Of course, it's always good to read and follow the manual. That said, it's also important to use good brand of motor oil. For whatever reasons, the cheap oils don't run well in air cooled engines.
My fav is Castrol, but other folks have had good experience with other oils. I think anyone using other than castrol is an impolite person who lacks graces. Let the flame wars begin!
Wouldn't those that did not require oil and gas mixture have come along after ethanol was in large use and those most of those could (should) be okay?
I don't know if I've just been lucky or what when it comes to using ethanol gas in my small engine equipment??? But I've never had a problem with it, so far. I have some old equipment as well. Like about a 1970 vintage Simplicity riding lawnmower that refuses to quit. I never even run out the gas tank at the end of the season and it sits through a very long northern MN winter with NO stabilizer either. It has always fired right back up when I need to use it in the spring. Same old ethanol blended gas. Amazing. I also use ethanol in my chainsaws (4 or 5 of them, I lost count) from a 1970's Stihl to a 2008 Husqvarna. Never run the tanks out of them either. I also store ethanol gas in 5 gallon plastic containers for up to 6 months at a time and have never had to waste a drop of it due to it going bad. I could go on and on but I just have not seen or had a problem using ethanol gas in any of my small engine equipment regardless of its age. I also use a good quality 2 cycle oil but not necessarily a name brand oil such as Stihl or Husqvarna. I think some people who have problems with their lawn mowers, etc. not starting the next season just blame the problem on the gas and take it in to a shop and they maby have to put in a new spark plug or clean out the air filter or something simple and charge a pretty penny and then tell the customer it was a "stale gas problem." Just my opinion..... Steve
As to oil, I use a good brand of 10w30, and be done with it. Castrol is my brand of choice.
Gasohol. I'd avoid it as long as possible. Eventually, the Fed will require all stations to serve it, and then you'll have no choice.
Very possible. Please try a squirt of ether on the air filter, and see if it runs for a second. That helps define the problem as fuel related.
Castrol is an oil products marketer.
Union 76 (conocophilips) pumps it out of the ground, ships it, refines it, and puts it into quart-sized containers.
I buy Union 76 oil. It's cheaper than the "fancy" brands, too.
Jon
I'm having difficulty parsing this... :)
Those "that did not require oil and gas mixture" to me means 4-cycle engines. There have been 4-cycle small engines around "since forever" so they definitely were around well before ethanol became widespread. I was thinking specifically of the first relatively short-lived ethanol boom during the Carter-era shortages that affected passenger vehicles but not, to the best of my recollection, small engines so much...
I had difficulty writing it, not enough coffee, I guess. (g)
What I was TRYING to say is that earlier in my life, all of my mowers required the 4-cycle oil. My last few have run on regular gas without the need for including the oil in the gas. Would THOSE (the ones running on regular only) be more likely than the 4-cycle engines to be more ethanol tolerant as they (seemed to me anyway) to come on to the scene after ethanol was in wider use.
There is a product on the market now called 50FUEL It's pure gasoline premixed to 50:1 oil/gas or 40:1 Shelf life of 2 years at least. For things like trimmers and chainsaws, it seems to solve some starting and run problems on my equipment. Retails for $4 - $5 /qt
Kurt Ullman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net:
was that Ethanol,or Methanol? Methanol is really bad news. ethanol(E10) really didn't come into use (as fuel additive) until lately.
Some small 2 cycle motors use oil injection,not a gas/oil mix. current emissions regs forced a switch to non oil-burning motors.
I don't see why ethanol is affecting small motors,unless they used really cheap seals.AFAIK,ethanol would not affect neoprene.I couldn't find anything on the Dupont website about it's alcohol resistance,without registering/logging on.
2-cycle engines use gas-oil mix. 4-cycle engines use straight gas and have a separate oil sump.
Wow, $16-$20 per gallon?! That's sure paying a lot extra for the convenience of not spending 35 seconds dumping a little bottle of pre-measured 2-cycle oil into a small gas can.
...
And again, w/ the possible exception of seals or some plastics, it's fine. The only problems would be with much older equipment that was designed for leaded fuel which hasn't been available for almost 20 years.
