Gasoline VS Ethanol -Plus Shop Tour & Small Engine Winterization and Care

all right I'm here with Chris what's your last name Chris kinic klinic from ABC Rental we're going to be talking about gasoline and Fuel and small equipment cuz what this guy knows you don't know and I didn't know the modern-day fuels that we are pumping into our small equipment could possibly be damaging and destroying it now Chris is the manager at ABC rental and all they handle is small equipment let's go over and check out some of the stuff they do so you can see behind us the fleet of equipment what we're going to be talking about is non oxygenated gas crit correct non oxygenated no ethanol fuel okay and so what do you run in your equipment we run non oxygenated 92 octane um regular unleaded gasoline Okay so tell me about how the fuels have changed and what it's doing to small equipment today with the small equipment with the ethanol Blended fuel the the gasoline only lasts about 30 to 45 days in a can before it loses its freshness okay so what happens when it loses freshness what does that mean it doesn't it doesn't combust as well in a cylinder okay so if someone has a can that they've left over the winter and they dump it into their trimmer or their chainsaw and it doesn't start right away it doesn't have that com Buble cuz the ethanol is breaking down okay so so but more important than that isn't the ethanol in there destroying the seals yes it's it it breaks the rubber down and the rubber on the little needles and seats inside of and the diaphragms inside of the carburetor and makes them almost like mush same thing with the fuel lines um if you see something that sits for a couple years you can grab the fuel line and it's just much so that's like if you store your equipment if you're going into the fall and you're putting it away for the season yes and you have just standard gasoline in your equipment don't be surprised if it's not going to run right in the spring exactly yes cuz it it gums up it gets almost gooey inside of the carburetor okay so again I've seen that I've seen hoses where it's just like why do this hose like feel like it's just yeah yeah like it's broken down okay yeah it's mush and what it does is it plugs all the little Port holes and all the little um I'm trying to think out lost for words now plugs all the little passageways in the carburetor so that the fuel can't get okay let's walk over and look at some of the equipment you handle so ABC Rental here in South St Paul um basically their livelihood depends on all of this equipment that you see behind us starting and running consistently day after day week after week month after month and they have a formula that they use to keep that happening so what kind of fuel do you put in your equipment we put 92 92 octane non oxygenated fuel along with C4 okay so non oxy fuel make sure you remember these words cuz there's standard fuel 87 octane there's 87 then there's 899 and then 92 92 which is the premium fuel but then there's also a non oxygenated correct see that's the differ which is a 93 well 92 or 93 is most of the time not okay but it is posted right on the pumps uh most people shop price they don't look at the pump they look at the price St okay they should be looking below that to see the up so is that on the little tag where it says like 92 octane will see you see it there where it say most most of the time right below it you'll see It'll say up to 10% ethanol added to this fuel okay and if it's not it will also say that no ethanol add it to that fuel so let's go back WS you said you added seafoam correct why would you add seafoam in the middle of summer seafoam takes moisture out of any fuel it helps keep it fresh um you don't know what you're pumping out of that out of that tank at the gas station you could be getting the last 6 in of that tank M and there may be moisture okay so that just helps reduce the moisture content in fuel metal in a metal gas can or if you have a metal tank on your small engine creates condensation so if your tank runs half empty it's a hot summer day you're going to get going build moisture you're going to get moisture even if it's not raining out it's it's not about rain water coming in not at all it's about condensation condensation that's why metal you know metal rusts even if it's inside any moisture in the air it that metal collects that moisture and it just emits it nice so keeping that fuel freshh is very important so now here's an interesting story that Chris doesn't know this whole video was spurred by a conversation I had with one of your mechanics a couple years ago okay and I was dropping some equipment off and he's like you know I've worked here for x amount of years and uh you know we were talking about winterization techniques which I want to get into and he said he was a a fan of heat I think it's h e t cor I think that's how you pronounce it and every body here was saying no you got to use seafoam seafoam so what he did was he made laid a bet and he winterized half the equipment with heat okay and he winterized the other half of the equipment was seafoam so he just filled it up with gasoline non oxygenated gas put the heat in half put the seafoam in the other half and then in the springtime he went to see which one started up and which one didn't sure consistently Time After Time all the equipment with the Sea Foam fired right up all the equipment with the heat he was pulling carburetors apart clean yes why is that what is the difference well the the heat displaces moisture when