Quote:
Originally Posted by Herman Melville
Great thanks.
Nope no E10 for me - sounds like awful stuff - E5 all the way.
I think I will leave it reasonably empty and cover the tank with old blankets - that should help keep the dew point away from making too much condensation.
What stabiliser is best I was thinking about Stabil 360 Marine
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How much water is currently in your fuel tank? That's the important question that you need to know the answer to. It's the water content that's going to be the issue over winter.
You can drain the fuel out of the engine. You can even plug in a portable tank with some zero ethanol garden fuel in it but tapping the carb pot and filter after running dry is really all you need to do. But it's the fuel in an internal tank that is the big question.
If you know there is no water in the tank and if you know you can seal the tank then there isn't really anything to cause any problems.
E10 can actually be better than E5 depending on how much excess water you have in your tank. Ethanol will take up a small amount of water into solution which is actually a good thing through the season as it keeps your tank dry (if you start the season with a dry tank). But it can only take up so much and then if there is excess water remaining you begin to get the reaction that some call phase separation where the ethanol binds to the water forming an emulsion that drops out of solution. This reaction is very slow at RT&P and does need excess water, the kind of amounts you only get through poor maintenance and would mess up an engine if sucked in anyway. The reaction takes 3-6 months to get going and for us in the UK, given our winter temps we'd be at the longer end of the range.
The key being that any action that you take requires you knowing how much water is in your tank. Logic therefor means you might as well ensure there is no water in your tank.
A stabiliser doesn't stop or fix anything but instead seeks to slow down and delay the inevitable problems of inadequate maintenance but it can only do this between zero and at best maybe 3 months. What these stabilisers attempt to do is firstly bind with the water in your tank quicker than ethanol can and then get you to run it through your engine so in reality it's your expensive engine that they are using to get a load of much and their chemicals out of your fuel tank. It then aims to simply leave a layer of its own much lying on top of your petrol as a skin to slow down atmospheric oxygen from being able to react with the petrol as well as the more volatile, higher octane fractions evaporating off.
Another way to look at it is that these chemicals are basically the equivalent of swallowing spiders to catch flies when common sense tends to suggest not swallowing flies is the smarter course of action followed by getting rid of that fly yourself.
If someone has the ability to drain their internal tank then this is absolutely the sensible path to take. The end result being that you know there is no water in your tank but the added bonus is that there is no fuel to worry about going off.
Even if you can seal your tank off from the atmosphere and you know there is no water in your tank you still have the corrosive issue of ethanol to contend with. Over winter, in our country, it's debatable what sort of corrosion it can get up to but there will be some. Yes, you could take a punt on an E5 that may or may not be E0. Esso's map of GB and which pumps are served by which refineries doesn't strike me as particularly accurate and not would I waste any time asking an employee.
I think I'd rather clean the tank out at the end of the season, tup in a gallon of garden centre fuel, winterise as normal and go and relax for 5/6 mo the safe in the knowledge that E0/E5/e10 isn't my problem and won't ever be because I maintain a dry and clean tank and any ethanol used during the season helps by taking up the water from normal tank sweating and gets rid of it.
Mavi Su
spy-sea-one
