New gas on old parts

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

I've heard a lot about the effects of new ethanol gas on old rubber parts but experienced it for the first time. My GMC fuel pump was NOS and I've run it without trouble for several years until now. It still pumps at slow speeds but breaks down after that. Taking it off, I see the reason is because the main diaphragm has gone soft. Compared to a new pump its performance is very weak. I've put on a new pump from the same batch as the dead one and I've been using only high test gas lately (which they tell me is the only ethanol free gas available here in Canada) so we'll see how long it lasts.

[rob love]

My results are similar. The fuel goes skunky in short order, the checkvalves stick, the needle valve in the carbs stick, and any use of rubber fuel lines seem to result in a short lifespan for the hose.

We do run our old M37Dodge on regular fuel here at the base, and we have not had the fuel problems experienced with the other vehicles. But on the remainder, all are run exclusively on premium these days with good results.

I had to remove and unstick the needle valve on the white scout car this year, and also had to replace the checkvalves in the fuel pump. I drained the tank of the ethanol fuel and replaced it with the premium. She sounds about as good as she ever has now.

Notable also is that the majority of your small engines on everything from ride-on lawnmowers to snowblowers to chainsaws also call for non-ethanol fuel.

[DanJahn]

Where does one get non-ethanol fuel ?

[r.morrison]

If I'm not mistaken, and as per Rob's input, all the major brands here have their premium which is around 94 octane. All of these contain no ethanol. They post it at the pump. Correct me if I'm wrong......Robert

[Ed Landstrom]

http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=ON

[rob love]

As part of the governments "green" initiative, the gas companies are required sell a certain percentage of ethanol fuel. This is achieved by adding a 10% ethanol to the regular fuel, a smaller amount to the pricier mid-grade fuel, and none to the pricey premium fuel.

There is a pretty good article about the downfalls of ethanol here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...ticle29103634/

I think one mistake in the article is that fuel stabilizers will help the shelf life of the ethanol blend....it does not. But the writer does admit he does not have scientific back-up to their effectiveness.

His last line sums it up:

The only people benefiting from ethanol are farmers and small engine repair shops.

Politicians ate it up as a no-cost method of appearing green, with a "renewable" source of fuel.

It in no way is better for the environment, and quite frankly we have more than enough oil producing capacity to outlive the amount of time that humans will be able to burn carbon as fuel. It gets sluggish performance, and poorer fuel economy by almost the same amount of ethanol that is in the fuel.

The article mentions how it damages zinc and aluminum parts in the fuel system. I can attest to that....in a year or two it stripped all the zinc coating off a new deuce electric fuel pump and the pump failed.

We regularly loan our museum vehicles to the various units to use in their bigger parades and displays. As much as I would like them to fill the tanks with fuel (museum money is especially tight these days), I have to caution them not to. Filling the diesel vehicles is fine though.

[Ed Landstrom]

There's a quick, easy way to tell whether gasoline contains ethanol. I know pilots who do this every time they buy fuel.

Take a graduated cylinder or any other container that's marked so you can measure volume. Add 80 ml of gasoline and 20 ml water (the volumes aren't critical as long as you know what they are. Shake. If there's no ethanol, the volumes won't change. If there is, the water will extract the ethanol from the gasoline and the volume of the gasoline will decrease, while the volume of the water increases.