Dead generator.

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Toepopper
Patriot ⭐ Construction, Shelter
Patriot ⭐ Construction, Shelter
Posts: 1229
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 12:03
Location: Southwest Oregon

Dead generator.

Post by Toepopper »

Last week our power went out. Pacific Power sent a man out to investigate and determine what went wrong as the power was still on at other homes along the county road. He found that our main power line, which was buried underground, had a break in it and it would take about 12 hours to dig up and repair. So I rolled out the generator and prepped it to run and power the house while the crew fixed the line. I had been starting this generator every 2 weeks to charge up the battery and make sure it worked and had never had any problems starting it. I would pour about 2 shot glasses of gas into the tank to fire it up, this way there was no chance of a full fuel tank going bad or getting stale. So I go to start the generator and guess what? It wouldn't start. Pulled the spark plug and it was wet so it was getting gas. Changed plugs, still would not fire. Yanked the fuel line off the carbeurator and the gas was flowing. Re-attached the fuel line and it still would not fire. What had happened was the gas that was in the fuel line had gone bad, it got old and had lost its volitity and may as well have been water. I drained the fuel from the gas line, filled the tank with fresh gas and it started right up and ran like a Singer sewing machine. This gas that had soured was 10% ethanol and ethanol will take on water after being stored for a while. It draws water from the atmosphere and absorbs any condensation in the storage container. The best gas for storage is non ethanol gas because it can be stored much longer before going bad. The gas I was using was 11 months old so ethanol is only good for less than a year unless you add STABIL to it for long term storage.
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