Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer

[electra225]

Without getting into a conversation about using gas with no alcohol in it, aviation gas, marine gas, that stuff, I read on the old tractor forum where some guys say Sta-Bil is "snake oil". My Buick lives because of that stuff. Old tractor guys tend to be a "different" bunch, that I'll have to admit. They are rather like some of the guys on the "big forum" who develop a narrative, then parrot it at every occasion. Have any of you guys with old cars that you store had a negative experience with Sta-Bil? Is there something else that might work better? Like I said, I've had good luck with it.

The old tractor guys also say that Ignitors in the place of points is a no-no as well. I can see that if you are dealing with magneto ignition. Every other post is about a tractor that won't start, so how is this working for them? I stayed off that forum for about a year. I recently got an email from them, saying they were going to suspend my membership because I hadn't logged in for a year.


This morning, they had 1493 "users online" with 136 members logged in. That kind of participation dwarfs ARF!!

There are two collector/restorers whose efforts I especially respect. Early color TV guys and those who restore combines. These are two items the general public was all too happy seeing them going to the scrap heap. When I was on the farm, the only piece of equipment I genuinely disliked was the combine. Hot, dusty, noisy, always broken or needing adjustment. I can't imagine taking one apart, then fixing each piece, then putting it all back together.

You're right. What does this have to do with Sta-Bil? I just derailed my own topic....

[walyfd]

I use it in the lawn mower and it works. One spring, it wouldn't start at all. Sine then, I've used stabil or some other additive. I'm a fan of Sea Foam products.

Opinions are like doopahs...

[electra225]

I've never tried Sea Foam products. Which one would you recommend for use as a fuel stabilizer?

[walyfd]

I use the motor treatment. The tranny stuff is really good. Swells gaskets and helps drips stop.

[TC Chris]

I have used Sta-Bil without complaint. That doesn't necessarily mean it's doing anything, just that it did not do anything bad.

Apart from putting the Mustang away with a couple tanks of no-alcohol gas in the fall, my real favorite goo is isopropyl alcohol gas drier. If there has been residual ethanol gas in the tank, it absorbs moisture and settles out. It makes the Mustang hiccup about 30 miles down the road, and that makes my heart flutter. Now I add isopropyl drier in the fall and again in the spring, because usually there's some portion of ethanol-laced crap in the tank. The next-to-last trip of the season often turns out to be the last one, so I may not be able to run a full tank of real gas through it before refilling for the winter. No more hiccups. I've also added Sea Foam in the fall, having read it has similar effects on the crummy gas.

The Chevy, well, I've been sticking to rec gas entirely for that. It doesn't get that many miles on it in a summer, and sometimes (think transmission shop) it has sat for extended periods. Ethanol gas will work if you keep replacing it, like in your daily driver, but let it sit and you're in trouble. Maybe not in AZ, with humidity hovering at 0-1%, but here, it's trouble. So the Chevy gets the expensive stuff all the time.

And for any small engine--lawn mowers, outboards--it's all rec gas, all the time. Life is too short to let the ethanol crap gum up the devices when you need them. When ethanol gas first came along, my sailboat outboard started getting unreliable. I figured the outboard was failing. It was really the bad gas. I decided not to be cheap, to buy the marina gas, and the problems stopped. The Magliozzi Brothers had a saying, "The stingy man pays the most." That was a lesson I learned about using bad gas in small engines. Don't be cheap.

Chris Campbell
No science but lots of opinions

[electra225]

The only thing that will prevent a Dynaflow from leaking is to let it run out of oil.....

Does the motor treatment work as a fuel stabilizer?

[William]

Greg, Paul uses Sta-Bil in all of his classic cars when he puts them away with no problems. And the Metro only gets rec gas or alcohol-free premium. Again, no problems.

Bill

[TC Chris]

Does the motor treatment work as a fuel stabilizer?

The text on the can says so. It's a cheap enough precaution. But then, the STP can promised that it would create miracles. I remember pouring that (slowly) into my engines.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I never did use STP. Grandpa used some stuff called Rislone. Rislone Motor Medic. He used it in beaters when the people didn't have the money to fix it right.

Thanks, Bill. I don't know why the tractor guys don't like Sta-Bil....

[TC Chris]

I don't know why the tractor guys don't like Sta-Bil....

Maybe it's because old tractors will run on anything from old salad oil to 100 proof vodka?

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

My experience with old tractors is that they suffer from the same, or worse, maladies as old cars when it comes to stale fuel. My guess is that someone had a bad experience using Sta-Bil that was not related to the product itself, then just posted enough about it that people started believing it. Like the old radio guys did with 6X5 rectifiers and "poly"......

[hermitcrab]

I leave a little fuel in my lawn equipment when put away , but it is tru-fuel mixed with 40% oil... it seems to work OK come the springtime, but I have also heard trufuel can go bad in the can.... so who knows