Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Two Cycle lawn mower question

Hope, last time to cut the grass and onions in the yard, until next year. Put fuel stabilizer in gas/oil mixture. Should I run gas out of the carburetor, drain bowel and leave empty or let gas stay in carb? Thanks for any advice. Merry Christmas.

I use a cutting board for my onions.

I just leave the gas / oil mix in the equipment with some stabilizer. Have done that for years with no adverse affects. But here we usually fire something up once every 3 months or so.
Even if you drain fuel out or run till it dies, there's a little bit of gas somewhere in there.

Open the garage door
Start up the bike
Let her warm up
Sit on it
Grab the handle bars
Twist the throttle
If no snow on the ground take her around the block
Dream of better days to come
Turn her off and listen to the crackle of the warm engine

Repeat a couple times a month or as needed

I leave Crantini with fuel stabilizer in the carbs and it starts just fine every Spring. I suspect your onion chopper should do just fine doing the same thing.

I always leave it running til it runs out of gas. If your gas has ethanol in it the carbs can get really bad sitting with the alcohol all winter.

Ron's correct and ethanol will absorb any humidity in the airspace in an empty tank and then you will have that awful white powdery crud aluminum oxide crud all in stuff. Pure gas with stabilizer is the way to go.
I would just crank everything up once every couple of months.

Equipment needs human interaction to stay fit.

I agree ethonal free gas is the best way as starting a lawn mower here in the middle of winter..... well that would be like trying to kick start a 60s Triumph at these temperatures. Your elbow like your knee might give out first.

So it's one easy pull and you are off? That's how all my 60s Triumphs start, one easy kick and off I go.

To start with, although I have had NO issues with alcohol added gas in my antique machines or newer machines, I would advise you to NEVER use it in small engines. Not in lawn mowers, chain saws or weed eaters!

I use ethanol gas in all my chain saws, weed eater, lawn mower, tractor, snowblower, etc.. and have had no issues. I even store them when not in use with that fuel in them, except my chain saws since I don't use those as much. Those I run dry to store. I use Stabil Ethanol Treatment in them all though and I have never had an issue. I don't have real gas readily available or I would use it but ,like I said, I have had no issues with the ethanol added fuel when used with the Stabil.

seafoam

My old Aermacchi bikes run fine with modern fuel, but I've had issues with fuel lines falling apart with Ethenal. Now that I went with a better grade of new style lines no more problems.

The ethanol will attack old rubber parts, even the modern polymers will decay from it but not as fast. Unleaded also causes issues with the old valve seats, it can cause them to pit. Rask Cycle will do HD and British heads, machining and installing new seats.

I had to borrow my buddy's old Snapper 2-cycle mower last year for a couple of months when we bought our house, and until my in-laws moved into their condo, then they gave me all of their lawn stuff. Knowing I wouldn't have any 2-cycle stuff after that, I didn't want to buy another can, mix oil, bla bla, so I got a can of the pre-mix stuff at home depot. Comes in different ratios, no ethanol, "pre-stabilized". Went thru like 2 cans of it maybe? Not bad. Either way, it worked fine, and I knew my buddy could store it when I was done no problems. He said it worked fine this spring too.

I use the bottled gasoline/oil mix for my leaf blower and chainsaw, it's convenient, but costly per gallon. Sometimes it's on sale.

I mix my own gasoline/oil mix for my 30 years old Lawnboy 2cyl. All I do at the end of the season is run the fuel out and don't park them next to the garage doors where condensation can occur in the tanks.

in my saws I empty them and try to run whats left through.Since practicing this I have not had a problem.

This summer the regular gas I purchased constantly gelled up in the lawn mower. I had to pull the bowl and clean out the gel that was forming no less than 4 times. I never had this problem in the past. Flushed the tank and even installed an inline filter. Simple Tillotson carb. I'm guessing the 5 gallon batch I purchased had lots of ethanol in it. Premium isn't supposed to have it.....yet!