What's new
What's new

OT: refueling vechicles frequency with the new gasoline

Bill D

Diamond
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Location
Modesto, CA USA
Off Topic; With the new gasoline that seems to settle water out after a few months in the can have refueling recommendations changed for car and truck gas tanks. I no longer keep more then a two month supply of gas on hand for mowers and such. Any longer and I have to decant water out before every fillup. I do not store any gas for cars or trucks.
I grew up being told keep the tanks full to reduce condensation from the airspace inside the tank. I am refueling when I get below about 1/2 tank. I am thinking maybe it would be better to run then tank down much lower before refueling to get rid of the old gas first. I probably use 1/2 tank per week so it probably does not really matter. I have never had stale gas problems with my truck and car so I am probably overthinking this. When i was younger we poured a little alcohol in the tank from time to time to soak up any water and burn it out through the engine so maybe alcohol in the gas is a good idea.
Also gas tanks are plastic now and do not rust from the inside.
Bill D
 
I don't know how much water E 0-10 gas can absorb before it settles out into a mixture of about 90% ethanol and 10% water, but its not very much.

half an ounce of water for instance will pull most of the ethanol out of a gallon of gas.

modern vehicles have completely sealed fuel systems and there should not be a problem with water getting into the gas.
 
Bill,
It is a really bad idea to keep gasoline for longer than 90 days Even worse, do not let the fuel get stale in carburetors during storage. Modern gasoline contains all kinds of shit like either and other chemicals to encourage complete burning. These chemicals cause waxing and gelatin formation over time. So, it isn't just alcohol that can ruin your day.
 
Bill,
It is a really bad idea to keep gasoline for longer than 90 days Even worse, do not let the fuel get stale in carburetors during storage. Modern gasoline contains all kinds of shit like either and other chemicals to encourage complete burning. These chemicals cause waxing and gelatin formation over time. So, it isn't just alcohol that can ruin your day.

Where do you get this shit? I have 55 gallon drums of gasoline that I have had for years, works just fine, no problems at all.
 
Bill

Have you tried any of the new ethanol gas additives I see on the store shelves ?

They claim to help eliminate the problems from ethanol gas, including
longer term storage, and fuel system damage.

Around here, we have ethanol free gas available, but it is $3.14 a gallon presently.
 
Bite the bullet and buy the no alcohol premium gas. I have a gas tractor with loader around the shop and a gas forklift, they both get it. My string trimmer starts in the spring like I had run it yesterday. Buying all the additives is probably as expensive buying the gas. The car and truck get regular pump gas.

Ed.
 
Bite the bullet and buy the no alcohol premium gas. I have a gas tractor with loader around the shop and a gas forklift, they both get it. My string trimmer starts in the spring like I had run it yesterday. Buying all the additives is probably as expensive buying the gas. The car and truck get regular pump gas.

Ed.

^^^^^ This ^^^^^
 
I live in an area in WI that sells all the reformulated shit, very very bad on small engines. I drive up to the county above me to get the good "premium" gas for my chainsaw, weed eater, motorcycle, ect. Reformulated fuel turns to shit like said above, 90 days give or take.
 
Soon after the Y2K panic settled down, and generators became commonly available again, I went out and bought one, a little bigger than average. Also put a 100 gallon tank in the back of the garage for gasoline. PA electric deregulation + 1998 Quebec ice storm made a week off the grid seem like a real possibility.

Every summer, or two, I make a few trips to the local gas station with a truck full of 5 gallon cans to top off the tank. This gas gets gradually used in the generator, 2 chain saws, weed wacker, wood splitter, and pressure washer with ZERO problems. I add nothing to this gas. This gas is 93 octane premium from the local Sunoco station. I've never put anything but premium in my small motors.

Apparently paying extra for "Premium" gets you more than octane.
 
If you need to store it for long periods and aren't running it in something with a catalytic converter, you can use 100LL aviation fuel. It has a 10 year shelf life.
 
Bill - I have for many years always run my gas tank until the needle points to Empty (which generally means one to two gallons left) and then filled it up completely to minimize the old gas.

I make two-stroke mix a quart or maybe two at a time so that won't sit around.
I even drain the gas out of my front-end loader and zero turn mower and dump it into my truck if I think it is getting around the 3-4 months age.

Moonlight - Is that 10% ethanol pump gas? I am fixing a small generator that has been on my To Do list for a couple of years. Sad to discover I neither shut off the fuel valve nor drained out the last gallon after the last attempt to get it running. The gas that came out was slightly discolored, cloudy and smelled slightly of mold. Inside the carb is a thin coating of greenish deposits. It is the farthest I have ever seen from "fine".

Non-ethanol 93 is $3.69 here.

Steve
 
This gasoline problem is not unique to the USA either. Europe suffers the same shit/ I'm not sure what causes the green shit, but it does definitely screw up a carb and it's very difficult to dissolve.
 
Ethanol stabilizes at 60%. In a big underground fuel tank that is half full, it will absorb all the water it can to get to that point. It will not be able to absorb any other quantity of water once it is saturated. That means if you run around with 1/4 tank in your vehicle all the time, any condensation that is generated in the tank will end up as water in the bottom. Best bet is to fill the tank completely and run it to a reasonable reserve. On vehicles that aren't driven regularly, keep the tank full when in storage.

"On top of the price, it is illegal to pump aviation gasoline into a road vehicle or portable fuel can. "

That's to make sure they get their road taxes out of you and has nothing to do with safety or application. Same as for off-road diesel or Jet-A. 100LL is indeed the ideal small engine and occasionally driven vehicle fuel.

As for your small engines, trick to keeping them from gumming up is to dump all the fuel out and run it until the carb and fuel lines are empty. I started this after my weedeater clogged up one year. I have a cheap $110 Poulan chainsaw I bought over 10 years ago. Even though it hasn't run since last October, I can go out right now, fill it with fuel, and crank it right up.
 








 
Back
Top