I'm gellin'..... but not in a good way
 

The 1811 is the primary snow plow tractor this Winter. But it wasnt wanting to start easily, and was requiring some choke to keep it running (even then it would cut in/out, and was all over the place with the throttle).

Took off the carb and some gel everywhere. The bottom of the carb bowl had corrosion to point of little stalagtites built up (or maybe they were stalagmites). Either way they got some scotchbrite and the whole carb got a spray down with cleaner (took the needles out and sprayed them off as well).

Then drained the gas - the first half gallon or so was almost milky white color. Then turned to a brown hue. Sorry I dont have pics, wish I did because it looked pretty crappy stuff.

New gas.

Fired up immediately and runs great. Now time for an oil change and a hydro filter/fluid change.

I did notice the short piece of gas line under the carb (goes to some type of manifold block) is almost gone. Cracked and I need to replace it. Will put that on the on the list.

That looks nasty! How long had it sat since running it last? It's had moisture in it too by the way it looks.

Welcome to the world of ethanol. http://pure-gas.org/

Not sure exactly how long it sat. Somewhere between 6 and 9 months.

Have tried different stabilizers, including the red stuff and the blue stuff. Havent found a good solution.

I have noticed that on some equipment after it sits and then first starts, it runs really fast for a few seconds before coming back down. Dont have a definitive answer, but was wondering if it was the stabilizer all going to the bottom of the tank and burning first - but maybe it is more volatile so it revs high.

Worst thing I can think of is to over rev a cold engine.

Had the same issue with my quad, changed to non ethanol and I use mystery oil and sea foam, no problem after that.

Awesome site, thanks for sharing! But now I realize there are no station within about 45 to an hour of me :bigeyes:

Looks like you had water in the tank,was it stored outside?

Do you have a race track near you?

You can try a small airport too, avgas will work for you.

Yes it was outside.

There is a non ethanol supplier close to me. May have to resort to that, but if you look at the pricing on some of those websites you see $90/5 gal, $120/5gal, $17/gal..... not a cheap solution and I cant imagine popping $100 every time I fill the tank on one of these.