Gale Hawkins
Murray, KY
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Joined: 07/22/2007
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Peg Leg wrote:I've used Sea Foam and have a Yamaha 3000. I've never used it in my Yamaha. The Yamaha will be 8 yrs old in July. I've always siphoned as much gas out as I could after any usage, then run it until it dies and change the oil. I've cleaned the spark plug once, the air filter twice, and replaced the battery once. It's never gave any trouble so I'm not planning on changing the maintanace schedule.
Your experience supports it is the storing of engines with gas left in the syatem that leads to the problem. With over a dozen small engines I found I was not doing as you do so now I just add 1-2 oz of Sea Foam per gallon to all stored gas that I use in our small engines.
That has seemed to solve our performance/hard starting issues.
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wa8yxm
Wherever I happen to park
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Joined: 07/04/2006
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I do not think you damaged the engine, may have cleaned it a bit.
Did you add too much SeaFoam by any chance, When you are dealing with the small tank on a portable generator you need only a tiny amount of additive, Very easy to "Over medicate" .
Nothin adds excitment like something that is none of your business
Kenwood TS-2000 housed in a 2005 Damon Intruder 377
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Gale Hawkins
Murray, KY
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Joined: 07/22/2007
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By accident l learned our 18 HP B&S and 6.5 Honda knock out generator engines will run on pure Sea Foam if hot and started on gas IF they are choked.
My goal was to store the 18 HP generator with pure Sea Foam in the carb so when the last gas left the tank I started to pour in Sea Foam. I then started choking it to make it pull in more as it was dying from running out of gas but it just kept running on pure Sea Foam. I was able to repeat it on the China gen set.
Long ago Dad had a tractor that started on gas but when hot would run on kerosene fuel but he would switch back to gas before shutting it off.
NOTE: These generators were NOT running with any load.
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ExRocketScientist
Laurel, MD
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Joined: 11/11/2010
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Keep in mind, the generator has designed to run on gas, not seafoam. The carb is not adjusted to run on seafoam without stalling. If you have a genny running and squirt a shot of gumout carb cleaner from a spray can in the carb, it will do the same thing -- a puff of white smoke and it stalls.
But both products do the job they were intended for in the process.
ERS
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Generator Jim
Conway, SC
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Joined: 07/16/2005
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I have a Honda 1000 that was used for dry camping at Key West for 5 winters running all day and an "annual" oil change.
When I got it it would not pull full load. Seafoamed the oil, gas and carb as well as poured some in the muffler. Lots of smoke and funny sounds. Small chunks of carbon flying out of the muffler.
The Seafoam cleaned everything so well that the carbon holding the piston rings in was cleaned out and now the unit burns about half a tank of gas and a pint of 30 SAE oil in the crankcase. DON'T OVERCLEAN AN OLD UNIT.
JimL
Jim & Jane Latour
08 Chevy 3500HD, crew cab, dually, Duramax/Allison
05 Wilderness Advantage AX6 365 BSQS, Onan 3.6KY
Retired AF CMS (E9) Power Generation and Onan RV genset Level III tech
Grand Strand Sams
Blog.rv.net
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mlts22
Austin, Texas
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Joined: 11/15/2010
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It is good to read that nothing was likely damaged. I was fearing the inverter might get fried because of the fact it couldn't get enough RPMs from the engine to handle about 2200 watts of load, and definitely about 3000 when the A/C compressor started.
If it did decarbon the piston without killing the rings, then all's well that ends well. I definitely won't be using anything else other than Sta-Bil until I get more experienced, so I don't have a generator dusting for insects, 1950s DDT style, when I try to flip on the A/C or microwave.
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Gale Hawkins
Murray, KY
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I would not mix Sea Foam greater than 2oz per gallon of gas (as stated directly on the can) for any engine under load.
If you are going to run super heavy mix like 16 oz in one gallon of gas for fast cleaning of a dirty fuel system do it with no load on the gen set.
There is really no way Sea Foam can hurt an engine when used as per instructions printed on the can that we have found and we buy it by the gallon.
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Handbasket
Asheville, NC
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Joined: 01/17/2003
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Lots of good talk about the mix of Seafoam. One thing not mentioned is the duration.
I've bought two used small RV's that had Onan 2.8's that ran poorly due to neglect / not being run for a while. Fixed each by putting a high percentage (about 50-50) of gas & Seafoam thru the carb. But I just let it run long enough to start smoking, then shut it down. Let it sit overnight to let the solvents work, than started it for a few minutes the next day to draw fresh solvent in. The worst case one would only start using ether, and ran poorly. It required a full week of daily treatments to run smoothly.
Jim, "Will an exhaust brake make my generator quieter?"
'06 Tiger CX 'C Minus' on a Silverado 2500HD 4x4, 8.1 & Allison (aka 'Loafer's Glory') www.tigervehicles.com
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C-Leigh Racing
Nashville NC
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Its all really simple & boils down to this sorry pump gas that we have to buy.
Its not made to sit any length of time before the chemicals start to break down & then the gas turns gummy inside that carb plugging up the jets.
The idle passage ways, for fuel delivery drilled into these carb bodys, some are smaller than the thickness of a hair, so it dont realy take much to stop up one of those & then you got a non running engine.
A 4 stroke engine, which 99% of the generators have, when starting up, is dependent on the proper amount of fuel running up threw the idle passage ways to provide an amount of air/fuel mix it takes to start the run process. To less of an amount & it cant support a start up to get the engine running. To much or rich of an amount, & the spark plug cant ignite to overly rich mixture & then no run again, so the fuel amount going into the cylinder while starting up has got to be real close to perfect for the engine to crank & run.
The high speed fuel passage ways, now they are pretty good in size of those holes, so it takes quite a bit to block or plug them up.
They can be part plugged & the gen sound like its running ok, but in reality it is running lean, not providing enough fuel into the engine resulting in to much heat on top of the piston & to much heat on the exhaust valve, exhaust valve seat & exhaust valve stem guide & not long before that high heat will start to damage those parts.
Another issue when running lean, theres not enough fuel to support the load the gen is producing to keep the engine rpm up to maintain that load, which in turn creates even more high heat in the cylinder & damaging parts quicker.
In all this I'm saying this, I feel pretty sure the Seafoam is a good product & I myself use several things in my gas if what I'm putting it in going to be sitting for awhile, but a cleaner cant do the full job, it may can at one use, but theres going to be a time, not a single one of these products will clean out those passage ways in that carb enough to provide the proper amount of fuel into that engine for it to function proper.
In my life, I have probably held in my hands & worked on more small engines than a good bit have ever looked at in their life time, & I can tell you its not the engine 95% of the time, its this SORRY gas we have crammed down our throats causing all these engine problems.
Neil
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Irover
Where ever the Good Lord Wills
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I remember one place on the GA./FL. border where I fueled up several years back. The motorhome started running poorly, skipping, backfiring and run-on when turning the ignition off. What fun; siphoning over 40 gallons of fuel out,blew out the fuel lines, took the HOLLEY carburator off, had to buy a kit to get the power-valve; so kitted it also. Kept some of the gas and had it analyzed. Results were it was cut with about 1/3 of diesel fuel and had about 3% water in it. The motorhome had only about 9,000 miles on it and ran perfect traveling over 1,000 miles at that point. I didn't, know about Seafoam then, kept adding 32 ounces of Marvel Mystery oil to the gas at every fuel-up just to be safe. I now usw Sea Foam in the gas tank at every 3,500 mile oil change.
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