Fuel System: Ethanol dilemmas

[poweroptions]

Quick word about ETHANOL. Driving my 73 MarkIV today (daily driver) into town. It quit running just died going down the road. I cranked and cranked trying to start. Had fire, checked the points, had fuel when mashing the accelerator pump. My neighbor down the road came out to help me. Got his Berryman's poured it down the carb it fired right off with some sputtering around. I was able to get it home. Pulled the carb and what do I find in the bowls but water and lots of it, full of water...... That's the last tank of gas to ever come from Murphy's at Walmart.

[Bud]

You might think about draining the gas tank as there is probably a load of water on the bottom of the tank. Ethanol is bad stuff for the older fuel systems, but I've never seen a carbuteror full of water unless there is a load water in the tank usually from a load of bad gas. Bud

[63 R2 Hawk]

Ethanol laced fuel is known to be corrosive, especially in older cars with fuel tanks/lines/pumps etc that weren't designed for intentional, mandated contaminated fuel. I try to run non-ethanol or 100LL avgas whenever I can get/afford it, especially in winter when I don't drive my studebaker as often. Drain your tank and look for water, you can strain it out with an old time chamois. Look for a non-ethanol gas distributor- try searching around boat marinas or airports.

[BobGlasscock]

find non-ethanol gas stations in your area: www.pure-gas.org

[Charlie D]

Almost all my gas for my daily drivers ('01 & '02) comes from Murphy's at Walmart. 5 cents off per gallon if I use my Walmart card is worth it for me. I do not think that Ethanol at Murphy's is any worse than Ethanol from anywhere else. So far only non-ethanol has gone in my Studebaker..


Charlie D.

[deco_droid]

I am no fan of ethanol, but it sounds like they just got a bad batch of gasoline or they have some sort of leak in their underground tanks?

[Gunslinger]

Gas station operators are supposed to stick (measure) their tanks daily (opening and closing) and before and after receiving a load of gasoline...not just to measure the total fuel level but also the water level in the tank. All underground tanks have water at the bottom...it's normal. The pickup for fuel is several inches above the water level to keep water from being pumped into vehicles.

If the water level is too high...from a bad load of gasoline or from poor maintenance or whatever reason, they have problems. Another potential cause for water in the gas is immediately after a tanker makes a delivery...the fuel gets roiled in the underground tank and until it settles down water can possibly get to the pickup. It's not too common but can happen.

[Skybolt]

I stopped filling my BMW at Sam's Club as one day on the way back from the LAX to drop someone off the car died on the freeway with the gauge and computer reading at least 25 miles left. Before that the computer on the car had been correct down to a few miles, never went below 5 miles left before I filled it up. It was water. The Honda has no problems with the lower grade, 87, from there but the 91 I buy from somewhere else. So even fuel injected cars get problems.

It doesn't sound logical but I could put it down to nothing else. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, even if I'm wrong. Gotta blame someone.

[poweroptions]

My neighbor that helped me today use to own GasnGo stores he told me that Murphy's distributes the lowest quality of gas available. Here, they are 10-15 cents off a gallon using my gift card. With 8 vehicles on the road mostly 460s and 428s , that was my reason for Murphy's. We have no outlet for non ethanol gas in my east Texas area. The state has clamped down on our local airport selling aviation fuel to autos. It depends who you know if you can get aviation fuel at our local field. We have the 67 Tbird down with another carb rebuild, ethanol has destroyed the accelerator pump, the 78 Town Car is down with a internal vacuum leak in the carb we suspect the fuel. The Studebaker had it's tank drained and it was just downright funky looking gas , cloudy and looked like mucus in it. I generally put Stabilt and MMO in the gas sometimes I forget. The Infiniti has a V8 that runs on premium, I filled it at Walmart once and the check engine light was on within miles. I can't work on it so off to the Infiniti dealer, yeeeow that bit into my wallet having to replace 3 of four o2 sensors. The Q45 had around 37,000 on it. Seems Sewell Infiniti didn't tell me they were covered under warranty either. Thanks Sewell, I won't be back. We take the Q to Chevron all the time to fill it. So here I am yearning for the good old days.

[rodnutrandy]

ethanol is really good at collecting water. I also run fuel from murphys in all my vehicles and have had no trouble out of my later models, But my truck sets a lot in a polebarn on concrete floors and it really collected water over a couple of months. Took 3 bottles of gas additive for water to get it to run. I don't blame that on murphys, I blame that on ethanol. Also do know that ethanol will eat the older rubber hose used on cars, only fuel injection hose will work with it over time.

