My mower is a year old. Used only a few times. First time I use it this year it starts first pull but after a few minutes it dies and will not start for hours. The petrol was from last year. I drained the tank and the carburetor and put in new gas. The filter is spotless. Yet it still runs for a few minutes then dies and won't start for hours.
Any ideas?

Quote from: The Boo Man... on May 14, 2013, 09:53:25 PM
My mower is a year old. Used only a few times. First time I use it this year it starts first pull but after a few minutes it dies and will not start for hours. The petrol was from last year. I drained the tank and the carburetor and put in new gas. The filter is spotless. Yet it still runs for a few minutes then dies and won't start for hours.
Any ideas?

Hmm... Did you check the breather hole in the gas cap and see if it was plugged.   Bug like to crawl in the holes over the winter.    Also I use STA BIL fuel stabilizer year around in everything, gas and diesel.  It stops varnishing and gumming in the fuel system.   STA BIL will also help with start up problems.

Quote from: The Boo Man... on May 14, 2013, 09:53:25 PM
My mower is a year old. Used only a few times. First time I use it this year it starts first pull but after a few minutes it dies and will not start for hours. The petrol was from last year. I drained the tank and the carburetor and put in new gas. The filter is spotless. Yet it still runs for a few minutes then dies and won't start for hours.
Any ideas?

Had the same thing happen on four other engines...............
Replace the carburetor, don't bother rebuilding it, it was eaten internally by ethanol,
Just got my wood splitter back, it had 3 month old gas sitting it, ran a few, quit, valve stuck, took off cover, unstuck valve, pulled cord, nothing.
I knew at that point it was the carb. so I took it to the shop for a rebuild, something I hate to do with failing eyesight.
Called a week later, he gave me the total and mentioned a new carb. I asked why a new one, he said it was only $27.0, a rebuild kit is fifty bucks and uses the old rubber type material that came in the carb that wore out.
Thing is, the manufacturer made soooo many of these carbs and rebuild kits, that even new equipment will be failing for years to come till they run out of supply.

Should cost you less than a hundred at the shop, so bite the bullet and take it in.

And Walks is right, Stabil is your only option.
And the other is to turn off the fuel and let the engine starve, instead of turning it off, a practice I HATE, but better than having fuel turn the carb into goo inside.

Another option to consider, one I learned about the hard way...

There are still places where you can get pure gasoline, without the ethanol. Depending on which US state you live in, the availability varies quite a bit, but even here in Ohio, it's available within a 20-minute drive from where I live. The trick is to check the marinas and the airports. Folks who depend on their boat motors and aircraft engines will NOT have that shit in their fuel tanks.

Here is a place to find non-ethanol gas near you. (For some reason, the link doesn't work quite right. YES, you're looking for "pure-gas.org.")

So Boo, what did you end up doing?

Quote from: Solar on May 15, 2013, 05:45:27 AM
Had the same thing happen on four other engines...............
Replace the carburetor, don't bother rebuilding it, it was eaten internally by ethanol,
Just got my wood splitter back, it had 3 month old gas sitting it, ran a few, quit, valve stuck, took off cover, unstuck valve, pulled cord, nothing.
I knew at that point it was the carb. so I took it to the shop for a rebuild, something I hate to do with failing eyesight.
Called a week later, he gave me the total and mentioned a new carb. I asked why a new one, he said it was only $27.0, a rebuild kit is fifty bucks and uses the old rubber type material that came in the carb that wore out.
Thing is, the manufacturer made soooo many of these carbs and rebuild kits, that even new equipment will be failing for years to come till they run out of supply.

Should cost you less than a hundred at the shop, so bite the bullet and take it in.

And Walks is right, Stabil is your only option.
And the other is to turn off the fuel and let the engine starve, instead of turning it off, a practice I HATE, but better than having fuel turn the carb into goo inside.

Yup this is the ticket. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You can not let ethanol sit in the tank for more then 60-90 days or so, it will eat the rubber parts and oxidize the aluminum ones, also absorbs water and will rust the metal tank if you have one. New carbs can be had from Amazon or ebay cheaper then the rebuilt kit. As said you can either treat your gas or buy non ethanol.

Quote from: The Stranger on June 08, 2013, 06:27:06 AM
Yup this is the ticket. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You can not let ethanol sit in the tank for more then 60-90 days or so, it will eat the rubber parts and oxidize the aluminum ones, also absorbs water and will rust the metal tank if you have one. New carbs can be had from Amazon or ebay cheaper then the rebuilt kit. As said you can either treat your gas or buy non ethanol.

Exactly. Gasoline and ethanol are not a particularly compatible mix. May the Good Lord treat kindly the well-meaning assholes in our federal government who participated in shoving the stuff down our throats.

Quote from: viking on July 04, 2013, 09:09:38 PM
Same thing happened to our lawn mower. We left old gasoline in it and the ethonal ate the gaskets. It was one freaking season old! Warrenties won't even cover damage caused by old gasoline these days. After summer I'm going to drain the gas tank then run the lawn mower until it dies.

