By: Hal Jones
The soreness in my right shoulder wasn’t there yesterday. Today though it pains me to even do the simplest task such as writing this post. In September I pressure washed my mom’s house, and when finished I put it to the side. I didn’t drain the fuel tank as the Husqvarna Pressure washer has a fuel cutoff and running the gas out of the carburetor had always seemed to work during winter storage. The unit started up and ran for a minute or two, and then kaputt. Welcome to the world of ethanol gas.
Ethanol grabs moisture from the air and it enters solution, i.e, zum beispiel, you outdoor power equipment’s gas tank. Now all of a sudden instead of gas I have a carburetor full of water, a fuel tank that has layers of water and fuel. I also have a pressure washer that won’t start and a sore shoulder from trying to remedy the situation. Last weekend our Wave Runner was started for the first time. I used Sea Foam before putting it up for the winter. It started and it ran ok, but the power was lacking. After going through the first tank of gas, I refilled with 91 octane and she came to life again. The sluggish response was replaced by sweet power coming out of the hole. Looking down and seeing the speedometer top 80 mph let me know she was back and running at full steam.
With fresh fuel using a 10% blend of ethanol, the Wave Runner runs like she is supposed to. Running with fuel that has been in the tank for three months feels like the engine is always on the verge of cutting out. and it did on several occasions. This is the World of ethanol based fuel products. I am no fan of ethanol. It takes a great deal of energy to make it and it has political types forcing it down our throats. Remember the days when your tractor had a water separator built into the gas line, bring them back. My mower needs one, as does all of my other OPE products. Husqvarna, the World’s largest OPE manufacturer has produced a video on ethanol. Give it a view. http://ethanol.husqvarna.com/video.php Like me, you will learn methods of working with ethanol fuels, its proper storage and how to handle it. Do I like having to shake my gas can before using it? No, but I like even less yanking my shoulder to shreds trying to move water through a fuel system once contaminated.
HJ
