When do you fire 'em up?

Nan_wpg said:

just curious why,you change oil in the fall instead of spring? I was always told it’s better to sit with fresh oil.

i,change blower oil in spring, mower in the fall.

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I've also read it might be "better" to change the oil in the spring, but meh, I don't consider it a big deal either way. But the main reason I never do it in the spring is because you never really know, at the time, when the last use of the season actually is! by May its safe to assume the snow is done, but by then mowing has started, and I'm deep into Spring yard chores. (My wife and I do a lot of gardening, and I have a G-scale garden railroad). So I simply don't want to bother with the snowblowers in the spring, too much else going on, and I don't feel it's terribly important, thanks mainly to the the ethanol-free gas. It's totally fine for the snowblowers to just sit until October, usually about 7 months. My snowblowers are always parked in the garage, totally untouched, no gas drained from tank or carb, from the last snowfall until the following October. Been doing it this way for 12 years now, never a problem! (I have a '71 and a '91 Ariens)

(It's really the ethanol-free gas that makes this "easy" summer storage possible though, it simply doesn't go bad in less than a year. If you only have gas with ethanol however, your routine needs to be very different, that stuff is horrible for small gas engines, best to drain it completely for the summer and make sure the carb and fuel lines are fully dry..lots more preventative maintainance needed.)

Scot

Especially the last year or two with some parts deliveries slow to never, I've been starting season prep a bit earlier. I'm of the opinion that it's better and safer to store the machine with everything done, rather than with a list of things to do. In the fall, we can get snow starting in October, in other years no significant snowfall in town until late December. When the Goddess of Snow finally decides to bless us, it's hardly the time to be starting with that list of catch-up maintenance tasks and services.

So I do everything I can in the spring before storage, including draining the tank and the carburetor. Storage prep includes some ATF and/or fogging oil and the piston to TDC so valves are closed. Spark plug goes back in finger tight with cable off. In the fall sometime, the plug comes out and the engine gets some pulls on the starter cord. Then plug back in and the wire gets connected. I put freshly-purchased plus-stabilizer gas in it when snow starts to appear in forecasts. Our winter pump premium is supposedly ethanol-free, but I should probably grab a sample and test it to be sure. I might do a demo start then. On first-flake day, if it doesn't start by the second pull I start to plan for engine overhaul.