be a result of ethanol. I just wanted the best fuel in it, if I let it sit for a couple of months. I was also told if you drive the RV on a regular basis you won't have a problem with ethanol.

I had no idea of the problems with ethanol until I spoke with the fuel injector company.

I wanted to see other people's views on the subject.

[Cristina Gouin]

I have used Marine Stabil for a while without issue on the RV though on my smaller engines had issues last winter with my gas actually separating. thus yup.. carbs rebuilt on chipper and mower after putting the stored gas from the gas cans into them. I'm switching to SeaFoam this next year. hopefully that will help.

[Rich Thomas]

I store every thing I have with Stabil  never had to rebuild any of it after the winter. I have a mechanical engineer son that never bothered to follow old dads advice last winter on his new bike and paid the price this spring when it wouldn't start. Stabil also makes an additive that absorbs or neutralizes ethanol in gasoline; mostly used on small engines and marine applications I think but I wouldn't see why if you was storing for a length of time it wouldn't be something to consider. The best advice IMHO is to top it off use Staybil and start it up  often while it's in storage. if you can't start it up then make sure you let it run for an appropriate amount of time to allow the Stabil mix to fill the float bowel and/or all the fuel lines.