-Joe-

I guess my point with my lawnmower story was that gas takes a little longer than 60 days to breakdown. It's been what...120 days or so since I last used my mower? Anyway, being the paranoid sort with stuff I can;t take apart and fix (like my boat engine), last fall I did stabil-ize the gas in my boat. I disconnected the fuel line and let it run on muffs as long as I could stand it..but couldn't run it out of gas. We'll see in a few weeks if the stabil worked.

Starbrite nonskid with PTEF..if you can find it. WalMart used to sell it..but no more. Maybe West Marine or you can get a closeout at Boaters World?

yeah..thanks Wiley. I found that out!! (I didn't see the emoticon for excessive whining so, if there was one....imagine it here)

Yesteday, I cut my grass for the first time this year. Surpisingly, I didn't have to buy any gas for my lawnmower, edger and weedeater as I had almost 3 gallons left over from last September or so. I'm certain I didn't put anything in that gas at all, and everything cranked right up and ran fine. This was absolutely the 10% ethanol gas.

I don't know about removing the stuff from the backs of valves, but I know it works on pistons and combustion chambers. I've seen it. Years ago I had a Scout 185 with a premix 2 stroke Yamaha C115. I ran it for a about a year before I ever even thought of needing to use a product like ring free. By the advice of a friend I tried it, but (accidentally) added it in the "shock" treatment concentrate and not the "constant" treatment mixture. After going out in the boat, I remember when returning I flushed it on the earmuffs as usual, all of these little black "rocks" were in my driveway in the water wash behind the prop. I had never seen these before and had flushed that motor in the exact same spot every time I returned. I picked one of these "rocks" up and it crushed in my hand--it was all oily and smelled like gasoline and oil. At that point, it kind of all came together and made sense. I kept using ringfree (after figuring out I only needed to do a "constant" treatment) and noticed that the next 2-3 times of flushing, the oily black rocks got smaller and less, and by about the fourth time flushing it only looked like pepper in my driveway. When I sold that boat the motor had about 5-600 hours on it. Three of the four cylinders compression were exactly 140 psi, and the fourth was 141 psi. After seeing that on a carbureted premix two stroke, I just can't see it as a concidence.

I wonder if that bouncing puts more strain on the transom than say, going through a wave at speed while trimming the engine up? I know which action happens more often. I've been around boats for a while..and I've never seen transom damage that anyone could apply to trailering. Rot? Yes. Trailering? No. I've personally never seen a trim/tilt ram fail while trailering, but I'd be intersted in hearing from anyone that has, and what they did about it. IMO..those wedges and savers and stuff are all geared toward making a market for a demand that isn't realistic. If you really are that concerned about doing damage to it, stick a 2x4 underneath it. Just seems like you'd have more things to worry about.

And here is a MSDS for ringfree. Not sure what the 70% proprietary additive is (I guess that's the stuff that makes it work)..but according to it's effects due to ingestion, I've had worse reactions from a dinner at McDonalds. Interesting that these folks make it. I wonder if Ring Free is the same thing as their "complete fuel system cleaner"?

I read all of that, I {sadly?} knew what it all meant. After 8 years on THT and a couple on SWS prior to that...have I reached the end of the internets?

I understand Whaler will now sell some boats in some markets without an engine..due to some Mercs not meeting emissions standards. Imagine they'd rather sell some whalers rather than none.

I really hope Thom and Ed P. start posting again. I miss those dudes. I learned a lot from many of Thom's posts.

You beat me by 3 days over here..you stole my login name (I was the first Joe on THT)