I'm still running a JD 112 that is at least 40, a JD S92 that is at least 30 so don't suspect you've got anything on me wrt the age of the gear...
...
See above...
...
I see no point in storing "large quantities" of any fuel for over a year. I was speaking of simply over-wintering, etc., typically 6-8 months max and not large quantities. What's the point in that, anyway?
Sorry, I've had 15 years more and don't have problems--what can I tell you other than I don't store fuel longer than a year.
I can definitely assert it did _NOT_ have anything at all done to it other than load it on the truck when we moved it and unload it and put it in the shed here when we arrived.
...
All I can say is it has never been an issue I've ever seen over the periods stated...
If I ever see one, I'll give it a go... :)
Doubt it would have helped on the lead-salt deposits in the old mower I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, however...
--
Jim Yanik wrote: ...
...
Hmmmm...good question and I don't recall otomh now. I'll have to check but I'd forgotten that may have been methanol then. That would indeed make a difference.
--
I have a 30+ Deere 110 riding mower, a Kubota B7100DT tractor, etc.
The point is to have fuel on hand to refuel the mower for the 3.5 hrs or so it takes to mow the lawn, have fuel to keep the generator going during power failures, and also reserve fuel for long trips.
This fuel was generally well under a year as well, with the equipment having been last fueled and run ~Oct and restarted in Mar or so.
Prior to your acquiring it.
Someone gave me a pressure washer they couldn't start. I pulled the carb off, gave it 10 min in the ultrasonic cleaner, blew it dry with compressed air, reinstalled it and the engine started right up and has run fine ever since.
Well, if you're into the listing game, ( :) ) then there's the JD 955, the JD 4440 and 4640, JLG 40H, w/o itemizing haying and harvesting equipment, etc., ...
...
If it's on hand for over a year, your capacity is too great is the point and you've got much inventory aging that isn't doing anything useful. Get the quantities on hand such that you're turning it over in a few months at most.
And if it takes 3-1/2 hr to mow the lawn you need a larger mower or better layout...or more goats. :) (Altho if I bag the lawn it can take close to that w/ handling the clippings and if add in time for mowing all the grounds around the outbuilings, corrals and feedlot and equipment park areas it would be a couple days. Doesn't rain so much here that have to do anything but the yard very often, thankfully.
We go thru couple thousand gal diesel/month during peak seasons of planting/harvest. Gasoline consumption isn't near what diesel is, of course, but still a 250 gal bulk tank doesn't make it through more than
3-4 months for the pickups and old trucks and so on so the little dabs that the small engines use is the spillings, basically....
Well, why did you go on about over a year then???
I bought it new and it has never been out of my possission, sorry...it had been used the summer before we moved and parked as it was the last time it was used in TN before returning to KS. Here the garden spot was/is large enough I used the 5-ft tiller on the 955 and the 3-ft on the old 112 and never bothered to get the little hand guy out until this year I decided to see if the cultivator attachment might fit between the rows. Turns out it did and in this sandy soil instead of the TN red clay and rock and on flat ground instead of TN hillside it worked quite nicely...
And of course the fuel left in the tank _was_ pretty nasty; I've never said I'd not use fresh fuel in anything that was stagnant for over a year for starting (altho it certainly would run quite unaffected to simply fill the tank w/ fresh).
--
You were misled about the oil, and the E10 fuel will not harm your lawnmower.
s
I did the math. I'm not driving to the gas station to fill up a 1-gallon can, nor buying the oil separately. And I'm getting pure product with no ethanol. My Ryobi trimmer had been giving me problems with hard starting and running. It's much better with the first tank of this stuff. A quart will last me about 2 months of summer usage.
I don't make a special trip to fill a gas can and just bring it along and stop on the way home and fuel the car at the same time. You can buy synthetic oil that contains fuel stabilizer in an easy measure bottle. I noticed a significant improvement in operation when I started using it.
I haven't noticed any issues with ethanol blend except that it was stupidly implemented. Currently only two brands even sell it in my area because it is more expensive than "plain" gasoline.
He is right, but for the wrong reason. It takes special materials to handle the corrosive alcohol in fuel. Many older cars and truck could be ruined by using gasohol. Small engines are not designed to handle alcohol in the fuel and will eventually destroy the carb.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.