Fuel System: old gas

[Jeffry Cassel]

I have a 1935 John Deere "A" This was only the 2nd year they made the model "A". It sat all last summer and winter and a month ago I decided it needed a clean up and move to a better shed. It would not start. Nearly wore out the starter (me) My neighbor pulled it with his tractor and nary a pop. I couldn't really find anything wrong, but the gas did smell nasty so I decided to try fresh gasoline. It started on the 2nd turn of the flywheel. So the moral of the story is ;if it won't start and has set for two years maybe the gas has turned into some non-flammable ??

[SouthBendShaker]

Modern gasoline is terrible. You're lucky if it lasts 6 months, and the ethanol wreaks havoc on rubber fuel system components.

[Skip Lackie]

Sometimes you can get engines to start by diluting the old gas with some fresh fuel. Of course, if it doesn't work, now you've wasted some good gas and have even more bad gas to dispose of. The weed whacker I bought this summer cautions against using any gas that is more than 30 days old.

[RadioRoy]

I just had a similar experience with my lawn mower. It would not run on the gas siphoned from my Lark, even though that gas had Sta-bil in it. Had to get fresh gas from the filling station.

The Lark runs fine on the gas that the lawn mower rejected.

[Commander Eddie]

Well, these results seem to bear our the results of the thread titled "YouTube fuel additive test video".

[bensherb]

And 30 years ago you could haul a car out of a garage that had been sitting there for 20+ years and fire it up on the gas that was in it. Yeah, Progress.

[t walgamuth]

If you can find ethanol free fuel it is much more stable. I use it in my hobby cars and boat motors.

[TWChamp]

Everything said above is so true. I always buy the non corn crap gas for my small engines and Studebakers, but even the better gas mixed with 2 cycle oil for my leaf blower went bad in a short time. The blower was running great, but as soon as I refilled the tank it will now only run at a fast idle. I used the rest of the gas for starting fires, and even for that it doesn't have the dangerous flare up like good gas has.

[RadioRoy]

This is puzzling to me. Does it seem like all the non-alcohol gas is only available in the heartland? That's the same place where the corn grows. Is there something about local lobbyist groups pressuring the law makers?

[Dick LeRoux]

Here we go again. Archer, Daniels, Midland is holding the U.S.A. hostage. If it takes more than a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of ethanol how on earth would we ever get ahead? Too many subsidies, too many state legislators lining their pockets, too many people fooled into thinking that adding ethanol to gas is a "good" thing. Adding ethanol decreases MPG, raises the CO2 emitted, and decreases engine output. Try selling the idea of getting off of corn subsidies in IL, IA, KN, MN, and see how popular that idea would be received.

[DEEPNHOCK]

I disagree. Toss out the efficiency and the politics you injected.
We are addicted to high quality gasoline, and our equipment is built as cheaply as possible, so it gets affected at the least little change. There. I said it. Go to Brazil, where they have no crude oil, but they have a great growing climate. They grow sugar cane and beets. And their economy and their automotive industry is ethanol based. Works fine if the equipment is built for it.
Why do I accept ethanol? Because I believe it is better to grow your fuel annually rather than having to wait a million years for crude oil to ready to refine. Yeah, our economy is a slave to crude oil, but our resistance to ethanol is also forced by the component manufacturers not wanting to change.. I'll go back to lurking now...

Here we go again. Archer, Daniels, Midland is holding the U.S.A. hostage. If it takes more than a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of ethanol how on earth would we ever get ahead? Too many subsidies, too many state legislators lining their pockets, too many people fooled into thinking that adding ethanol to gas is a "good" thing. Adding ethanol decreases MPG, raises the CO2 emitted, and decreases engine output. Try selling the idea of getting off of corn subsidies in IL, IA, KN, MN, and see how popular that idea would be received.

[Skip Lackie]

This is puzzling to me. Does it seem like all the non-alcohol gas is only available in the heartland? That's the same place where the corn grows. Is there something about local lobbyist groups pressuring the law makers?

The legal answer to this question is that in 1990 Congress mandated oxygenates in gas to reduce air pollution in areas with bad air, and authorized the EPA to determine what those areas were. The (then current) details were discussed in a series of columns I wrote back for TW in the 1990s. I no longer have those pieces electronically, so I can't just cut and paste excerpts here. The original idea was to use MTBE (a man-made chemical that was specifically formulated as an oxygenate), but ethanol was included in the legislation as an option to get the votes of corn-belt Congress members. When MTBE turned out to be a carcinogen, ethanol was the last oxygenate left standing. As a result, a huge and politically powerful corn-to-ethanol industry grew up around corn farmers, ADM, various distillers, etc.

The EPA still monitors air quality nationwide and determines which regions (counties, cities) must sell only oxygenated fuels. The EPA doesn't have its own police, so enforcement is left up to the states and cities. Nearly all big cities in North America are still in non-compliance with the air quality standards, and many suburban areas flunk as well. But most rural areas have clean air, so ironically, the areas that make the stuff don't have to use it.

The issue became even more political when Congress mandated increased use of ethanol in gasoline -- whether it is needed to satisfy oxygenate requirements or not. Further complicating the matter is that Congress has prohibited the EPA (or any other research organization that receives federal funds) from conducting any kind of study to determine if the use of ethanol in gasoline is actually having a positive effect. Some scientists have asserted that it actually takes more petroleum to grow, make and transport the stuff than the amount of oil it saves -- and there's never been any proof that using it in gasoline actually cleans up the air.

[Commander Eddie]

This is puzzling to me. Does it seem like all the non-alcohol gas is only available in the heartland? That's the same place where the corn grows. Is there something about local lobbyist groups pressuring the law makers?

We have plenty of non-ethanol (clear) gas available here in Oregon. There is a Texaco station at the bottom of the hill from me where I top up my '55.

[RadioRoy]

Thanks Skip, for the well written reply.

[rbisacca]

This is puzzling to me. Does it seem like all the non-alcohol gas is only available in the heartland? That's the same place where the corn grows. Is there something about local lobbyist groups pressuring the law makers?

Plenty of non-ethanol available in Florida. Far from the heartland.