Thoughts on using 2 year old gas
 

I purchased a Cobalt 227 from an estate. I new both owners and I winterized the boat before it went into storage. It's a 2000 7.4 fuel injected mercruiser. I changed the seawater pump, turned on batteries (6 years old) and put water to it. It started in 3 seconds and ran perfect. The boat has close to 40 gallons in a 50 gallon tank. I have no idea what type of gas they put in. Run it or drain it ?? I plan on selling the boat but don't want the new owners to have any known issues.

Drain/suck through the pickup (water at bottom of its been sitting), if the gas seems good after you pull a few gallons top it off, run a good large fuel filter, and run it easy to 2/3 or 1/2 tank, top it off. That’s what I do anyways...

gas is much cheaper than an engine........

Personally, I would limit that fuel to a cheap lawnmower... The price of fuel is at now vs. the headache you will have from burning up an engine/parts isn't worth the risk IMHO if you are keeping the boat or spinning it.

Yeas ago i was told that 1 year old fuel with proper stabilizer was do-able if you take it easy in order to add fresh fuel...2 year old fuel is like a bad politician - it only looks the part and will cost you more money than you would imagine if you trust it...

to each their own, if you drain the tank down you could find a mess of sludge/varnish on the bottom that will kill the injectors in a heartbeat...

Drain it..

I've run 2 year old ethanol gas in my 2 stroke snowmobiles many times. Two-stroke are much more sensitive to det than a 4-stroke motor. 3 year old it changes to varnish. Two-year-old fuel loses its octane and doesn't like to start in cold weather is what we found with the sleds. If that thing was sitting outside there's probably some condensate in the bottom of the tank- water. If it sat outside in a winter climate with a half tank of fuel it'll have condensate in the bottom. Now here's what I would do if it was my boat. I would run a can of heat and octane booster, add as much premium fuel to it as possible and baby it until you can add another half tank of premium. Now if you're selling it I would drain it and add premium fuel. I would still take the boat out and verify it operates normally before putting it on the market.

Got a lawnmower?

I have a cheap external fuel pump with 3/8” barb fittings on each end I added length of wire with alligator clips and about 3ft rubber fuel hose on one end and 6ft or do on other. Have a screw in small flilter on output end.

Disconnect fuel from tank to seperator at seoerator.. Use3:8” splice fitting so tank is connectod to remote pump. Into the truck and etc ut goes. :)

oh, lurch boat forwards/reverse 1/2 dozen times to mix up fuel inside tank.

snowmobile even easier to pull old fuel from. Drop line in tank and use my pump set up or just a super siphon. Also called ‘The Rattler.’ No readon to run even year old fuel in a sled. Takes 4 minutes or less to drain.

Contact a lawn service in your area, they may take it for their equipment and possibly have a pump.

I'd pull it all out and run 15 gallons of AV gas through it.