Hey, 3 Lakes! Hopefully, I won’t need to use my snowblower again this year. Anything I should do when I pack it up for the season to make sure it’s ready for the first snowfall?
When it comes to power equipment, snowblowers are great workhorses.
Like any animal, they need to be taken care of. What you feed it and how you treat it will certainly determine its lifespan.
There’s a debate on whether to drain the tank or keep it full over the warmer months. If you drain the tank and run the fuel out of the carburetor, you’re left with an open-air space. This space can produce condensation that can develop in the tank, and/or the carburetor bowl.
If you keep the tank full, theoretically no air is in the tank. But, regular gas (with ethanol) can experience phase separation where water contaminates the gas, causing the ethanol to attach to water molecules. This leads to two distinct layers in the tank, with gasoline at the top and water and ethanol in the bottom. That water will ultimately find its way to the carburetor, and it will sit in the bowl of the carb. Now you have a costly science experiment growing in your fuel delivery system. Not good.
Here are some recommendation for preparing snowblowers for sitting through the warmer months.
- Drain the gas and run the machine dry.
- Add pre-mixed fuel to the tank. We sell Husqvarna and RedMax pre-mixed fuel.
- Start your machine. You may notice a smell or that it runs a tad rough.
- Give it about two minutes for the gas to make its way through the carb.
- Turn off your machine.
- Store the machine well-covered and out of the rain.
You may be asking why anyone would run 2-stroke mix gas through a 4-stroke machine. Simple. This is a non-ethanol gas with a good oil that coats everything with a light film of oil which decreases the possibility of water rusting or rotting your metal components.
In the spring when you go to fire it up, be sure to change your spark plug (do this every year) and fill it with non-ethanol or a high octane gas. Doing this will help to keep your machine at the ready for next year’s, UGH, snow!
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