Fuel Stabilizer

[otisthelab]

Am getting ready to winterize the Bronco and boat. I put fuel stabilizer in both last year and the Bronco turned out to be a disaster. Bronco wouldn't run at idle, sputtered and jumped, etc.

Whatever happened with the stabilizer, it took 2 tanks to get the junk out and about 10 inline fuel filters. Ended up buying a can of racing octane in an attempt to burn out whatever was in there.

So, my question is, does Fuel Stabilizer really work or does it just gum up any moisture, etc. in the tank? My boat has a very good fuel filter which removes moisture as well and I didn't have any problems with it.

Is fuel stabilizer a good idea? Are there good and bad products or are they all the same?

 

[Scrapper_MV]

I have had good luck with startron and not so good with stabil. Try the startron, I get it at west marine.

 

[bronko69er]

Otis! Haven't seen you in a while! You know we cat a local club going? Come check it out! www.northwestclassicbroncos.com There is another guy on Bainbridge restoring his right now, had a build thread going...

 

[Jeepster]

stabil was good when it first came out but since then the recipe for gas has changed many times.

 

[zeeman1]

I've never used the stabilizer, and regularly leave my cadillac sitting for 6 months at a time in the winter. Been doing that for about 10 years and have never had a problem. If I were going to leave it sitting for much longer than that I would probably just get teh tank to about empty and park it. Then just put in new gas when you go to fire it back up.

 

[Dave]

Don't know how accurate this information is but I've been told that problem is with the ethanol added to gas. It makes the gas attract moisture and stabilizers don't prevent that.

 

[Broncobowsher]

What I have been doing with the boat is storing it with AV gas (100 LL from the airport). It is real gas, even has a little lead in it so don't use with O2 sensors and cataitic converters. I have let it sit for almost 2 years including some nasty Arizona summers. Half the gas evaporated, but what was still left was just fine. AV gas lacks the additives that go bad.

Disclaimer, not legal for highway use. Just like most everything else...

 

[Dave]

What I have been doing with the boat is storing it with AV gas (100 LL from the airport). It is real gas, even has a little lead in it so don't use with O2 sensors and cataitic converters. I have let it sit for almost 2 years including some nasty Arizona summers. Half the gas evaporated, but what was still left was just fine. AV gas lacks the additives that go bad.

Disclaimer, not legal for highway use. Just like most everything else...

It actually has a lot of lead in it compared to the old leaded auto gas. Lead fouling is pretty common in aircraft engines. And that is with huge plugs with big electrodes and gaps that are fired by hot magnetos. It is stabile though.

 

[blubuckaroo]

I use Sta-Bil in my bike. It only gets used for hunting. Works for me. Just don't over-do it. The recipe is on the bottle.

 

[Kyle.malone]

Most marinas don't get anything with ethonal in it. The marine motors don't like ethanol. SO if you are putting regular stabil in your bronco tank with some amounts of ethanol, than the mixture is wrong. You need to get the correct bottle of stabil made for ethanol treatment.

The new pitch for new boats sales is to drain the gas tank completely if you have put in ethanol and ethanol based fuel can actually gum up over time.

 

[otisthelab]

Hey BK69er....I'll check out that site.

Now worried on the boat side... I probably have 25 gallons of fuel sitting in a 90 gallon tank below the deck. I have been using ethanol fuel in it. I don't know how the heck I could get it out of there.

Sounds like my homework is to find a fuel treatment that treats ethanol.

 

[otisthelab]

By the way, I found an article on the West Marine website which gives a detailed description of the problems with Ethanol in fuel, what stabilizers can and can't do, etc. etc. The link will show up if you bring up a fuel stabilizer product.

 

[73azbronco]

also I recommend you fill the tank up, half full tank leaves lots of space for water vapor to then condense on the tank surfaces and turn into water.