EPA emissions requirements and Ethanol fuel. How much of your equipment is ruined?

[Panhead]

2004 Exmark, sat for 3 weeks due to drought. Rained the last week and didn't think anything of it. Went to cut my first lawn of the day and it sputtered, couldn't stay running. Replace fuel filter, I mean you could actually see dirty floating. That didn't work so I drained the bowl, found water...literally water inside the bowl. Also had to play with the mixure adjustment screw to get the passage cleaned. Wasted 2 hours trying to figure it out, all because of this ethanol bullshit. They also need to filter fuel better!

[Mark Oomkes]

Originally Posted by Panhead

2004 Exmark, sat for 3 weeks due to drought. Rained the last week and didn't think anything of it. Went to cut my first lawn of the day and it sputtered, couldn't stay running. Replace fuel filter, I mean you could actually see dirty floating. That didn't work so I drained the bowl, found water...literally water inside the bowl. Also had to play with the mixure adjustment screw to get the passage cleaned. Wasted 2 hours trying to figure it out, all because of this ethanol bullshit. They also need to filter fuel better!

No, I'm sure you're mistaken.

Despite that's what I've seen time and again.

Despite all the money I've spent on filters, carb cleanouts, throwing gas away because of all the water in it, and despite the fact that I have not had any problems in close to 2 months since switching away from that crap.

It just couldn't be the ethanol.

[ump107]

I am Firefighter /EMT in my town we have multiple Gas and Gas oil mix tools on average we were sending out tools every 2-3 months for carburetor repairs cleaning and adjustments, one solution we tried was running the tools 15 min every week, still resulted in engine problems. I know in the lawn care business you guys are running the tools a 100 times more than that. There is nothing worse than trying to start a saw to vent a roof or trying to fire up a pump engine to operate a hydraulic tool and not being able to get it to run, or walking into the station and having fuel running out of the compartment because the fuel line rotted away.
On the recommendation of a Stihl dealer we switched to SEF94 fuel. It is a small engine racing fuel (Not cheap about $8-14 a gallon). Since we made the switch after the initial run in period and minor adjustments the tools start right up and have no issues we are actually back to running the tools 1 time per month as opposed to 5 times. Other agencies have switched to Tool fuel and True fuel, and seem to have had similar results (I have been using True Fuel in my personal equipment found it at Lowes). I’m not sure if any of you have tried these fuels but there is no ethanol in them and you can even buy it in premixed cans for your different tools. The cost may be a preventive factor for some running it in mowers, but for trimmers and chain saws it might save money in the long run. Since I didn't see any posts on these alternates to gas station fuels I thought I would throw it out there for consideration.

[CL&T]

Yeah, I know I talked about SEF 94 around here before. That's another companies version of what you are talking about. Stihl makes a version also that is available from their dealers. Unfortunately for the quantities we use and also considering shipping the cost is way prohibitive.

If the government is going to continue on this crusade of ever increasing ethanol levels they are going to have make E0 available to those who need it. No power equipment manufactured to date is allowed to run on anything more than E10 and we all know the damage and problems even that causes.

If they are concerned about E0 being used in over the road vehicles, work something out along the lines of dyed diesel and make the nozzels too large to fit into gasoline fillers like is done for diesel. I would also expect that the cost would be more per gallon also but it shouldn't include highway taxes because it's for off-road use.

[Mark Oomkes]

Originally Posted by ump107

I am Firefighter /EMT in my town we have multiple Gas and Gas oil mix tools on average we were sending out tools every 2-3 months for carburetor repairs cleaning and adjustments, one solution we tried was running the tools 15 min every week, still resulted in engine problems. I know in the lawn care business you guys are running the tools a 100 times more than that. There is nothing worse than trying to start a saw to vent a roof or trying to fire up a pump engine to operate a hydraulic tool and not being able to get it to run, or walking into the station and having fuel running out of the compartment because the fuel line rotted away.
On the recommendation of a Stihl dealer we switched to SEF94 fuel. It is a small engine racing fuel (Not cheap about $8-14 a gallon). Since we made the switch after the initial run in period and minor adjustments the tools start right up and have no issues we are actually back to running the tools 1 time per month as opposed to 5 times. Other agencies have switched to Tool fuel and True fuel, and seem to have had similar results (I have been using True Fuel in my personal equipment found it at Lowes). I’m not sure if any of you have tried these fuels but there is no ethanol in them and you can even buy it in premixed cans for your different tools. The cost may be a preventive factor for some running it in mowers, but for trimmers and chain saws it might save money in the long run. Since I didn't see any posts on these alternates to gas station fuels I thought I would throw it out there for consideration.

This is what has been confusing me, because we haven't had any problems with our saws, fans, power units for jaws, etc. I am in amazement, other than they sit in a relatively constant environment except when on calls. We run them once a week for a couple minutes at a time.

Originally Posted by CL&T

If the government is going to continue on this crusade of ever increasing ethanol levels they are going to have make E0 available to those who need it. No power equipment manufactured to date is allowed to run on anything more than E10 and we all know the damage and problems even that causes.

I don't know this for a fact, just what my mechanic has told me, but he is pretty up to date on these things. Supposedly, the EPA has allowed recreational gas for marinas and those using small equipment. I did not sign anything when my rec gas tank was delivered, but I only have 1 gas vehicle in my fleet.

Maybe someone could talk the Google master Green T into finding an article or chart about this.

[CL&T]

Originally Posted by Mark Oomkes

Supposedly, the EPA has allowed recreational gas for marinas and those using small equipment.

As far as I know from everything I have read there is no law that says gas stations have to sell ethanol fuel. They do it for two reasons: First is that they only have two tanks for gasoline, one for 83 octane and another for 97. In between grades are a blend of the two and obviously they are going to be E10. So a station selling E0 has to have another tank and pump like those selling E85 or diesel. The second and probably the biggest reason is that the stations get a kickback to sell ethanol fuels from the government.