Ethanol can wreck your classic car fuel system
 

I can not express this vehemently enough.

Ethanol is bad, it is a disaster if the vehicle sets idle (not driven) weeks or months.

The search terms you need are:
* phase separation
* phase-separated water/ethanol mixture

Note:
There are NO additives that can make stale or phase-separated gasoline usable.

Ethanol in classic car engines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtqWT8ZfG5Y

Ethanol Nightmares in Fishing Boats

How Ethanol Gas Attracts Water from the Air - Demonstration
How Ethanol Gas Attracts Water from the Air - Demonstration - YouTube

Ethanol-blended Fuel


Fuel School: Phase Separation in Ethanol Blended Gasoline

http://www.neiwpcc.org/tanks2010/presentations/Tuesday%20Presentations/Reid%20Biofuels%20%20LD%20Session%20Tuesday.pdf



.

What are y'all doing? Can you get non-blended fuel where you are?

We can get no-ethanol fuel at one gas station on the island, and at some marina fuel docks, but they charge +30% on top of what premium costs. There's also "100LL" at the one remaining airport that sells it, but that's like 2x more than auto gas. Not a lot of options here in the middle of the Pacific.

So, instead (for my 280SE) I just add a little fuel at a time--with a touch of ATF for lubrication--and so it doesn't get stale, I burn through it quickly.

The not-so-great city mileage and my right foot help fuel not sit in my tank for ling, it seems. :rolleyes:

Without a doubt it is not good for older cars. But.....:confused:

Many of the classics have had their fuel lines replaced. Newer fuel lines are designed to handle the "lousy" fuel.

Also be aware that if you replace your brake fluid use DOT3 and NOT 4. Basically the same thing as the ethanol issues.

Miguel

FYI
 

The hoses and steel lines are minor.

The following video shows the massive steel corrosion, and aluminum pitting/erosion I see on a daily basis.

I have junked thousands of Carburetors, fuel pumps, and fuel tanks, due to Ethanol phase separation/acid formation.

Ethanol in classic car engines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtqWT8ZfG5Y

Yorktown, Virginia, EdgeWater, boat, dealer, new, used, pre-owned, brokerage, service, charter

E15: Damaging Vehicles & Small Engines | Smarter Fuel Future

http://www.marinemechanic.com/merc/distributors/mercurymarine/sterndrive/alcoholfuel.PDF


.

Good video. I didn't consider the internals of the carbs and fuel pump. Thanks for the insight.

Miguel

The acid forms if water is present. So the really question is why is there water in the system?

Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but no MAINSTREAM stations sell it. I can't get any of the aviation gas for my cars since it's leaded and all my cars have catalytic converters. I really hate putting it in my Jeep & 300M (both seem to dislike it but the 300M really loathes bad Ethanol mixtures with horrid startups on the first time after sitting from a fillup, due to the separation & water content). Other than racing gas ($$$) at the tracks, there's not any options in PA that I know of.

Alcoholo attracts & blends with water, I believe that is why it's in dry gas. I have an '81 motorcycle I converted to E85 (Jetting & seals) and water collection was an issue.

Yes ethanol in gas kind of crept on me and I spent 2 years wondering why my outboards, snow blower, lawn mower, and '67 beetle were all having trouble starting and running after their winter or summer lay-ups.

Rebuilt carbs were the norm, and quite frankly, I was getting quite sick of all of it. Based on my marina owner's recommendation, I started to use Stabil (brand) Marine in all of my fuel for outboards, small gas engines, and the beetle for it's winter 6 month storage. I have had no problem since on any of my engines.

Use the marine version (green/blue), not the regular (pink). We did a test at the marina using plain gas with ethanol, same gas with marine Stabil, and same gas with the regular Stabil.

1. The plain gas started to seprate out at about 3 weeks, and by 6 weeks, the water had started to grow things.

2. The gas with regular additive lasted for 2 months, and then started to have a very small amount of separation. At 3 months, Still OK, but you could see a little separation.

3. The gas with the marine Stabil additive had no separation at the 3 month point.

Granted, this test was totally unscientific, and was conducted in order to convince skeptical boaters to use the additive. (The marina was tired of rescuing boaters with dead motors.) Since then, they have secured gas with additives already added.

This all FYI, but no gas goes into any of my smaller engines unless it has been treated with Stabil Marine.

Jon

Is this only a problem if a vehicle sits for a long period of time with the ethanol/gas in it?

It's all we can get around here.

If we are to park a car, say, over the winter, whats the best thing we can do? Drain the tank?

The fuel pump (and sender) are being replaced in my Crown Vic. The fuel gells and locks the pump. The solution is to drive it often.

I've added inline fuel shup-off valves to most of my small-engined power appliances that didn't already have them. I always shut the fuel off and run them untill the remaining gas in the carbs has burned off. So far no problems after winter lay-ups on those.
The carb in my '87 Isuzu pickup was totally trashed after sitting 4 years. So last summer, I was lucky to find a working used carb off an '86 Trooper, that hadn't been idle too long, in my local Pick-N-Pull. Now thinking fuel shut-off valves could be a usefull addition for all my carbed vehicles.

Happy Motoring, Mark

That's with E10. EPA and corn lobby now pushing E15 for 2001 and newer automobiles---disaster waiting to happen. Mercury Marine did 300 hr. durability tests under govt. contract on 3 different Mercury marine engines running on E0 and E15 with catastrophic failure prior to completing the 300 hr. tests on the legacy 200 hp 2 stroke and 300 hp supercharged Verado engine running E15. Link to test results here. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52909.pdf
A long but interesting read. Total political special interest groups pushing the ethanol blend IMO. Mark

And I was just considering my options for letting the car sit for a couple months over the summer, probably without being started. I think there is a local marine store that sells the real thing.

What should I be asking for in particular? Just ethanol-free fuel? Would the marine fuel have anything ELSE in it that I wouldn't want in my car?

I wonder if they'll let me fill up there, even if it means walking down to the dock with two five gallon cans. Anyone done this?