Featured Interesting postings on other forums re wear and fuel stabilizers

I saw that and was very surprised! I've always used Sta-Bil but am careful to not let the gas in the can get over 6-months old. (And I never leave gas in my small engines when they are stored during the off-seasons.)
A good tip is always get the highest octane gas you can buy for those smaller engines....really makes a difference.

 

Oh wow. Main ingredient hydrotreated petroleum distillates. That was my day job, I hydrotreated petroleum distillates for a career, "Hydro" short for Hydrogen of course. lab and commercial. But I was a "process" person who makes the stuff. not a "products" specialist with focus on additives. I would say the flammability has to do with evaporative losses of C4's, C5's etc. In some of my density tests reported here years ago, I saw 5% evap loss through a regular plastic...special gaso storage cans are treated to reduce that. One of the eco problems with E10 over E0 is that the alcohol tends to cause more evap losses basically it forces hydrocarbons into the vapor space. This was why California was slow to adopt E10 back in the day. Of course the fix was to force oil companies to heavy-up the gaso so adding ethanol was less problematic. Gee I don't know what chemistry is going on with the metal. Normally with fresh gaso you have vapor space filled with C4's C5's etc. and that keeps out O2/water and a fuller vessel would help. Once the C4's C5's are lost I guess air/moisture gets in there. I've gone to Hybrid car and EV mower, so I am about out of the gas can business. But I used to add Stabil to the gaso can.

 

Nice to know that Sta-bil really works! I always put that stuff in my small engine gas cans. My two stroke gas usually goes almost a year, before I could use it all.

 

i put stabil in our snowblower a few years ago. but it hasn't snowed since, and i wonder if it will start.

 

I'd dump out any remaining fuel and put some fresh gas in it. You'll have issues starting it; due to the old gas and what's left in the carburetor; but a few burst of starting fluid should take care of that.