Posted: 11/25/2007 3:41:27 AM EDT
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I know there has been talk here about long term storing of gas and engines and thought I would share a recent experance I had. .....I have an old '92 honda Civic that I decided to give to a girlfriend of mine. When I got a new Honda I parked the '92 and hasn't started in in almost 2 years, Just sat there in the yard with the grass growing up with me not touching it the whole time. This car was always very dependable but does have almost 250,000 miles on it, Ran OK when I parked it. .....Anyway I didn't know what to expect but popped the hood and put some jumper cables on it [battery was dead] and gave it a try. Turned over 3 times and started right up! Just sat there idling perfect.Pumped up the one tire. Brakes and clutch seemed fine and after letting it warm up some I drove it down the road and it drove fine. Get back and it seems the battery won't keep a charge. This is the original battery that came with the car when I bought it about 8 years and 160,000 miles ago. I went and bought a new battery. Had less then a 1/4 tank of gas in it when I parked it and it seems fine, no missing or sputtering or anything like that.....Did take me about half a day to clean the car up though and i will for sure be buying one of those little pine tree things ...I had a '67 VW Convertable once that sat this long and that started up about the same though had to put a little gas in the carb. Anyway just thought it was sort of interesting .......Todd |
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Dedhorse, I'll back you up with my experience. We got to our place on CA last week where we have a '92 Ford f150 w/ 19k miles. It's kept inside a secure building w/ no access and we haven't been here since almost exactly 2 yrs ago. The battery was disconnected but was dead anyhow, I bought it in '98. Put in a marine deep discharge from the alarm system that is on a standby charger until I could get one from Costco and the truck started right up. Tank had about 1/2 full. Truck ran like new, but had my SO fill it up with premium when she had a chance. This isn't the first time we've been gone a year or more, it is the rule rather than the exception, unfortunately. I've never had a problem with stale gas and I guess the longest has been 2 years several times in this truck. The backhoe has had diesel in it maybe 9 years and I'm going to see if it will start. It has 40 hrs on it. If it does, I'm going to flush it. Same story w/ a JD tractor. So I have to wonder if all the talk about fuel going bad after 6 months is just people talking out the rear repeating stuff they've been told. |
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I once read a gas company statement that said that there gas was good for more than a year before there were any concerns of varnish. With Stabil, that sould easily extend to 2 years. Keep some carb cleaner and gas tank additives, and you can cleanup any minor varnish that exists. The worst I have ever seen was a motorcycle I bought that had 5 year old fuel in the tank and all 4 carbs. It still eventually started, but ran very rough. I removed and replaced the old gas, then removed and soaked the carbs in a bucket of carb cleaner for 24 hours, and it ran good as new after that. All my leaf blowers, lawn mowers, edgers and other gas powered lawn tools are hand me downs from people that were going to throw them out. Nothing like changing out the bad gas and cleaning a spark plug and intake to get several more years out of a motor. |
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Did you all leave the tires on the ground or off? I had a car sit for a few years and the tires all seemed to flat spot. I recently ran a tank of 3+ yo fuel thru an outboard.It had no stablizer in it.Looked dark and smelled bad, but ran fine. It was a late 60s Ted Williams  .Along those lines, I run my old fuel out in my mid 50s Ford tractor, usually 1:1 or 2:1 new gas to old. Old motor with a whopping 6.8 compression ratio never skips a beat! As far as vehicles, I have noticed older ones with carbs are much more finicky as regards old fuel. Injected motors seem to have less trouble. Plus the accelerator pumps don't dry up. |
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I have used 1-2year old gas in lawn mowers and boat mowers and once in a car even and it ran fine with maybe a small decrease in power. But even though this can happen there are also cases of vehicles going to crap due to sitting there with no maintenance/operation. Yeah, it might run but I wouldn't put my money on it being a sure thing. |
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Just tried starting the Case backhoe. I was shocked, after sitting unstarted for at least 3 years with fuel from about 1998, it started 1 second after I twisted the key. Started on about the first revolution of the crank. Thr battery has a note where I bought it in 2004, and it's a deep cycle group 34 I think, and after sitting at least 2 years since being charged, and the cables were still connected to it, it cranked the diesel right over. I shut it right down and will take it outside to run it a while tomorrow. No additives or anything to the fuel. |
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Tires were just setting on the dirt, the one was a little low, not flat but put in I guess about 10 lbs. Tell you the truth could have been low when I parked it. no signs of flat spots. Car still runs good and no signs of it not, figure on filling the tank up with new gas but haven't yet. I probably will change the oil too but to be truthful it looks fine and wasn't changed to long befor I parked it I don't think. I had an old Volkswagon that sat and it ran fine too, remember an old Chevy farm truck I bought that I don't think had been run for a long time and it ran OK too. Have to say from my experance an automobile should run fine after setting a few years with out taking any extra precautions like adding gas additives........Todd |
| There was a really good episode of Trucks back when it was good (when Stacy did it) where he revived the motor that was in Sgt. Rock when he first got it. Had a lot of good info in it and the damn thing fired right up after sitting in a field for years. I miss Stacy as the host of that show it is just not the same now. |
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Letting a car sit on dirt creates a depression from the tire. Letting a car sit on an asphalt driveway creates a depression from the tire, big old car though. Letting a car sit on concrete creates no depression and I think it caused flat spots since the tires never would go back to properly round after that but I wish I did not know so much about letting stuff sit. I have had problems in mowers I got for free when the last owner let them sit and the old gas evaportated out. I think it just depends on what one expects and what one gets from a vehicle that has been sitting. I have found it is very easy to get stuff up and running. I have also found it is very common for stuff to quickly go wrong on something that has been sitting and is suddenly put into daily driver service. These days I don't have lots of vehicles. Several combustion engines in things but I do my best to take good care of them now. |
NOT for some Diesel engines!  AFAIK, that only works with Gasoline engines.Ever let a diesel engine run dry and realize that with SOME diesel engines you've got to re-prime the fuel line to the engine MANUALLY!!!! There's nothing quite like ORALLY SIPHONING DIESEL FUEL to get your tractor started up after it has been in storage!  When that s#it hits your lips/tongue there's no taste quite like that of Diesel fuel!  Also, I let my snow blower go all summer in the storage shed with a quarter-full tank of gas, and it started up just fine on 6+ month old gas! Then I let it run dry so I can put fresh gas into the tank... I refilled the tank with my gas can and then realized...  ...the GAS in my gas can was ALSO 6+ months old! I only frequently filled my 32:1 & 50:1 mix fuel gas cans over the summer!  Anyway, the snow blower started right up with 'old' gas anyway and runs just fine. Though I DID notice that the plastic white 'fill tube' that was inside the gas can had turned partially yellow due to semi-varnishing effects of the old fuel. |