Gas Question

[bffatcat]

I recently replaced my 20 year old 8hp Mercury a new 4 cycle 8hp
tohatsu. The dealer told me that due to the ethanol content in the gas it should
not be kept longer than a month. If the gas gets to be a month old dump it in your cars gas tank and refill your gas can with fresh gas he said. I dont motor much, I sail on and off my mooring. The only time I motor is when Im out of breeze. Most of the time at the end of a month Ive still got 1/2 a can of gas or more. This means I have to take the can off the boat every month get a funnel and dump in the car. Refill the gas can and bring it back on the boat. I find this entire exercise a pain in the neck. Any truth to this dealers old gas story?

 

[jimq26]

It doesn't say that in the manual does it?

I have the Tohatsu 9.8 4-stroke. The motor is used to get in and out of our harbour (local regulations prohibit sailing in and out). A tank of gas lasts me a good four months, and we have ethanol in our gas. I have never considered dumping the gas after a month in the tank. I do put in a measure of Stabil gas stabilizer with each tank, and I think that helps. The engines come with a 3 year warranty, and I doubt you will have any problems.
I think the dealer is making a mountain out of a mole hill. IMHO.

 

[larry w]

Well, yes and no

a month is a recommendation, not a hard/fast rule; however, if you want your engine to last longer and run better, you should run it every time you take the boat out, and by run it that means run it long enough and hard enough to bring it up to operating temp and keep it there for ten minutes. That should burn some fuel. I buy gas for my dink outboard, an 8hp Nissan, one gallon at a time to avoid having old fuel in the tank.

 

[Rick D]

Gas Storage

Well, by way of my personal experience, gasoline distributed in SoCal isn't lasting nearly as long as it did a few years ago. I had to O/H my carb on my Merc dink OB twice in one season to get out deposits. My snow blower fuel and house generator fuel went bad in two months. I now use an fuel preservation additive on all of them, but even then, when the fuel gets past six to nine months, the engines run rough until they get fresh fuel, and that's running them dry every time. I now try to keep the fuel level low and add fresh whenever I am going to use them. It does make keeping a fresh supply of fuel around for emergencies difficult. Some guys are converting the home generators to propane. (BTW: SoCal + snowblower = living in mountains) Rick D.

 

[stevec22206]

I have an older

Honda 4 stroke and I have noticed that right about a month and a half after filling up this motor begins to run poorly. It is a pattern that has revealed itself over the past four years. Now I only fill it halfway. I too have had to dump old gas into one of my vehicles and put fresh gas back in. Haven't tried a stablizer but I may try it now because I don't want to risk running short of fuel.

 

[Rob2435]

Ethanol

It has been causing outboard problems at my marina. I was having problems with my engine not running smoothly, missing the top end and stalling - changed the plugs, fuel filter and cleaned the carburetor which got it back up and running

Adding a fuel stabilizer is a good idea for any gas that is going to sit for a while but especially true for fuel with ethanol. One trick I’ve learned is to pull the fuel tank and let the outboard run, it will drain the carburetor bowl and fuel filter which should help keep things in working order as it doesn’t have the chance to gum up either.

 

[jviss]

Interesting

" I buy gas for my dink outboard, an 8hp Nissan, one gallon at a time to avoid having old fuel in the tank. "

How big is the tank? How often do you buy fuel?

 

[Bob Poff]

Ethanol loves water

Ethanol binds readily with water. That's what "Dry-Gas" is.
In a car with the volume being used, it just gets burnt and expelled.

I could see that being a problem with relatively small volumes.
It wouldn't take long to build up a sizeable (percentage wise)concentration of water in a small tank.

Just my guess.

 

[Timo42]

iI have a 3 gallon tank, 6hp Tohatsu

The first year, I ran on the same tank of gas all summer, started having stalling problems in the fall, tank is stored at home, changed fuel, problem solved, now I add stabil and use fuel in tank for lawnmower, weedwhacker, pressurewasher etc as necessary, new fuel almost every month, no problems so far this year, i am a believer. The fuel we have now is so bad it eats the fuel senders in cars, I replace them all the time at the shop, very nasty, short lived stuff. Tim

 

[Jim Seamans]

You almost got me Rick with that snowblower!

Long Beach.

Jim

 

[caguy]

Seems to me that I read somewhere that if you keep

your tank topped off that it reduces the condenstion in the tank by reducing the amount os air above the fuel. I may have read it here.
Frank

 

[Brian D]

I too use a small, 6 gal fuel tank

I put in two gallons when I go sailing. The remainder is put into my car tank when I am done. On the boat, I have 2x30 gal fuel tanks that I doubt will ever be used again. I had 3 year old gas in there. Ended up costing me big $$ to get my engine fixed.

