Oh Fun!

Not exactly the first words out of my mouth when I heard this news.

Though the the word “fun” does share the first two letters with the word I did say.

EPA to set rules for lawn, boat engines

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled sweeping regulations limiting emissions from small engines in lawn mowers and boats Thursday — requiring that most small engines have catalytic converters.

The new regulation applies to lawn mowers with a 25-horsepower engine or smaller and will reduce smog-forming emissions by 35 percent. Recreational boats will see a 70 percent reduction in evaporated fuel and NOx emissions.

At what I’m sure will be no extra cost to consumers. Yeah, right.

I just hope that while the manufacturers are at it, they make the necessary mods to fix this problem

Mechanics see ethanol damaging small engines

Although the Web is rife with complaints from car owners who say ethanol damaged their engines, ethanol producers and automakers say it’s safe to use in cars. But smaller engines — the two-cycle utility engines in lawnmowers, chain saws and outboard boat motors — are another story.

Benjamin Mallisham, owner of a lawnmower repair shop in Tuscaloosa, Ala., said at least 40 percent of the lawnmower engines he repairs these days have been damaged by ethanol.

“When you put that ethanol in here, it eats up the insides or rusts them out,” Mallisham said. “All the rubber gaskets and parts — it eats those up.”

While on vacation in Montana I had my check engine light pop on. Montana has a shitload and a half of ethanol in their fuels per state mandate. Seeing as how the truck was running fine. And knowing that it doesn’t like ethanol blended fuels, and that I was very near the continental divide in vehicle that normally operates at sea level, I ignored it.

Sure enough, I got back into Washington State (Spokane, to be exact) and filled up with a nominally blended fuel, and the light went out within five miles.

Ethanol is a form of alcohol. Alcohol is murder on engines of any type. Even those E85 engines which are supposedly “built” for it.

This ethanol nonsense needs to stop. If for no other reason than to save my wife from worrying about the numerous ways our transportation could leave us stranded in BFE for 300 miles.