Craig A wrote:
I learned many years ago that if you put any gasoline powered engine (2 stroke or 4 stroke) away for a more than a week, ALWAYS run it till it shuts off. On my lawn tractor, I have a shutoff valve that I turn off the flow of fuel and run it to it dies.
On most of these small engines you can shut off the fuel supply and run them till they quit and still have quite a bit of gas in the carburetors. If they are going to be sitting for any length of time, I also manually drain the float bowls. I am not so sure that that is even enough to completely empty all the tiny jets that get clogged.
Of course, I also use non-ethanol gas only and also use one of the fuel stabilizers.