Dr. Jones
Newly Enlightened
Like many of you, I have an assortment of outdoor power equipment, and TruFuel ethanol-free fuel has turned out to be a godsend for me. It's expensive at over $20 per gallon, but the beauty of it is that you don't have to run most of your equipment on it exclusively. Here's how I use it:
End of season, the 4-cycle engines that have regular gas in their tank are drained fully, then a cup or so of TruFuel added and run for 5 minutes or so to make sure only TruFuel is left in their system. I then put them away for the season, and in the years since I've been doing this, I can get one-pull starts on every piece of equipment so treated when I go to use it months later. This is especially important when you consider that some equipment, such as a generator, may need to be ready to use on short notice. Since in my experience modern ethanol-added gas has a reliable shelf life, as far as small engine use is concerned, of less than two months, by using TruFuel I don't have to go to the trouble of completely draining the fuel and running the engine until the tank is empty, then emptying the carburetor bowl as well.
Come next season, providing I'll be using the equipment regularly - like for example a lawnmower, which gets used weekly and the gas refreshed every month - I simply add regular pump gas to the tank and go on my merry way. End of season, I repeat the process of adding TruFuel and storing the equipment. If the equipment might sit for a few months, like a log splitter which sees random use all year long, I'll fill the tank with a small can of TruFuel and, unless I have a lot of wood to split, might not add any pump gas to it at all the entire season; if I do, I'll use the same procedure as described above once I'm finished using it and it'll sit unused for more than a month.
2-cycle equipment is a different beast entirely; my chainsaws, in particular, haven't seen much pump gas in years, as I run 50:1 TruFuel in them exclusively unless I have a great deal of timber to fell and/or buck. I have saws that have sat for a year or more with TruFuel in the tank and will start with two pulls, whereas before when I stored them I had to not only drain the tank and run the saws dry, but frequently had to work on their carbs to remove deposits left by the tiny amount of stale ethanol gas that was left in them. For me, the added expense of TruFuel is more than compensated for by knowing that the saws will start when needed.
The specs for TruFuel state that it's good for 5 years from date of manufacture if sealed, and 2 years once opened. Personally, I've used it from an opened, half-empty bottle that was almost 4 years old and had been pushed to the back of a shelf with no problem whatsoever, and I've never experienced any issue from it sitting unused in an engine for a couple of years, either.
I like it. Do you use it, and what do you think of it?
End of season, the 4-cycle engines that have regular gas in their tank are drained fully, then a cup or so of TruFuel added and run for 5 minutes or so to make sure only TruFuel is left in their system. I then put them away for the season, and in the years since I've been doing this, I can get one-pull starts on every piece of equipment so treated when I go to use it months later. This is especially important when you consider that some equipment, such as a generator, may need to be ready to use on short notice. Since in my experience modern ethanol-added gas has a reliable shelf life, as far as small engine use is concerned, of less than two months, by using TruFuel I don't have to go to the trouble of completely draining the fuel and running the engine until the tank is empty, then emptying the carburetor bowl as well.
Come next season, providing I'll be using the equipment regularly - like for example a lawnmower, which gets used weekly and the gas refreshed every month - I simply add regular pump gas to the tank and go on my merry way. End of season, I repeat the process of adding TruFuel and storing the equipment. If the equipment might sit for a few months, like a log splitter which sees random use all year long, I'll fill the tank with a small can of TruFuel and, unless I have a lot of wood to split, might not add any pump gas to it at all the entire season; if I do, I'll use the same procedure as described above once I'm finished using it and it'll sit unused for more than a month.
2-cycle equipment is a different beast entirely; my chainsaws, in particular, haven't seen much pump gas in years, as I run 50:1 TruFuel in them exclusively unless I have a great deal of timber to fell and/or buck. I have saws that have sat for a year or more with TruFuel in the tank and will start with two pulls, whereas before when I stored them I had to not only drain the tank and run the saws dry, but frequently had to work on their carbs to remove deposits left by the tiny amount of stale ethanol gas that was left in them. For me, the added expense of TruFuel is more than compensated for by knowing that the saws will start when needed.
The specs for TruFuel state that it's good for 5 years from date of manufacture if sealed, and 2 years once opened. Personally, I've used it from an opened, half-empty bottle that was almost 4 years old and had been pushed to the back of a shelf with no problem whatsoever, and I've never experienced any issue from it sitting unused in an engine for a couple of years, either.
I like it. Do you use it, and what do you think of it?
