quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
^^ Unless said generators have plastic/polyethylene fuel tanks, draining them dry is ill advised as the inside of the tank will rust. Metal tanks should be stored full to prevent corrosion. That said, if they do have poly tanks, then close the fuel valve, run them dry and drain the tank.

Thank you Sir - Did not realize this. I just finished changing the oil again in mine and draining the remaining gas and was about to put it up. Prior to this it was new in the box. We had to run it with frequent stops for refueling and oil changes for SIX days due to the ice storm that hit North MS two weeks ago today.

StarTron fuel stabilizer

Put it in the fuel, run the generator to get it in the fuel line and carb and turn it off, you don't have to drain it if you do this.

Member California Phil has a motorcycle shop and is a dealer and can drop ship it. I use it here because we have to store generators for Hurricane season.

Since he turned me on to this, zero issues with gummed up carb, fires up first pull every time.

After having gone without power for six days last week due to an ice storm that hit North MS, with temperatures getting into single digits at night, we will be buying a Tri-Fuel generator in the near future, eliminating the need to have a large amount of non-ethanol gas on hand before any future predicted storms. The house we purchased nine months ago has a 3/4” natural gas line stubbed off on our small covered patio.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
The day after they are "stored" and no longer easily brought back into service, some random drunk driver will knock down the power pole that feeds your house. This could be well after winter weather is long gone.

After they are correctly stored they are ready for service. The problem is when months or years after they were not stored and you need it.

StarTron is the way to go and works very well as a stabilizer and also counters the Ethanol.
I use it in both regular and ethanol free fuel. It keeps everything nice and running. Even when it sits all winter.
I keep 20 gallons on ethanol fuel and use StarTron. I drop it in the truck and it has always worked just fine.
I have a generator now and will run the generator every other month just to help and keep it fresh and rolling.
My generator is medium sized so it has a little cubby in the garage and super easy for me to roll out and run whenever.

So I just flip the fuel shut off switch and let it run till she dies.
Don’t drain the tank.

All I know is I stored my generator the way nhracecraft recommended on page 1. 18 years later, I changed the oil, filled it with fresh gas, and it started on the 5th pull. I’m sure it would have started earlier, but after 18 years I forgot that even thought I wasn’t using the battery for electric start, the key had to be in the on position. It took me 4 pulls to turn the key.

With the second identical generator that I had never run, never put oil in and never put gas in, all I did was put oil and gas in, turn the key, and it started on the second pull even with the busted choke lever.

Make storage as complicated as you want, but running the carb dry has never failed me.

The detergents in quality fuel are designed to remove deposits created in fuel combustion. The chemistry is not focused on room temperature fuel storage. Other components in a fuel additive are focused on corrosion inhibition and water separation.

This has worked for me for a couple of decades and numberous small engine generators, outboards, motorcycles, lawn mowers, chain saws, etc. .
Ethanol free gas always. If you put even one tank of ethanol fuel in it, you are screwed eventually.
Stabilized fuel, tank full, carb full, fuel shutoff off if there is one. Oil changed if its not newish.
Small amount of engine store prior to shut down and storage.

^^^^ Some of you are wasting time and money doing things with generators that just isn't needed.
All of you that use fuel stabilizers, and IF they work for you, so be it. I am happy for you!

I have owned the same Coleman Powermate generator for about 20 years now.
I usually wait a day after grid power is restored before I put the generator back into storage.

It's easy to drain the polyethylene fuel tank on my generator. So I do. I drain the fuel in the generator tank right back into the fuel storage can it came from.
My generator has a Honda GX 13 HP motor. The carburetor float bowl has a brass screw drain plug. So I drain the carburetor after every single use of the generator. Every single time!
Both of the steps above are what the generator and engine manufacturer tells you to do in the pair of owners manuals.
It's 10 to 15 minutes max for draining the generator fuel tank and the Honda GX float bowl.

My generator starts now the same as it did the day I bought it. The first pull, ignition OFF, choke on FULL. Second pull, ignition ON, 3/4 choke, it starts. Every single time for twenty years.

