Gosh darn it! I purchased and had delivered a new snow blower and we're due to have a storm overnight tonight and into tomorrow. I went to Sears/Kmart looking for a gas can (really plastic) and they did not have any. I had intentions of getting a one gallon can, with gas, and mixing the requisite oil in it for my snowblower.
Soooo.......now that I don't have a gas can I was going to use my hand siphon device to get a half-gallon of gas out of my car and then do the mixing. I gotta find a suitable container for this though. Suggestions?
Would plastic (i.e refrigerated liquid juice container) not work because it might react with the gasoline? All I need to do is mix a half-gallon of gas and an ounce or two of oil.
There are a lot of places that sell gas plastic and metal gas cans. I'm surprised Sears was out of them. In these days with What's it called, Computer based last minute ordering, if 2 or 3 people buy one instead of the expected 1 person per 3 days, they can be out, but in two days they'll probably have them in again.
For auto-parts stores, they might be more careful to never run out. And the odds are high they won't both run out at once.
Gas-stations charge twice as much on parts they install, and maybe even more on gas-cans, which they keep mostly for customers (most of them non-regulars) who have run out of gas and really need one. They used to lend them free, but now they probably want a deposit twice what a can costs.
In the 60's I found out that a Dairy Queen dish dissolved into a puddle of plastic in gasoline. I was cleaning something. It took 10 minutes or more so even though many plastics hold gasoline, I don't know which ones and they may suprise you.
I used to store gas for a camp stove in a Wisk bottle. It was red and only a pint, small enough to take camping, and I wrote gasoline on it in big black letters.
But you're not on the highway without any gas, and you are going to have this snowblower for years. Get a real can.
I wouldn't try siphoning also because this is not an emergency, and inhaled gas is very "poisonous". (I don't know if it literally a poison, but it can kill you.) Go to the gas station and put the cas in your new can, then fill your car's tank and pay for them both together. The auto-stop won't work well with something as small as a gas can, you need to control the trigger yourself. Do this just before you go home, and prop the can so it doesn't spill.
To answer your question a plastic juice container will work in a pinch. However, do not store gasoline in the juice jug. Any gas you do not pour into the snow blower, pour it back into your car. When the jug is empty cut it open and let the gas dry out before you toss it.
Chemically the juice jug is the same material an a plastic gas can, but the plastic is a whole lot thinner and as 1 gallon of gasoline vaporized is the equivalent to about 14 sticks of TNT, this is not a risk you want to leave sitting in your garage.
Repost identifying your new snowblower. Gas+oil mixes are required only for 2-stroke gas engines. In this country snowblowers have not for many years used 2-stroke engines -- only 4-stroke engines, where oil is added directly to the sump, not mixed in fuel.
That's what I thought too. I've seen lots of 4 cycle snowthrowers and small electric ones, but I haven't seen a two cycle one. Given that this is supposed to be a new one, it seems a little strange.
You will find a plastic or metal thing specifically made for storing gasoline. You will stop thinking of alternatives right now. The thought never occurred to you. Pretend it never happened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------- You mentioned Sears. Just thought you'd like ot know that the Sears snowblowers (at least on their website) are all 4-cycle engines, and don't require a gas/oil mix. Don't mix the gas and oil unless you've got an owners manual that specifically tells you to do it. A gas oil mix will possibly foul the spark plug on a 4-cycle engine.
Once, my upstairs neighbor came to see me looking for help because she had drunk some bleach.
One roommate put bleach in one of those translucent white plastic milk bottles. A second roommate thought it was milk and put it in the refrigerator. And this third roommate thought it was milk, may have poured it in a glass, and drank some.
Related. Strangely, neither of my first-aid manuals listed it among the poisons or anywhere, and the emergency phone number said she had nothing listed, but she checked with a doctor and said it was not a problem. That was 1980. Since then other people have told me it is a problem, and I don't remember the recommended treatment. Maybe it wasn't a problem in this case because she didn't drink much. But there still should have been an entry in the manuals and the operator's manual.
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