it's really cold out it it keeps keeps that um especially in the winter time it keeps that fuel from freezing is what it does okay seaf foam Blends itself in and takes away that moisture seafoam actually Blends the water in with it and pretty much makes it go away so is there a time to use Heat versus seaf well I I wouldn't recommend heat in a small engine at all it's straight alcohol okay alcohol is not which like ethanol is a form of alcohol is not good for any small cuz there's there isn't any lubricating qualities to to alcohol so where would you use heat app in a vehicle in a vehicle in the winter time if we're going to have a 20° below zero night and your car's outside and you're afraid it's going to freeze up that's where the heat comes in nice to put that in run your car for 15 minutes it keep that line from freezing so when is when is the right time to use ethanol and ethanol Blended fuel because you see those options I mean besides starting campfires is there a good time to use ethanol well you can run it in your everybody runs it in their vehicle um it does break down seals and fuel injectors um any any rubberized part any fuel lines that have rubber in them over time they will break that rubber down okay so you're taking a risk when you put it in your vehicle and also don't you experience a loss of power you do and you and you also see um lower Fage okay so um for instance one of the kids that works here his dad just came back from California on his motorcycle on his Harley and he was getting 240 Mi to the tank on ethanol fuel in California 300 mil to the tank in Colorado where it was buying regular non oxy fuel so 50 Mi more on a tank on a 6 G tank that's incredible it can we go see your operation absolutely let's go check out what ABC Rental does here they um I rent all my equipment from these guys awesome guys to work with and it probably helps that I've known Chris for 25 years years all right so here's the shop you can uh you can see the man you can hear the manly music Chris listens to let's just tune in real quick talk Ral doesn't like T radio Chris that sounds something little different I'm surprised Chris hasn't breaking out and doing a little dance for us right now but check out all the equipment that they manage this is no lightweight operation this is the real deal here this is how they make their living they have a pretty hefty shop set up here so they rent a lot of equipment they rent let's step outside so we're not getting the sounds confused they rent a lot of equipment but they also rent you know stuff to do parties and stuff but this is you guys really fun focus a lot on equipment don't you we do um that and the repair of it too we we do small engine repair anything from lawn mowers ring lawn mowers snowballs Drillers St saws pretty much anything that has a so what is the winterization technique that you typically use when you're going to set something beside you know this mower right here right you're not going to use it for 8 months what are you going to do for that thing we're going to dump a couple caps of seafoam into the tank run it for 15 or 20 minutes so that that seafoam gets into the carburetor mhm and it it will be good we do that with all of our equipment over the winter um it all gets stored outside in in our Mini Storage which is cold so it's get stored in Cold Storage Cold Storage um one other thing that people can do with their small two cycle equipment is run and dry um and reason being over the course of the winter in a small carburetor the gasoline will evaporate leaving just the oil in the par oh okay so you come to start it spring you put some fresh gas in you hit the primer ball you pull on it about 65 times finally starts and it's blowing blue smoke like mosquito control because you're trying to burn all that oil out of it okay so running a small chainsaw trimmer anything to stroke two cycle meaning gas oil mix it would be better to just run it dry just run and dry dump the fuel out don't bother with it try to get it as empty as possible that's your best winner and you can start it and run it until it won until it quit it'll burn out whatever's in that carburetor good information so after you dump the gas out try and start it let it cycle until it won't run anymore now you know you're empty completely dry what about oil and uh something um oil in ours we we typically change in the fall um well we change Midway through the summer but we change in the fall so that we're ready for the spring we don't have to do it in the spring cuz if spring hits us hits us quick you know we get an early spring and you need get your lawn W you do it so so you change it midseason yep and then you do an end of season change correct and you don't bother changing it in the spring cuz you're good to go cuz we've already changed it what about condensation inside the engine itself if you get condensation in fuel tanks do you get condensation and engines um we don't see too much of that inside the engine with the oil because it's got a coating of oil on it do you use any special additive AMS oil or anything like that we use a a semisynthetic why not pure synthetic um well number one is cost okay it's extremely expensive when you're running you know 50 60 pieces of equipment at a quart oil each you know in each one and you're paying $4 more a quart so you you haven't noticed the difference in it we have okay so so power isn't really affected by going full synthetic can you go long run in oil change or don't you recommend that um with a full synthetic yes you