[Gaucho]

OK my boat goes in today ..hopefully. Im not in a rush anyway.
I ran the tank down to about an 1/8 before putting it away in December. The first thing i'll do once I start it up is go put some fresh liquid gold(gas) in it. What are you guys adding to the tanks to freshen up the old gas?

 

[DarthBaiter]

I've been using startron all year and some a bottle of Octane boosters for the gas that's been sitting in my tank.

 

[SORTIE]

I ran my tanks down too, Tony, but I plan to siphon all of the old gas out of the tanks and run it through my wife's SUV.

I just paid a Stihl dealer >$200 to overhaul my backpack blower and chain saw -- both carbs needed to be rebuilt. The mechanic told me to run each machine's the fuel tanks dry every time I used them, and to ONLY use fresh high-test gas in them.

My Mercruiser mechanic wants to give my boat's powerplant a thorough going-through and I don't want old gas gunking up the plumbing. The liquid gold in my boat's tanks has been in there for five months now...I would rather replace it with 10 gallons of fresh gas and start anew.

 

[Gaucho]

That seems like alot of work.
Ive tried the starton since rebuilding 2 carbs about 2 years ago and it seems to be working. But since it has sat for 4 months now I wonder if I should add something to the gas. The pump is about 100' away from my slip so I dont have to travel far. I could bring 10-20 gallons in jugs just to freshen it up before the long travel, but I hate traveling with gas jugs. The tank is 125gallons and I would say there is about 10-20 gallons in there right now.

 

[craigkoproski]

If you added Stabil

before storing you should be fine. I had about the same amount of gas as you and made sure I added stabil and ran it through the motors before fogging them. I topped her off with fresh gas added startron and changed my water seperators. I dunked her on Friday and took a ride out to burn off all the fogging oil. I changed the plugs and now she is ready for the season. The guy next to me does a similar regiment except he adds stabil along with startron. I am pretty sure that stabil lowers the octane of the gas so I don't do it until I have run the tanks down and I am getting ready to pull the boat for the winter. Hope this helps.

 

[chinacat]

In the fall I ran down to about 1/8 of atank as well. I added Stabil to the gas regularly for the last month of the season and then again when I stored it along with the Startron that I use all season long.

Before I fired up the motor I added a couple of ounces of E-Zorb.

I then fired up the motor no problem and let it run a good 15-30 minutes. I drained the Racor water separator from the bowl below it and what came out was crystal clear, clean gas with NO trace of water.

So far so good but now I'm starting to get concerned that maybe I'm putting too much crap into the tank. Either way, whatever I've done worked because I've got no water in the lines and the motor is running fine so far.

 

[FredyFluke]

i would put something in to get the water out.
gas (e-10) these days contains 10% ethanol.
Ethanol is hygroscopic?it absorbs water, and will mix more easily with water than with gasoline. Up to 10% of your fuel could become a water-ethanol mix, and the liquid may undergo ?phase separation?, forming a top layer of pure low?octane gas and a bottom layer of water-saturated ethanol. Since the fuel pickup is located at the tank bottom, water contaminated fuel can cause your engine to run badly, or not run at all. This low-octane fuel causes problems with performance in four stroke engines, and can cause damage in two stroke outboards from lean fuel and lack of the in-fuel lubricating oil (due to the presence of the water).

topping off tanks and adding conditioner to the fuel is recommended before winter storage. if you run tank down but not dry, and do not add conditioner you could have some crappy gas in there.

what I would do is treat it with sta bil, and some water sorb, and mix in some fresh gas but not a lot. just enough to run around a little.
run tank down again, mix in some fresh gas, repeat, adding enough sta bil and water sorb to balance the fresh gas. After 2 or 3 times, fill it up, change filters, and if they do not have water seperators get them.

 

[6to8ftSeas]

FredyFluke wrote:
i would put something in to get the water out.
gas (e-10) these days contains 10% ethanol.
Ethanol is hygroscopic?it absorbs water, and will mix more easily with water than with gasoline. Up to 10% of your fuel could become a water-ethanol mix, and the liquid may undergo ?phase separation?, forming a top layer of pure low?octane gas and a bottom layer of water-saturated ethanol. Since the fuel pickup is located at the tank bottom, water contaminated fuel can cause your engine to run badly, or not run at all. This low-octane fuel causes problems with performance in four stroke engines, and can cause damage in two stroke outboards from lean fuel and lack of the in-fuel lubricating oil (due to the presence of the water).

topping off tanks and adding conditioner to the fuel is recommended before winter storage. if you run tank down but not dry, and do not add conditioner you could have some crappy gas in there.

what I would do is treat it with sta bil, and some water sorb, and mix in some fresh gas but not a lot. just enough to run around a little.
run tank down again, mix in some fresh gas, repeat, adding enough sta bil and water sorb to balance the fresh gas. After 2 or 3 times, fill it up, change filters, and if they do not have water seperators get them.



I too was under the impression that topping off your tanks to avoid condensation was the right thing to do.

As far as removing water from gas, I thought the way water was removed from gas was by putting in an additive like ethanol that would mix the water into the fuel and burn it away. I'm not saying I know this for a fact or anything, it's just what I had assumed. So if this isn't right, then were does the water go