Saving Old Seagulls

Would anyone care to offer conjecture as to whether this type stuff http://www.trufuel50.com might be an Alkylate fuel as well? Expensive (for USA especially) but, as little as I use...... It would sure make great storage fuel.

I personally would not use TrueFuel in my Seagulls.

From the website:
'Unlike gas station gas, our premixed 2-stroke fuel is ethanol-free and formulated for hotter running, higher revving small engines. '
Seagulls are not 'hot running', nor 'high revving'. They are small though...

Plus you would need to add oil, because the 40:1 gas:oil mixture is not rich enough for any Seagull. And as mentioned earlier in this thread, the oil tends to separate after a while.

Charan

Agreed, that there is the issue of the 40:1. The question is to whether this looks pretty much like the same stuff as the European product.

I would, if used at all, add the usual 2-stroke oil at the normal ratio as if this source had no oil of its own. Or try for the straight no-oil variant and still mix at home.

I've run on straight white gas at 20:1 (under the Coleman camp stove brand in the US) and it runs fine; one thing about that stuff is that it doesn't degrade and go to varnish much. The down side is that it tends to whither up the fuel tap cork, leading to massive leaking until refilling with conventional fuel. Cutting it 50/50 with conventional petrol mix seems to coexist with the cork better. I keep a MSR fuel bottle of that mix in the hold as a reserve.

It would be nice to lose the ethanol, and, anything safe enough for sale on a retail store shelf has to be better than 50% petrol for long term reserve storage, I'm thinking.

The european stuff doesn't have benzene or aromatic carbohydrates. No idea of that US stuff, but lack of alcohol alone sounds good with these older engines. No matter which it is, I suppose you always should use 4 stroke gas and mix the outboard oil yourself.

It's alive! Second pull, and she sings like a bird - well, loud and smoking bird, but anyway! I still have a smile from ear to ear...

For a test run, the alkylate petrol appears to work ok. Straight from the jerry, there's a faint smell of petrol, but t.ex. spilling doesn't leave smell at all. As the regular stuff would. So far so good.

Here's a video of my test run; sorry about the quality.

http://youtu.be/r_8kFIceyLA

Looks good and runs well.

No problem with that fuel.

A small length of rope tying the engine to the boat is a good idea, they do go for a swim sometimes.

Have fun with it.

H-A

Been quite busy this summer, but yesterday I finally took the Gull out of storage. I changed the carb needle to convert it to 1:25 mix, so I had to drain a few cups of the old petrol that had been in the tank over winter. In the new fuel, a few tugs and it's running! For first ten minutes it needed choke, probably the old oil was slightly clogging the channels. After that it was running smoothly all the couple of hours I spent on the lake.

To sum it up, alkylate petrol appears to work just fine in Seagull. And without the smell

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Thanks for sharing this find. The stuff sold in just under a 1-litre can at the home centers (Lowe's, Home Depot) runs fine as well and hasn't dried up my cork tap seals as described a few posts up. Goodbye, ethanol!



http://lowes.com/pd_383762-442-6527238_ ... 54390&pl=1