My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

[Texasmark]

Guy across the road is an urbanite and comes out to his place seldom. Was out yesterday with a seldom used, in new condition APU. Comes over to the house and want's me to help him get it started.

Draining the gas in the bowl indicates degraded fuel.....yellow ethanol. Bowl inner surface just slightly contaminated. In short the jet in the carb, high speed/low speed I don't know, but any way when I took it out you couldn't see through it. It was clogged with some kind of greenish gunk.

A quick spray with carb cleaner aerosol and the air hose rendered it clean and bright and shiny. Reinstallation of everything and with the old gas drained out of the system and new installed, it lit off the first pull.

So, I have experienced it first hand and the engine will not run on it for whatever reason! I WILL continue to "waste" my money on additives as I don't have that problem with my equipment!

Mark

 

[foodfisher]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Apu ?

 

[JB]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Auxiliary Power Unit?

Anything that goes wrong with fuel is automatically an ethanol problem? How old was the fuel that gummed up that carb? Was there StaBil in it?

 

[Hoosmatroos]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

I think it's an Axillary Power Unit? A Generator?

/edit
Too late

 

[jkust]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

I'd call you crazy except I deal with the same on my carbed snowmobiles. I have the carbs cleaned and gone through, stored with stabil and 3 months of sitting is enough to cause issues. So frustrating. My EFI versions never have this issue.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Meh, carbs get gummed up from sitting if you leave fuel in them - regardless of what snake oil you put in the gas. Run the carbs dry before you store and you shouldn't have any problems.

For the OP - nothing you saw indicates an ethanol problem, just bad gas and poor storage technique.

 

[jkust]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Meh, carbs get gummed up from sitting if you leave fuel in them - regardless of what snake oil you put in the gas. Run the carbs dry before you store and you shouldn't have any problems.

For the OP - nothing you saw indicates an ethanol problem, just bad gas and poor storage technique.

Yep on the carbed sleds at least, draining the tanks and running the fuel out of the carbs is a good tip. I hate carbs and their extra headaches.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Yep on the carbed sleds at least, draining the tanks and running the fuel out of the carbs is a good tip. I hate carbs and their extra headaches.

We leave it in the tank, but I do run the carbs dry. Haven't had any issues yet with the sleds or the boats and they all have carbs.

 

[roscoe]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Yep on the carbed sleds at least, draining the tanks and running the fuel out of the carbs is a good tip. I hate carbs and their extra headaches.

But a carb is something you can clean, fix, or adjust in the field. Not likely with efi.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

But a carb is something you can clean, fix, or adjust in the field. Not likely with efi.

Sure. But when you don't properly maintain your stuff, you're going to have problems. OPs neighbor made a mistake. If it had been an EFI powered unit, very little would have changed. Can of fuel injector cleaner, new gas, and I'll bet she'd have started.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Auxiliary Power Unit?

Anything that goes wrong with fuel is automatically an ethanol problem? How old was the fuel that gummed up that carb? Was there StaBil in it?

It was e10 about 2 years as he remembered, no additives.

Mark

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Any gas sitting that long can do that. It don't have to have ethanol in it.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Auxiliary Power Unit?

Anything that goes wrong with fuel is automatically an ethanol problem? How old was the fuel that gummed up that carb? Was there StaBil in it?

JB, if you doubt it, take a clear pint jar full of 10% ethanol gas and set it out in the sun for a day. It will not even look like gasoline after 24 hours. It is called phase separation. Alcohol (water base) and gasoline (petroleum based) do not mix. They quickly form an emulsion which can plug things up. Just hope that they do not force us to accept 15% alcohol. You think you hear of problems now?

 

[Boomyal]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Any gas sitting that long can do that. It don't have to have ethanol in it.

I've got a '65 Mustang V8. Up until 2 years ago it sat for 12 years with a tank of stabilized non ethanol fuel in it. When I started running the car more regularly, that tank of gas ran just fine and never plugged anything up. Fuel stabilizer does nothing to keep 10% ethanol gas from wreaking havoc.

