Ethanol contamination at it's best.
What you are seeing in the slide here is the inside of the carburetor of a 2.5 hp Mercury 4-stroke outboard that was stored over the winter with untreated Ethanol fuel.
This is not the first one we have opened that looked like this either.
Now if you are figuring you?re about to read another segment on the evils of ethanol in our gasoline, you are not. I?m not going to get into a long presentation on chemical separations that can happen with ethanol fuels, that horse has been beaten more times?.
Instead, here are several useful suggestions
1 ? If you are purchasing fuel for your boat, only purchase what you feel you are going to use for the day, weekend, or week. Try not to store fuel, even treated for more then 30 days or so.
2- Fuel up on the way out, add an E-phase type product in proportion to the fuel added. Always burn fresh fuels, ideally, park your boat with ¼ of a tank of treated fuel or less.
3 ? Long term storage of carbureted engines; we are going to be running the systems dry so as to not be dealing with issues like the one presented in the picture above.
4- Use your boat more often! The more you enjoy your boat the more fuel you are using, less likely you are to have fuel stagnation related problems! Go have fun!
Ethanol laced fuels require a different way of handling then we are accustomed to.
We just need to change our thinking and doing slightly and we can co-exist nicely!
