Let me know when you find an alternative, My Weed Eater needed new fuel lines, I also replaced fuel lines in three of my neighbors yard tools.
Total up the cost of the repair at a shop along with the subsidized ethonal industry from your tax dollars, and the fact that it takes more of this foul brew to achieve the same result. Milage on a car is a good comparison. MORE BIG OUT OF CONTROL GOVERNMENT.
You left out the word "CORPORATE" and the term "CASH & CARRY".
I feel your pain, having very recently been "
volunforced" to buy a new chainsaw...for want of an NLA carb diaphragm, rotted by ethanol. And, I'm replacing the Tygon fuel lines on my bikes every other year, for the same reason. Worse yet, every once in a while I get stuck with a fresh fill-up that contains more goat piss than the engine can burn. (And I'm not alone in this.) A big "half-peace-sign" salute to the oil conglomerates, who own a good portion of our government...and country. :fuck:
Adam-NLV said:
Boy first they eliminate the Lead, which these old engines like/need and now they're squeezing in the Ethanol whether you want it or not.
I would think (and hope) the manufacturers of todays Aftermarket parts (heads & valves) are taking these facts into consideration.
It's mainly high-compression car engines from the 1960's that are affected by lack of TEL. Beginning with 1971, car engines have been required to to be compatible with low-lead fuel, no-lead by the `75 model year. Anyone manufacturing & selling anything but true "racing use only" heads, would be pointing a gun at his own head and daring anyone to force him to pull the trigger. :30: As I recall, the owner's manual for my erstwhile CB350 stated that low-lead was okay..better than 40 years ago, still in the pre-catalyst era.
I've followed Rick's approach, sort of, since the late `80s...keeping a drum of C16 in the shop. The landscape and tree service outfits around here all fill their gas cans at local marinas...for $7/gallon. Most of the musclecar owners I know use "Turbo blue", race fuel.
That said, IMHO, there are basically two solutions: fight or adapt. Sourcing ethanol-free gasoline is a soft fight, race gas is a tough proposition all the way around. Best case, you pay roughly double and go on your merry way. For me, $.07 per mile in fuel costs...on a bike this small...is a bit much. Beyond that, if you ride the kind of distances I do, it's too short of a leash; where's the next tank coming from? Race gas, like "Turbo blue" is even worse than E10 pump gas, in terms of both storage life and what it does to rubber parts. Lead, if not absolutely needed to protect valve seats, is actually bad for the rest of the engine.
As far as our cars, we're basically screwed. At best, you get a flex-fuel vehicle and live with less mpg. That said, ethanol is actually a clean-burning, high-octane, fuel with some good properties. E85 is being used as cheap race gas, since it'll support high CRs. If I were rebuilding a vintage engine, I'd have hardened valve seat inserts added...do it once and move on.
With these little bikes, mileage doesn't seem to be affected very much. In fact, I've actually seen my daily rider's mpg numbers go from the low-to-mid 90s to right around the 100mpg mark, +/-4mpg. Peak numbers have gone from 102 to 128(!). I'm guessing this is because I jetted the carb to the rich limit with straight gasoline; thus, E10 is moving it closer to optimal. Setting up the carb any other way would risk burnt parts. My point is that any negative effects should have manifested long ago. As it stands, 19,000 miles is two tanks away and neither the engine, not carburetor, show the slightest signs of distress. That's not some kind boast...I'm volunteering to serve as field tester/R&D/lab rat.
Having said all of the above, consider the realities of the situation. (I'm only talking about the bike, nothing else, here) I've had to rejet the carb once, change jet needle height once, tweak the idle and replace the fuel lines twice...so far. If you remember my post about the petcock packing shrinking once the fuel system was drained & dry (after exposure to E10), as it turns out, coating the packing with bearing grease has actually kept this rubber part viable. It's swelled back to full size with one tank of "gas". for the past 4 years now. The last carb adjustment was at the start of the 2010 season. Now, compare that (draining the entire fuel system dry, which I do for indoor storage anyway, and greasing the petcock packing...once annually) to continually sourcing, carrying, & storing any kind of specialty fuel. What, truly, are the choices and which are more hassle and money?
All apologies for yet another thesis & dissertation. However, I think it better to at least consider more than one angle...and then decide for yourself which solution(s) makes the most sense. Any of them can work.