It doesn't. But the low boiling point fractions evaporate, which can make it hard to start whatever it is you're using it in. But like everyone else here, I've never had any problems with restarting the mowers in the spring.
Yes, bit not in its pure state. Old petrol loses the volatile fractions fastser than the less volatile, so it will have distilled itself a bit into a less explosive mix.
But cut say 2:1 with fresh, it should be fine.
The key is how much of the can is left compared with when you parked it up? If its say half gone, its OK, but needs more fresh. If its still more or less all there, it will probably be fine.
I left a ride on for 2 years unstarted..it wouldn't start. A new can of petrol on its tank leaving the old there, and it was fine.
Depends on evaporation rate from where its stored.
Its 2 years on it gets a bit hard.
Likewise 2-stroke mix left in not well sealed tanks can leave the oil behind and gum up clunks and carbs..
The ride-on is electric start and although it can be idiosyncratic, I don't have any trouble starting it. My wife came up with a brilliant suggestion for starting the push-about; we stand it in the greenhouse for an hour or two before trying to start it in the spring. Much safer than my trick of using a hot air gun on it.
I have a 2 stroke brush cutter and a chainsaw, and have never had trouble with either, at least once I'd realised that the starting instructions for the (McCulloch) chainsaw were utter tosh and guaranteed to flood it.
They do say that carbs can become gummed up with the deposits of petrol after being stood a long time unused, but as already said, I have never had any problem.
Hmm, the carb in our 40 year old truck was full of all sorts of crud - gooey stuff as well as deposits which had managed to escape through the fuel filter over the years. I only discovered it was that way after the needle valve jammed open and it started pouring fuel all over the exhaust manifold underneath :-)
I gather it had sat for quite a while at the previous owner's place, but I don't know if the gooey stuff was a gradual build-up or just a result of this.
cheers
Jules
That is a little different to having poured a large quantity of petrol into an enclosed place, leaving it for "a while" the dropping a lit cigarette into the now nice vapour build up... The temperature and volume of the fuel hitting the cig is enough to cool the small amount of heat available below that required for ignition.
Mr Bloomfield's example is also some what different to the case we are exploring. Not enough fuel to produce a high enough vapour concentration.
As a lad I used maybe a table spoon full of petrol to start a fire. It started alright! The whole pile of wood (about 18" across and a foot high) expanded several inches and fell back whilst the flame front had a good attempt at removing my eye brows and hair... Source of ignition an ordinary match after the chemical fire had finished. I have a deep respect for petrol. Paraffin or diesel are harmless by comparison.
And what will that do to his *diesel* car?
MBQ
Nothing worth worrying about.
Most diesel cars don't *have* a petrol tank.
On Tue, 12 May 2009 23:17:36 +0100, Mike Barnes had this to say:
Pedant! Next you'll be saying that your telephone isn't connected via a telegraph pole. OK - it may not use a pole at all.... :-)
(to be extra-pedantic, telephony is generally regarded as a subset of telegraphy). So is data such as Prestel/internet/broadband whatever ...
So the advice to "just chuck it in the petrol tank" is even less useful.
MBQ
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