Re: Gas treatment

Posted by Fixerupper on August 07, 2012 at 22:04:45 from (100.42.82.164):

In Reply to: Re: Gas treatment posted by t.r.k. on August 07, 2012 at 18:52:23:

How in the world does ethanol draw moisture out of the air? The fuel is in a sealed tank with a vent. Yes, moisture laden air comes in the tank through the vent as the temp cools or as fuel is consumed but 'evil ethanol' doesn't magically 'suck' the moisture down into the gasoline/alcohol in the tank. Think it over, how can ethanol suck moisture into gasoline? The alcohol in ethanol does emulsify the water condensation that runs down the inside of the tank and blends it in with the fuel so it can be burned through the engine. Without alcohol in the fuel the water settles to the bottom of the tank and we do know what kind of problems that causes, or maybe the ethanol haters just ignore the rust flakes.

When I go to fire up a tractor that's been sitting for a year with ethanol in the tank (yes, the tank should have been drained!) there is no condensed water in the tank or the sediment bowl. There is no gum or goo in the carb or anywhere else for that matter. Does the gas smell different after a year, yes, gasoline goes bad. The alcohol in the gasoline does not go bad.

I used to store my 10% ethanol in a 500 gal tank that I had used for years, back when all of the tractors and the combine were gas. Through the years, as I changed to diesel, I just wasn't using ehough gas to justify that big tank, as I was only having it half filled every 9 months or so. We all know a partially filled tank will condense a lot of water on the inside, so I decided to start using a 200 gal overhead tank on stilts and use gravity flow to fill the tractors instead of using the electric pump I had on the 500 gal tank. So when it came time to retire the big tank I pumped it out until the pump wouldn't draw the fuel out anymore, and then I removed the plug in the bottom to let the rest of the fuel in the bottom of the tank out. Thinking there would be water in it I was just going to let it fly. When I unscrewed the plug, out came CLEAN WATER FREE fuel. I put the plug back in, got a pan to catch it along with a couple of pails so I could keep the stuff. I got 10 gallons of CLEAN ethanol fuel out and about a quart of rusty looking stuff right at the end. I strained it and poured the fuel in a gas tractor and it never sputtered or acted sick during the time it burned up the fuel. This is the fuel out of the very bottom of a tank that hasn't been drained for many years. There was NO water, ZERO, and this tank hadn't been completely drained for YEARS.

I remember the pre-ethanol days when we would have to pull the bottom plug to let the water out of the bottom of this same tank after enough water condensed and settled to the bottom to be sucked up by the pump, giving us sediment bowls full of water and crappy running tractors. This is when we filled the tank at least three times a year. During the past 30 years that I've used ethanol I only had water in a sediment bowl once and that was because I put gas in a pail that had water in the bottom of it. Then I poured the contents in the tractor tank. I have only had ethanol related fuel system problems two times. It was the accelerator pump diaphragms in a 1976 Plymouth with a 318, and an old carbureted Ford Ranger. Those are the only two problems I've had out of the umteen many vehicles and engines I've used it in. I ran a 73 Satellite for 297000 miles on mostly ethanol and the carb gave no problems, same with the 79 Dodge 360. In fact, I could advance the timing in the dodge a bit because of the increased octane, and it DID get slightly better mileage. Yes, I keep records. The accelerator pump problems only happend on the 76 Plymouth. Rant over!!!Jim

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