Weed Wacker Died

[YLee Kioti]

I use STA-BIL in each fresh batch of 2 stroke fuel.
The gaskets tend to suffer.

My Stihl blower lacked power. Turned out to be a packed spark arrestor. So now it's part of the annual ritual for weed whacker, blower.

Take chain saw to my dealer. Build good relationships and he gives me 'sale' breaks on occasions. a win-win for me.

 

[Oldoak]

I believe ethanol gas has been used as a scape goat for poor small engine performance or failures much too often. I have been using ethanol blended gasoline in my chainsaws and weed whacker for years since non-ethanol gas became a rare commodity in my area. Not that I like it, I just don't have a convenient alternative. But it's not really all that bad as some think.

I hadn't used my Stihl weed whacker since I stored it away for the season last September. Filled it with 10% ethanol gas which I had added Sta-bil to and never used it again until last Friday. Squeezed the bulb a couple of times, put the choke on, and one pull, yes just one pull, and it fired right up. However, that did surprise even me.

 

[beowulf]

This is the first season after several years of reliability that my Stihl wouldn't start. But I needed to weed eat right away so bought an inexpensive Ryobi to get some work done while I work on the Stihl. Anyway the Ryobi came with a container of 2 cycle oil with instructions to only use that particular kind of oil in the machine as it was formulated to work best with ethanol blends and could prevent gumming things up.