I have on occasion run my 4 stoke lawn mower on Coleman fuel and it runs just fine. Sacrilegious? Perhaps but I acquired about 5 gallons from a neighbor and I'll never use that on my stoves. Unleaded fuel is also prone to going bad and for 2 stroke motors it's recommended to not use gas more than 1-2 months old. I know Coleman fuel has Napthe (Sp?) in it as a preservative and I've seen gasoline preservatives in the hardware store designed for 1-2 year storage of unleaded fuel which I assume do the same thing. Right? I have a chainsaw and weed trimmer that are two cycle and I wonder if Coleman fuel (+2 cycle oil of course) would work w/o harming the engines. They're both only occasionally used and running to the fill station for half a gal of fuel is not always convenient. I have coleman fuel that's years old and still works fine in stoves and .....lawnmowers but (besides cost) am I missing something?
If you are not too concerned with the mower engines, perhaps dilute the Coleman and gas/oil mix somewhat, I wouldn't use straight panelwipe. Of course you will need to refigure your gas/oil ratio.
Coleman fuel does not contain "naptha" as a preservative, rather, it's mainly naptha. Info on naptha I have used gasoline from scrapped cars that may have been ten years old and contaminated with water. After pouring the gasoline off of the water, filtering it through an old t-shirt, and adding some "heet" to the tank of the old Dodge truck we were using, the truck ran fine on many tanks of "expired" gasoline. (truck was fuel injected). I have also used very old Coleman fuel with no treatment whatsoever and it's worked fine. Coleman fuel is approximately 55 octane. I have read that it's very bad for an automobile. As far as your mowers and other small engines, I have no idea. Pump gas is so much cheaper than Coleman that I wouldn't waste Coleman on an engine of any kind. Coleman fuel is currently 9.89 per gallon or so at Walmart in our area and 12.69 at the local "King Soopers" grocery. Pump gas is about 3.50 a gallon.
i've used some Coleman fuel in my 2-stroke trimmer in a pinch, but only in between fillups of my yard gas cans... i throw some Stab-il in the cans after refill, so my gas stays good for a while (just finished using up 5 gallons purchased in 2004 at $1.84 a gallon!) willie on the Gulf of Mexico
two stroke motor's don't have valves so can run on leaded or unleaded or Coleman fuel the old low compression 4 stroke engines side valves. like pre 1930 motorcycles could could as well my farther had an old sunbeam and during the war he ran it on a variety of fuels including alcohol but with all you had to star with petrol to warm up and then switch over to lighter fluid ect. the flat tankers usually had a twin fuel tank design
From what I have read, it sounds like using Coleman fuel in small engines has some advantages. For one thing, most gasoline will have 10% ethanol* in it -- that will rot out plastic and rubber parts on a lot of older small engines. Second, there will be fewer harmful exhaust compounds. And as already noted, it lasts a lot longer with out forming varnish. And the Feds are trying to raise that to 15%.
I normally run my lawnmover on unleaded, but before winter I switch to Aspen4. This way, I never have a problem starting the engine in the new season. The chain saws are always running on Aspen2 (less stink to close to my nose...) Best regards, Wim
Keep the coleman fuel for stoves - sell it if you don't have stoves. Unleaded is fine for 2 stroke engines (with oil added, of course). Older 4 stroke (lawn mower) engines need some additive (potassium based) for using unleaded, as they were designed for leaded gas, and will wear out faster on unleaded. That's how I run my 40 year old Honda motorcycle. Yonadav
Thanks all! I was just wondering if it would work in a pinch but have no formal plans to try it out. Emergencies only.
