Storing your equipment

I keep my splitter ready to use from Feb 1 until Oct 31. I use only 93 octane premium no-ethanol fuel in all my small engines, I buy it five gallons at a time and treat it with Stabil immediately after buying it(so I don't forget). After each use I shut off the gas and run the engine until it dies. In October I drain the fuel tank empty through the drain bolt in the bottom of the carb bowl, replace it and run the engine until it dies. I store mine in my garage from Oct until April, in my backyard the rest of the year. I only split in my driveway and I find it too difficult to pull my splitter uphill out of my backyard either due to snow or soft ground. I have in the past stored my Stihl with fuel in it year round, but never again. I use the same procedure with all my power washer, mowers, saws and tiller at the end of the season after it's final use. It's just what I do, through years of trial and error.

In our area no-ethanol fuel comes in 89, 91 or 93 octanes. I just choose the higher grade fuel, it can't hurt.

I split by hand so I just put my sledge and X-27 in the corner of the shed and my wedges go in the drawer.

Setter Fan said:

Thank you. Have to start looking around for 93 no ethanol fuel, none locally. Appreciate the detail.

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Here you go: http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=CT

All my small motor equipment stays in the shed when not in use, Also on the topic of gas, gas i my area is REG 87-10% ethanol, MID 89-5%ethanol, PRE 91or 93-0% ethanol. I try to buy at stations with a stand alone PRE pump or if not I pump the first 3 or 4 L (1 gal) in my truck to get the REG out of the pump and hose so my gas can just gets the PRE

All the high octane hurts is your wallet. If your equipment is built to run on 87, there is no added benefit to going up to 93. Unless you are going to store the gas a loooooong time and are afraid of it losing some octane points in the process.

You are correct, however, in many areas the higher octane fuels do not contain ethanol.

Eric

SXIPro said:

All the high octane hurts is your wallet. If your equipment is built to run on 87, there is no added benefit to going up to 93. Unless you are going to store the gas a loooooong time and are afraid of it losing some octane points in the process.

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I just used that true gas site yesterday and found exactly 3 stations within 50 miles that have real gas. All of them only carry it in the 87 octane range. I think my saw will be getting the 90+ that the manual calls for.

I would check the octane rating at the stations myself, I was looking at the station I buy from and the one across the street from it. The listed octane rating for both stations is wrong on pure-gas.org, one says 91 and it sells 93, the other says 87 and it sells 91.

I do absolutely nothing to store, and never seem to have the problems others describe here. My generator still had a half gallon of hurricane Sandy fuel in it, when I pulled it out last night (our power went out). Dumped some new fuel in on top of the old (18 months?), opened the bowl bleeder screw on the carb to get some of the fresh(er) fuel into the carb, and she fired right up. Idled and ran under load like the day it was new (thank you Honda).

I do believe that if I fiddled with my equipment a whole lot, I'd probably have more trouble than I do. Example, disconnecting a fuel line to drain down an 8 gallon tank of any fuel left after an outage, I'd probably rip a hose or crack a plastic shutoff fitting, before I ever suffer any troubles from gas left in the tank. I simply shut off the fuel cutoff valve, and drain the carb from the bowl bleeder, if provided. On machines without a bowl bleeder, I just run the carb dry after shutting the fuel valve.

I dump Stabil into my mower after the last mowing of the season, and always intend to put it in the generator, but usually forget. I will admit that the number of good starts I get on 6 month or 12 month old fuel is relatively low, ever since we went to ethanol gas, but I never have trouble if I leave the tank less than half full and then top off with fresh gas at time of use.