Starting fluid

steplift20 · #1 10-05-2020, 06:32 PM

Didn't I hear that you never ever use starting fluid on a 2 stroke.

spareparts · #2 10-05-2020, 06:35 PM

its not great, get the kind approved for diesels, it has some lubricating properties that prevents engine damage. On two strokes, I just have a spray bottle with gas in it

steplift20 · #3 10-06-2020, 08:29 AM

Hi spare , I heard that you should never use starting fluid on 2 strokes but I forgot who said it, the reason is that I had a friend fix a 2 stroke blower that I had and he said he sprayed starting fluid to get it running, he said it started up than shut off so when I tried to start it it would not start and I was thinking it's because of the starting fluid . It's trash now .I was just wondering who said not to use it.

spareparts · #4 10-06-2020, 11:23 AM

the reason you don't want to use it is because there is no lubricating oil in the fluid, beyond that, starting fluid will spark knock and pre-detonate sometimes. I use it as a diagnostic tool, unusually low compression motors will start on starting fluid, but wont run on gas. I usually use premixed gas in a spray bottle to get an engine to start, but sometimes when the rings are stuck or they have rust on the valves, it doesn't have enough compression to light off on gas. I hit it with the fluid and once it fires up, it will keep running. If you use a bunch of starting fluid upon start up on a 2 cycle, you are running the engine without lube, it can cause bearing damage and cylinder scoring. If your blower didn't run before, but would run on starting fluid, sounds like it was worn out or needed work before using the starting fluid.

steplift20 · #5 10-06-2020, 07:34 PM

Thanks spare you cleared that up for me thanks again

THEFERMANATOR · #6 10-07-2020, 06:46 PM

Not so much today, but back when starting fluid was mostly ether, you could blow the reeds out, or worse, blow the block apart using to much starting fluid. 2 strokes compress the air/fuel mixture on both sides of the piston(cylinder and crankcase), starting fluid used to be volatile enough that the compression in the crankcase side was high enough to ignite the starting fluid in the crankcase(starting fluid can turn your gas engine into a diesel since it compression ignites fairly easily). This mostly happened in older crossflow engines because they had alot higher crankcase pressures than loopers. I will say on reedless 2 strokes like lawn equipment where they use the piston passing over the ports to act as the reed valve, they have pretty high crankcase pressures to make them scavenge, and starting fluid is a huge no no in them because of it. They could easily ignite in the crankcase, and blow the crank seals out.