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It's funny you linked to buyrealgas - I had been trying to avoid them since they seem a bit.. radically anti-ethanol ("first of all, we're literally burning our
by shortstuffsushi 4y ago
It's funny you linked to buyrealgas - I had been trying to avoid them since they seem a bit.. radically anti-ethanol ("first of all, we're literally burning our food!"). Anyway... never heard of using av gas in a lawn mower, that sounds crazy to me. Maybe I'm just hugely naive on small motor mechanics, but the difference between standard, 10% eth 87 and premium eth free 91 seems to be about 0, performance wise, and if you end up cleaning the engine once every year or two anyway... idk. I think I mentioned above, but my frame of reference is Wisconsin. Outside of Milwaukee/Waukesha county, most gas stations sell eth free premium, and many people here actually do make the trip to get it.
- jandrese 4y agoThe problem with ethanol in power equipment is that it tends to dissolve rubber seals/tubes. For some reason small engine manufacturers were extremely slow to switch to ethanol safe rubber and as a result one of the most common failure modes is for the carburetor jets to clog up with nasty semi-dissolved rubber. It's also just the case that people keep their old 80s and 90s lawn mowers running because they only put a couple dozen hours of runtime on the things each year so they don't tend to die except when the ethanol wrecks the fuel system.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoAn additional issue for low use stuff is ethanol is hydroscopic and many of the other compounds are volatile. Even in a steel tank most modern fuel turns into pink slime after some months. Large tanks are generally okay, but if you try to start a small carbouretted engine after 6mo and haven't drained the tank you'll need to clean the jets and replace the spark plug.