I have quit running ethanol gas in anything I own that sits for a half a year or more. This includes my boat and all my yard implements. Fortunately we can still get pure gas even though we pay a premium for it.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

JB, if you doubt it, take a clear pint jar full of 10% ethanol gas and set it out in the sun for a day. It will not even look like gasoline after 24 hours. It is called phase separation. Alcohol (water base) and gasoline (petroleum based) do not mix. They quickly form an emulsion which can plug things up. Just hope that they do not force us to accept 15% alcohol. You think you hear of problems now?

Must be some awful bad gas they sell where you live. We've had it here in MN for 20+ years and think nothing of storing vehicles full of gas for 6+ months with no pixie dust additives.

 

[Outsider]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

It is called phase separation.

And all this time I thought phase separation had to do with the hygroscopic saturation of ethanol by water, and it was because ethanol and gasoline don't mix (even for an afternoon). Really? :faint2:

 

[littlerayray]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

get over it boys it cuz soon you wont be able to get ethanol free gas.
it will mean one extra step, (running carb dry) when putting stuff away
for the season.
so get over it and get used to it and it is something you should be doing already i drain the carbs at the end of season each and everytime.
all my equipment after priming starts right up no carb rebuild no issues

 

[Silvertip]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

When ethanol blended fuel hit the market here in MN in the 90's there was a rash of plugged fuel filter issues as the ethanol did what it does best (cleans up the gunk from ignored fuel systems). After a couple of quick filter changes those issues went away. The only carb related issues were on some vehicles and small engines, fuel tanks and carbs were coated internally with a sealant. Ethanol tended to erode that material and turn it to a very fine powder. Again, these were older vehicles and equipment. Chain sawss that used the two halves of the casting for a fuel tank were especially prone. So the long and short of this is that even before ethanol, fuel systems had issues. Use of E10 just hastened the problem. I had three snowmobiles and in my neighborhood there was a total of 21 at one time. To my knowledge none of them and for certain, none of those that rode with us ever had a carb issue. I use E-85 in my car on a regular basis (provided the cost differential is 40 cents or more) and at 80,000 miles it is running perfectly.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

I just told you what happened. The guy did the talking, I just did the observing and the working.

The engine was a Yamaha or Honda, I think a Yamaha. The carb was readily accessible. It had a bowl drain on the side of it which made draining the bowl very easy. For some reason I took a water bottle to catch the drain so that I could look at it and observed that it was about the color of urine.

While I was fiddling with the carb, I had him drain the tank using a clear vinyl hose. The gas leaving the tank was clear like the hose so it may have been ok. He dealt with it so I don't know about it.

When I dropped the bowl, staring at me was this brass insert with a screwdriver slot; never had a carb that looked like that.

As I said the bowl had a thin layer of detectible crud. Upon removing the insert it was obvious that the orifice was plugged with this green gungie stuff. Now, what it was and where it came from I have no idea. It was there and removing it solved the problem.

He really didn't know how old the gas was. Said it was over a year old so I figured a couple for good measure.

Moving right along, not long ago I cleaned out my son's APU which had been sitting with fuel in it for who knows how long....years. The fuel in the tank was discolored this time. I don't know if it was due to additives or age. I mixed it at about 1:3 with good fuel in two of my riding lawn mowers and even at that dilution the mowers ran like crap till I worked through the mix and put in just fresh gas, with some Berryman's Chem tool to clean things up.

So, I'm just not a fan of old gas and I don't know what the folks at the marinas do when you see boats sitting at anchor or at the boat slip in the marina for who knows how long, obviously with fuel in the tanks/engines. Would be interesting to find out.....how bout it guys? How do the boats fare in that case?

Mark

 

[jimbo_jwc]

Re: My Ethanol Experience.....yes here we go again, but it happened to me

Yep gas don't last . Mechanic came to me with poor idling gas Generator no carb adjustments on new stuff . He said he cleaned carb really good blew out all orifices and I asked him to disassemble again and we hand pushed drill through Idle fuel drilling and out came brown straw looking tube that caused the problem . Gas just is like it use to be in these parts and we have refinery That fuels Bellstores within 20 miles . Use nothing but premium now and use stabil in everything on last fill up of season as I don't have the arm power or desire to remove old fuel or disassemble carbs .