You can get ethonal free gas, you just have to shop around.  It cost a bit more but it is around.  Also use I use  STA BIL fuel stabilizer year around for trouble free gas year around.   Also E15 (15% ethanol, 85% gasoline) is out now in some areas, so look out for it.   



pure-gas.org is a list of ethanol-free gas stations in the U.S. and Canada.

http://pure-gas.org/

I wonder if the guvmit or any one else ever did a study on what this here so called NEW fuel cost the taxpayer overall? Before I learned it cost me a few hundred bucks or so and I did much of the work myself, so I would assume those who take their equipment in to repair shops must be getting hosed pretty good.

Quote from: The Stranger on July 08, 2013, 04:55:16 AM
I wonder if the guvmit or any one else ever did a study on what this here so called NEW fuel cost the taxpayer overall? Before I learned it cost me a few hundred bucks or so and I did much of the work myself, so I would assume those who take their equipment in to repair shops must be getting hosed pretty good.

There are tons of studies, and all prove it to be a boondoggle.

It all started in Ca, and once corporate America saw they could bilk the people of their hard earned money, the rest was history.
From farm subsidies, to the small engine manufacturer, they all saw a chance to make billions, legally.
Oh and the worst best part, it neither cleans the air, nor saves fuel, quite the opposite.

Quote from: Solar on July 08, 2013, 06:55:41 AM
There are tons of studies, and all prove it to be a boondoggle.

It all started in Ca, and once corporate America saw they could bilk the people of their hard earned money, the rest was history.
From farm subsidies, to the small engine manufacturer, they all saw a chance to make billions, legally.
Oh and the worst best part, it neither cleans the air, nor saves fuel, quite the opposite.

I've written about it on this board and others. The federal (national) government never seems to run out of stupid things to do, but the whole ethanol thing ranks right up there with Obamacare. It is stunningly, breathtakingly stupid. Not one part of it makes any sense at all -- which is why it came from our federal government. Your daddy would never have had such a stupid idea, or he would have shot himself if he had.

Quote from: TboneAgain on July 17, 2013, 09:46:37 PM
I've written about it on this board and others. The federal (national) government never seems to run out of stupid things to do, but the whole ethanol thing ranks right up there with Obamacare. It is stunningly, breathtakingly stupid. Not one part of it makes any sense at all -- which is why it came from our federal government. Your daddy would never have had such a stupid idea, or he would have shot himself if he had.

Yep, just another offshoot of the cancer that is, global warming, one more way to make energy that much more expensive.
Wait trill the RINO see profit in carbon credits.

Aside from the damage being done to everybody's power equipment and the added cost of finding and buying non-ethanol gas (can you say $4.79/gallon?), the whole asinine scheme has literally wrecked the agricultural commodity market and inflated the cost of THOUSANDS of grocery items that depend on corn, which includes every sort of meat, all dairy products, and just about anything sweetened. Fully 40% of the corn grown in the US is now being turned into ethanol, and this has driven the market price for corn up around $7/bushel, a ridiculous price, totally unsustainable in a free market, where it would probably be hovering around $3/bushel. As a fun sideshow, because farmers are shifting acreage en masse to the newly-profitable corn, other crops like soybeans and wheat and even hay are now in restricted supply and THEIR prices have doubled or tripled.

This is what happens EVERY time the government sticks its filthy fingers into a market. We all get shitstorms and lighter wallets.

Quote from: TboneAgain on July 19, 2013, 01:40:03 PM
Aside from the damage being done to everybody's power equipment and the added cost of finding and buying non-ethanol gas (can you say $4.79/gallon?), the whole asinine scheme has literally wrecked the agricultural commodity market and inflated the cost of THOUSANDS of grocery items that depend on corn, which includes every sort of meat, all dairy products, and just about anything sweetened. Fully 40% of the corn grown in the US is now being turned into ethanol, and this has driven the market price for corn up around $7/bushel, a ridiculous price, totally unsustainable in a free market, where it would probably be hovering around $3/bushel. As a fun sideshow, because farmers are shifting acreage en masse to the newly-profitable corn, other crops like soybeans and wheat and even hay are now in restricted supply and THEIR prices have doubled or tripled.

This is what happens EVERY time the government sticks its filthy fingers into a market. We all get shitstorms and lighter wallets.

Both party's are to blame for this nonsense, it's why I got so angry at Newt when he was campaigning, he said he had no interest in fixing the issue.

Quote from: Solar on July 19, 2013, 05:58:50 PM
Both party's are to blame for this nonsense, it's why I got so angry at Newt when he was campaigning, he said he had no interest in fixing the issue.

EVERYONE concerned, except the ethanol producers themselves and the idiots at the EPA that want the renewable fuels thing to continue at ANY cost, realizes that it's a complete failure. Corn is one of the most difficult feedstocks for use in ethanol production, and it actually costs more energy to produce corn ethanol than the product yields in the fuel stream. (That's why American ethanol production, which is 90+% corn-based is protected by tariffs from foreign competition, mainly from sugar-cane and switchgrass-based ethanol, which can be produced and delivered at a fraction of the price.)

Yes, both parties are to blame. There needs to be an education effort so that at least one side will realize that it's time to shitcan the Renewable Fuels Standard.