AJB Temple
Sequoia
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2019
- Messages
- 5,742
- Reaction score
- 89
- Name
- Adrian
Just had a thread about old neighbour's chainsaw woes. Well, he had the machine back a couple of days and he's back in my DIY workshop. As it's pelting down with rain yet again, I took a look.
The fuel I use is Marline Ethanol free pre-mix, same as Aspen but a bit cheaper, and it's blue. I sent him off with a new 5 litre container of the stuff literally days ago. He brought his saw back in with red fuel in it, along with a hedge cutter also with red fuel in it. Neither of them would start for him. We had the blue versus red discussion and he said he was using up his old fuel before the new stuff and his oil is red. Tongue duly bitten in my case, we traipsed down the lane to his house, patted the donkey, and it was soon apparent that he has got a drum of red diesel for his old MF and had got muddled and put diesel in his two strokes.
He was a bit embarrassed.
It turns out that you can start a 2 stroke with diesel, but you need arms like Popeye as diesel does not vaporise very well. I don't think any great harm was done (not like with a 4 stroke engine). Just tipped out the diesel into a can, pulled through a few times with the plugs out, put proper fuel in, squirted some easy start into the air intake and they fired up after a dozen or so pulls. Seem to run OK.
The fuel I use is Marline Ethanol free pre-mix, same as Aspen but a bit cheaper, and it's blue. I sent him off with a new 5 litre container of the stuff literally days ago. He brought his saw back in with red fuel in it, along with a hedge cutter also with red fuel in it. Neither of them would start for him. We had the blue versus red discussion and he said he was using up his old fuel before the new stuff and his oil is red. Tongue duly bitten in my case, we traipsed down the lane to his house, patted the donkey, and it was soon apparent that he has got a drum of red diesel for his old MF and had got muddled and put diesel in his two strokes.
He was a bit embarrassed. It turns out that you can start a 2 stroke with diesel, but you need arms like Popeye as diesel does not vaporise very well. I don't think any great harm was done (not like with a 4 stroke engine). Just tipped out the diesel into a can, pulled through a few times with the plugs out, put proper fuel in, squirted some easy start into the air intake and they fired up after a dozen or so pulls. Seem to run OK.