can go longer um ours with our stuff we oil gets checked after every rental so if we see it getting black or dirty it just gets changed so okay but with this stuff here it seem with the maintenance that we do after every rental cleaning the air filter um and checking oil after every rent we're able to keep up on that most people don't check their oil um we have a lot of lawnmowers that come in that we're doing tuneups on that bold 3/4 of a qu oil and taking less than a half a court out so they're not checking their own at all which is something you should do obviously you check it in your car you should check in for for sure all right well let's take a shot tour let's get the interesting music maybe turn down a little bit and let's take a shop Tour all right let's check out the ABC Rentals behind the scenes shop tour everybody loves these let's check this place out this is cool this is our shop where we do all the repair all of our snow plow installation um we have a hoist for for working on the snow plows and installing the snow BS I walked right underneath it and didn't even see it there it is so this is where where all of the uh all the repair end happens um and then next store we have a wash bait where all of the service when a machine comes back it's cleaned so every time this machine comes back you clean it power wash it gets cleaned power washed oil checked air filter cleaned and ready for run so you have a full-time mechanic that just that's what he pretty much does must Yeah well yeah I'm one of the full times and then the the guys that work in the wash bay um are responsible for the air filters well checking the oil um keeping the oil changed in them if there's anything more than that then it gets brought over to our side over here and then we take care of it let's out the other side I will follow you as place I don't I actually do know my way around here a little I send all my guys down here so this is the wash full length wash full floor drain so this no salt equip no equipment has Sal even your stuff that you rent out in the winter time you probably yeah it taken care of cuz you rent skid loaders out too I see you have skid loaders I don't actually skid loaders are gone right now but there's I've seen them here um trenchers postal diggers so I know this is a different topic what do you think is the best line of equipment that you carry H jeez just line of equipment you know okay here's a here's a good interest a good my my observation is you have TX right there yes we have we have switched to TX uh that was an owner's decision to switch um we used to run all bobc here's my feedback cuz these guys switch a TX I'm like well maybe you know they know something I don't know so I bought a TRX that lasted about 3 weeks before I sold that son of a dock yes you'll get no argument for me I was just like what the hell so yeah that was gone yes um we we have had some issues with our T skid loaders okay the little mini excavator has been great has it yes and we have a small pt30 TX that has been great um our other two rubber tired and larger track machine we've had some issues okay um but we've got them worked out and everything so so that's when you don't like which one do you like I like Bobcat I love Bobcat I do I've switched I've switched everything over to Bobcat my they all have their they all have their um problems yeah but you know and again with with the larger equipment one of the reasons we went to TRX Bobcat with their new tier 4 engines you now have to put diesel exhaust Fu in in the TRX the ones that we bought weren't to the tier four yet so we didn't have to incorporate def with our maintenance program and when a customer rents a machine for two weeks at a time worrying about if he's going to keep the de filled so that was one of the other reasons why we went to ter because we didn't have so what do you know about diesel exhaust I don't know a whole lot about it good cuz I know nothing I know absolutely nothing except that we don't have to put it in any of our equipment from it so for small equipment what is your favorite R um well anything that's got a Honda engine on it Honda has been we've had we have some equipment here that has been here for 14 15 years and still running the same engine I have a Honda at fourwheeler it's 28 years old yeah just go out and hit a little button it go vro still to this game yeah I have a 1986 I've got an 87 y the TRX 200 it's like amazing yes it is yeah yeah we really like the Honda Stuff some of our larger equipment ends up with the coer on it which poer is a pretty decent uh pretty decent engine too y but um but yeah anything Honda power is you can't go wrong so let's recap when you're Winter Rising you're putting non oxy non oxy a premium non oxyen seafoam storing it right outside y running it for 15 or 20 minutes to get that seafoam into the carburetor okay and then and then you're taking your small equipment you're running it completely dry emptying the fuel running dry okay perfect you're running seaf foam through it in the middle of the summer as well just because condensation can occur not because it's raining out just because they the the changes in the Heat and the cold correct there you go now you probably know a lot more about gasoline storm bur equipment and when your equipment runs good in the next uh next time you start it up next summer this is the guy you got to thank or if you didn't listen to this video you can come see us and we'll take your money they'll repair it for you all right have a good one my friends [Music]