The procedure for storing a boat used to be to fill the tank before storage and add fuel stabilizer. That is not the case when storing an engine with ethanol E10 gasoline. If you have that fuel in the tank, you want to run it as low as you can and leave it. E10 is hydroscopic and it sucks in water. The less E10 you have in it then the less water it will absorb. In the spring, you fill it with a fresh load of E10 because nothing absorbs the water and cleans out the sludge better than fresh E10. Even in the summer, the last thing you do before you take it out is put a load of fresh gas on top of whatever is already in the tank to absorb the water. Of course, adding a stabilizer as well would seem very prudent, but remember to only fill the tank right before you are going to use it to clean and absorb the water out of any old fuel that you left in the tank.
With boats, motorcycle motorcycles and small engines that sit with ethanol fuel, then you need to know this trick. Initially, as fuel rots, it turns to a jelly and that jelly clogs the main jets. (Runs lean) Before you take things apart and clean them try to get the motor running the best you can and rev it. While it is reved up choke it out with a rag over the carb or carbs. Do it a couple of times. That creates a high vacuum in the carburetor and it will often pull that jelly through the jets and the thing will run right again. Small engine shops make a fortune cleaning carbs when all they do is dump in fresh E10, rev it up and choke the carb with a rag. Presto! They got it running right in 5 minutes and charge 1/2 day labor. Running lean is running hot and you will burn up an engine. Running a two stroke lean is less gas and less oil and they burn up even faster.