The 6 gal tank works great. With my gal/hr burn rate, I can about 36nm, if I were to motor that far.

 

[ITMaster]

I have had problems with the Ethanol in Gas

with my 4 stroke. The owners manual says in it to NOT use gas that contains either ethanol or methanol. We can only get gas that has ethanol in it. I have had to replace both the fuel pump and carb ($350 parts and labor) and the engine is 4 years old. What I have started to do is this. I use the gas with the ethanol in it, when I am done with the engine and if I don't plan on using the engine the next day, I run all the gas out of the engine and the carb and ensure there is no gas left in the engine. I put two products in the gas. One is CRC gasoline stabilizer at the recommended loading and the other product is WaterZorb and again, I put that in at the recommended loading. Since I have adopted this practice, things seem to be ok. The engine will start usually on the second pull and runs and idles smoothly.
Personally, I think the govt. and the gas manufacturers didn't have a clue when they passed the policy that requires boaters and small engine aircraft to use ethanol based gasoline.

 

[Joe]

well, I'm going to agree with Jimq26...

1 month is ridiculous! I have a 2 stroke tohatsu 9.9 that's been converted to a 15hp. I run it dry when leaving the boat. I top off the 6 gallon tank every other time out with the back up 5 gallon jerry can. I truthfully can't tell the difference in performance with gas less than 6 months old. I wouldn't go thru the inconvenience of draining the tank into my car. I might give it to the gardener, I just add new gas to the old and if works fine. Of course, I may not be as anal about this as the others. My solution would be just to run the motor more.... certainly can't hurt it.

So... my opinion is.... don't change it unless you notice a differnece. Try topping the old gas off with fresher stuff and see what happens.

 

[bffatcat]

reply to Joe

First you cant dump 2 cycle fuel into a car gas tank: Not if u dont want problems
Second. About Your suggestion to run the engine more and use the gas up: If I wanted a motor boat I would have one. Thanks loads for your helpful suggestions.

 

[Timo42]

I look at it as a safety issue,

having had the motor stall just off the breakwater, I am a little more aware of the consequences than some. I know a guy whose flares are a couple of years out of date, his attitude is "When the Coast Guard catches it, I will replace them" My attitude, is my safety and that of my crew is more important than the hassle of getting rid of a couple of gallons of gas every month or so. ymmv Tim

 

[Steve677]

Always buy non-oxygenated gas if you can find it...

Non-oxygenated gas is much more stable than ethanol. Even then, it doesn't hurt to use stabil or sea foam. Regardless of how new or old your kicker is you are going to have problems with the carb if you don't stabilize your fuel or run non-oxygenated fuel. That is a fact, ask any small engine mechanic. You don't want the kicker to fail when you need it and good gas is a lot cheaper than getting the carb cleaned.

 

[Ed Ryan14084]

Where (or how) to find non-oxygenated fuel??

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how you find non-oxygenated fuel? I assume that it's simply fuel that does not contain ethanol? If so, I thought all gas stations have signs that say that their fuel contains up to 10 percent ethanol.

On a related topic, I too had a problem starting my 4 cycle Honda outboard (2 hp) that is about 5 years old. The only thing that I didn't do last fall was drain the carburetor, so I figured if I did that, it would be fine with new fuel. Wrong! I took it for service/repair and was told it was an ethanol problem and that it needed a new carb. They suggested several things. Use Startron to stabilize the fuel. Top off the tank after every use to reduce condensation volume. Run the fuel out of the carb after every use.

This all sounds reasonable, but if that's the case, why am I not having the same problems with my lawnmower that is 15 years old (and has had the fuel run out of it every fall before storing for the winter)??

 

[Peter18012]

Ed you answered

your own question. with the lawnmower, you imply that you ran the tank and carb dry in the fall before the fuel started to go bad. With the Honda, you drained it from the TANK, but left the fuel in the CARB. So when you tried to start it with the bad fuel still in the carb, it gummed it up.

Plus, I'd expect a 15-year old lawnmower is less critical on its need for good gas than a newish Honda.

And, at least in CA, forget about finding any non-ethanol fuel!

Peter

 

[sinnettc]

In Oregon . . .

you can get ethanol free gas at many marinas and farm supply businesses like Cenex. I got some premium "boat gas" for my new Mercury 4hp at the local marina at $6/gal. Next time I'm checking the farm supply first!