[Greenstude]

When ethanol-contaminated fuel was introduced in our area, some friends and I did quite a bit of research on it. In our area, regular gasoline has 10% ethanol; premium has none; and mid-grade has 5%, being blended by the pump from the other two.We determined that gasoline containing ethanol (a) must be consumed within 30 days of purchase to prevent its separating into ethanol, water and gasoline; (b) should never be used in any vehicle built before 2001; (c) should not be used in a vehicle having a re-lined fuel tank; and (d) should never be used in a small engine, such as a lawn mower, chain saw, snowblower, outboard, etc.Since the introduction of ethanol, only premium fuel has been used in our 1947 Studebaker Champion and 1995 Dodge Caravan. (Fortunately, our 2004 Volkswagen Jetta, which gets most of our driving, is a Diesel.)In June, we drove the '47 Champion to the Northeast Zone Meet in Rutland, Vermont. It was necessary to refuel in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, where all gasoline has 10% ethanol. I continued to buy premium. The car became very difficult to start when the engine was warm; stalled easily and frrequently when idling (not fun at a traffic light in Bangor ME with a line of traffic behind us), and fuel mileage dropped 17 percent. On our return trip home, I refueled in Fredericton, New Brunswick (no ethanol). All these symptoms very quickly disappeared, and have not recurred since then.Given the drop in fuel mileage, I believe it is actually more economical to use premium fuel without ethanol than regular fuel containing it.Before leaving on the trip, I went to the shop which had relined the fuel tank 12 years ago. They kindly contacted an engineer at the company which supplies their gas tank liner material. He said using fuel containing not over 20% ethanol would not hurt the liner IF USED FOR A FEW DAYS. You may be sure that after returning home, I drove the car a considerable amount and refueled with non-ethanol fuel until there would be no significant amount of ethanol left in the tank (less than 0.5%) One of our Atlantic Canada Chapter members is a private pilot, and flies a 1955 Cessna. He says that "Ethanol is poison for aircraft." I feel the same way about its use in any engine.

[64V-K7]

I recently drove from Texas to Virginia and happened upon a station in Arkansas where 93 Octane did NOT have ethanol. It was labelled as such. I filled up and got 2mpg better performance on that tankful.

[nvonada]

If you have water suddenly appear in your tank it was pumped in with the gas. Ethanol actually absorbs and mixes with water (ask any bourbon-and-branch drinker). Ethanol will abosorb water from the air (or any other source) but only up to a point. If you find pure liquid water it is way past that point. By the way commercial dry-gas water removing additives are alcohol of some sort. If you get a gallon of water with your 10 gallons of gas you are going to have problems regardless of the fuel mixture. Ethanol still attacks some rubber compounds and has lower energy content per gallon.

Nathan

[poweroptions]

The carb appeared to have mucus in the bowls. I had swerved to avoid the neighbor lady driving like a bat out of hell on gravel. I believe this mucus sloshed into the carb. I have never done this to our good cars but I am going to grind up 4-5 Naptha mothballs and add to a tankful. My dad was a stock car driver/builder in the 50s-60s he always added handsful of mothballs in those old wrecks and they ran like bats out of hell. I have 3 carbs on my workbench now and I am rebuilding them all again because the accelerator pumps have broken down. NAPA is the only parts house I can find that has the new dark blue Vitron seals. These recent kits I bought from O'Reilly did not. I rebuilt these carbs 3 months ago. ALL 3 accelerator pumps have broken down. I am now suspecting that the 52 Champion is having a BIG issue with the ethanol. I took it into the mechanic shop of our college because we could not get the car to start after it warmed up. That was a year ago (see other post on Champion no start 1 yr.) My longtime mechanic had given up on it and said if I brought it back one more time he was going to throw a wrench thru the windshield. I'm going in to check on the Stude as soon as I get off of here.

[63 R2 Hawk]

Mothballs probably won't help with the ethanol contamination issue, but napthalene will boost the octane of your fuel. They have to be the naptha ones, not the para-dichlorobenzene variety to work. My Dad was a chemist and swore naptha mothballs worked to make your car run better. I wouldn't try it in a modern car with catalytic converters, O2 sensors etc.