greetings,


the 7 goes in to storage next week. my question:

is gas stabilizer really necessary as will only be garaging it until april (it is a heated garage). would starting up the car once a week make any difference? and also i plan to top off the tank and dump some MMO in just before -will the gas-stabilizer-marvel mystery oil all mix will or am i creating some frankenstein potion?

thanks,
norman ng

 

Should be okay.

 

You dont say where you live, or what model you own, but if you have a carb, I would absolutely use it. The reformulated gas gums up much more quickly than it used to. I have had to clean out 3 carbs on three different cars in the last couple of years do to this.

 

I don't think it matters what model he has. It would help prevent gum buildup in any car, FI or carbed.

 

That's true but in my experience, it's worse with a carb.
With FI you have more pressure to force the gas through, also there are no air bleeds to worry about.

 

Gasoline can go bad in a single month, especially if you have any organic contamination in it. (Yes, there is an algae that grows in diesel and gasoline!) I would consider the fuel stabilizer to be cheap insurance, and you should have no problem with it at all if you follow the directions. Make sure you run it after adding the stabilizer, so that it gets into the carb too!

Otherwise, If its a heated garage, why not just run it until you run out of gas altogether?

Here's what I'd do: 1) Wash and wax and Armorall everything. 2) Run the carb totally dry. 3) Then pull the plugs, have someone spin the motor while you add a tablespoon of MMO to each rotor, and put the plugs back in. 4) Pull the battery out and put it on your bench with your trickle charger handy (If you don't have one, they are well worth the $15 or so dollars for a simple one.) The idea here is that you put the battery on the trickle charger for a day every month or so, depending on how flat the battery goes and how fast it charges. 5) MOST important: Change your oil and filter! You can safely run this oil in the spring, but don't let used oil sit in your motor over the winter. Compustion bypass gasses form corrosive products in your oil that, over time, will corrode your motor internals.

In the spring, just put your battery back in after charging it a final time, pull the plugs (you only installed them to keep crap out of the rotors), add gas to the tank (fresh pre-mix!), crank the motor over with the starter to pump gas into the carb (on my car the fuel pump only runs during cranking or when the motor is running.) and blow the MMO out the spark plug holes from when you added it this fall, install the plugs, and fire it up! No worries! (Often people recommend changing the oil again, but this is really for when you have the possibility of water condensation in the engine, which you don't if its in a heated garage, same reason that you don't have to worry about topping off your fuel tank and can run it dry.)

In the military I became very familiar with prepping cars for long term storage. If it was going in storage any longer, I'd also suggest jacking it up to get the weight off the tires. My boat has been stored now for two years (how sad is that?), and I know that if I go out there it will fire right up.

 

thanks for opinions. i've got an 84 gs here in quebec. didn't know about oil/filter situation -depressing as i just changed it 100 kms ago. anyway advice will be digested and put to good use.

norman ng