Once per year, I pour the stored ethanol gas in the fuel storage cans into one of the daily driver vehicles and burn it up. I replace the fuel in the fuel storage cans with regular ethanol gas.
No fuel stabilizer used.
I use a black magic marker on the fuel storage cans and write the date on the can when it was filled. When it hits one year and it hasn't been used, into the daily driver gas tank.

Three or four times per year while the generator is stored, I give the recoil starter rope several pulls and splash some oil around in the Honda GX crankcase.
It keeps the piston rings from rusting to the cast iron cylinder wall.
I might not use or run the generator again for several years.

So you CAN use ethanol gas in your generator for producing electricity, you just can't leave it in the generator fuel tank or carburetor when it's sitting in storage.

I drain the carb, cover it and store it. I run it for 30 minutes once a month repeat the process. No issues.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
I don’t do the running dry like I used to, never really gets ‘dry’. The little left evaporates.

My preferred method is to run 100 LL aviation fuel into the carb. If that’s not possible, non-ethanol fuel with maybe stabil, or similar.

The next component is to start it inside a year, let it run for 15+ minutes.

Run 100LL or Trufuel available at Lowe's through them. Or run that and then every 4 months run it with a load until it runs out and refill.

I have two Honda generators and I always siphon fuel out then run till it runs out of the residual fuel. There is a small screw at the bottom of the carb which drains out of small hose that’s attached that gets rid of the last bit of fuel. I like many here only use non-ethanol fuel.

I converted my generator to run on propane so I no longer have any fuel issues.

https://youtu.be/OHXYWxMkhog?si=5IZbOCIbIuKTzWN8

Comprehensive fuel stabilizers review with long term testing.

Since I exercise my generators every 4-5 weeks , I never worry about using non ethanol gas. My oldest generator is over 15 yrs old and has never had non ethanol gas in it. E-10 is not a death sentence if you keep it fresh. Some of this advice here is kind of amusing . Ya'll do what you want , and I'll continue to do what works for me .

quote:

Originally posted by jed7s9b:
I see talk of gummed up carburetors all the time. I have worked on more carbs than I can possibly image and I’ve never seen anything but powdery corrosion that often plugs up the passages and jets. I’ve never seen a carb for a mixed gas 2 cycle engine with this corrosion. This makes me consider running a little 2 cycle mix gas for the last few minutes of operation.

Never saw " gum " either . White powder was the only thing I saw . I've had a chainsaw that had E-10 premix and it sat up for nearly a year . It took some starting fluid to get it to crank initially but after that it was ok .

I’ve had the needles from the FJ1200’s carbs look like Christmas trees. They were aluminum and very pitted once I cleaned the corrosion off. They got replaced.

The gum comes from not shutting the fuel to the carbs. One of my lawn mowers doesn’t have a shutoff and I made the mistake of leaving a a full tank of gas in it and not running it dry. Two years later, the fuel was gone, the float bowl and main jet were covered in a gummy mess that smelled like varnish. All the fuel in the tank had flowed into the carb and evaporated. The gummy mess was what was left that didn’t evaporated.

I guess I'm going to have to do a controlled experiment and put some E-10 87 Octane gas in a small glass container and let it sit until it evaporates off . I'm curious to see this strange " gummy mess" that people are claiming to experience.

For those who despise, decry, and detest ethanol containing fuels, please remember that there are over 400 different hydrocarbon species in "gasoline." Each species can be prone to oxidation, reaction, evaporation, separation, etc. The deposits you see, particularly varnishes and brown gunk, are likely from fuel, not ethanol.

There are special fuel formulations for small engines, as you find in name brands like Stihl pre-mix two-smoke fuel. These fuels are purposefully made to burn well and cleanly.

Ethanol is a polar solvent, and can increase fuel octane. Ethanol-containing fuel deposits are typically less than ethanol-free fuel deposits, in the ASTM D6201 engine test.

https://www.intertek.com/autom...sting/astmd6201-ivd/

To me, the best practices are to remove fuel if the generator is not to run, or to run the generator monthly.

I think most has been posted. One thing mentioned above is having the generator ready to go, with fuel in it.

Not too big of a deal to add the fuel, but even easier to just crank it up.