Alcohol in gasoline

[AaronB]

Not sure where to ask this, but a mod can move it if they like.

My father-in-law has been having problems with chainsaws and some other equipment due to Missouri putting in more alcohol in their gasoline. It was something the state passed to help with gas prices I believe.

Anyway, is there anything we can add to the gas cans that will take away or negate the effects of the extra alcohol and make it more like the gas it used to be? He never had these problems until they changed the gas mixture.

Thanks

 

[BarkBuster20]

i think the fuel stabilizers in qaulity 2-stroke oil will help with that

 

[mtngun]

You might be able to buy aviation gas at an airport. It's expensive, though, and I haven't found it necessary, even though 10% ethanol is a nuisance in some ways.

I've experienced two problems with ethanol. First, it does absorb moisture from the air. The "wet" fuel settles to the bottom of the container and looks cloudy. Fortunately, I live in a dry climate so that's not a severe problem for me. I dump any fuel that looks cloudy, usually the last gallon or two from my 55 gallon drum.

Second, it seems to boil easily, and warm engines can be balky to start on a hot day, probably due to fuel boiling in the carb. The expansion and contraction that accompanies boiling/condensation is hard on plastic fuel jugs unless they are vented (and if they are vented, the fuel will soak up more moisture from the air).

However, I haven't had any saws seize up or anything serious like that. Other than the balky hot starts, they seem to run fine on E10 mix.

As far as I can determine from googling, Missouri gas is 10% ethanol just like the rest of the country, so get used to it.

 

[Farmall Guy]

I ran into some issues with my 880 running on E10, it had very little power in the cut and reved incosistantly. when I took it to my dealer he tryed to tune it and couldnt get it to tune right until he dumped my mix and put in some of his. The mix was only a couple weeks old and all my other saws were running fine, I think the 880 had picked up some moisture due to the ethenol as I dont run it as often as I do my other saws.

After that I switched to 100 low lead AV fuel, my saws run alright on it but they are a little rougher at idle and dont like to idle at all until warmed up. I,ve got a little more AV gas to burn up thenI think I'll start running something formulated for 2 strokes. A buddy of mine gets his fuel from one of the motocross dealers and says it works good so maybe I'll give that a go.

One benifit I found with the AV gas is all my saws run cooler than they did on the E10 garbage. I'm assuming that is because alky burns hotter than real gas

 

[Backwoods]

The governor jumped the gun on adding ethanol to the gas before the distributors were ready and we ended up with a stretch where the gas and ethanol were not mixing. Lot of two cycle engines died that first couple of weeks. I lost my big saw and a weed eater before the problem was solved. I found that the distributors here can sell “CLEAR GAS” (which is super with out the ethanol) for off road use. That is all I run thru my two cycle engines. The ethanol gas has about a 3-month shelf life before it separates. By adding the Marine or ethanol (green colored) “STAY-BIL” the shelf life can be doubled. If I do not use the vehicle on a daily basis, I add Stay-bil to the tank.

 

[Pruitt1222]

I accidentally put some in our boat and well after a few weeks in storage it didn't run, So long story short had to put in the shop to have tank/fuel lines ect. cleaned out. While talking to one tech he said this spring he has had more problems with ethanol then he would ever have guessed, He said that he had seen ploy fuel tanks that were so soft he could stick his finger through them. Only thing he could figure is ethanol, But I don't know for sure. He is a big pot head.

 

[Ollbuster]

Here in Missouri only the lower grades are mixed. Premium is straight gas, all I use in my saws and hav'nt seen a problem. Had gas mixed in the saw for over a month with no issues.

 

[mtngun]

Here in Missouri only the lower grades are mixed. Premium is straight gas, all I use in my saws and hav'nt seen a problem. Had gas mixed in the saw for over a month with no issues.

Missouri laws sound pretty complicated.

It seems that Missouri premium is not required to contain ethanol, but it may contain ethanol, without being labeled as such.

Regular grade in Missouri must be E10 when the price is the same or less than straight gas. However, if the price of straight gas goes down below the cost of E10, then regular pump gas may be straight gas -- or not.

E10 is not required by law in Idaho, however, E10 is required in neighboring Washington and Oregon, where most of Idaho's gas comes from, hence, all pump gas in my region is E10. S.E. Idaho may be different since their gas comes from Wyoming and Utah.

Complicated.

 

[AaronB]

Here in Missouri only the lower grades are mixed. Premium is straight gas, all I use in my saws and hav'nt seen a problem. Had gas mixed in the saw for over a month with no issues.

Thanks I will tell him that. I think he thinks the gas is the same. Worst he can do is try it. Do you know of any articles where it states premium doesn't have it? Or websites I could print it off on.

Thanks

 

[Ollbuster]

Some of the pumps for premium are labeled as such. Bes t way is if you have a lake close most marinas sell ethanol free gas. Ethanols ability to atrack water caused problems in boats so marinas are a good place to find it. My local station has the pump marked.

 

[LAndrews]

Argh. The chemist in me just can't take it anymore...

Ethanol just doesn't do that stuff to plastic - try it! I keep pure 200proof EtOH and all ratios of water mixes in PE squeeze bottles at work without a problem. SuperSipper anyone?

Small hydrocarbons (butane through hexane, some of the light amines and esters, etc) do a fine job of softening/dissolving plastic, and are soluble in gasoline in handful of percent concentrations at low temps. Get em hot and they're boiling right out. Race gas is loaded with this stuff, but it's *consistent* at least - you always get the same stuff.

The refineries are squeezing more of the junk they produce into gas because the other markets for that stuff disappeared and they've got to do something with it. It takes a competent chemist with a heck of an analytical lab to prove this - and it's tempting to accept 'it's the fault of the enviro-loons' as a convenient explanation.

Don't believe the hype. It ain't the booze doing that stuff, even if the reason it's there in the first place (thanks to the agriculture lobby) is a total sham.

 

[wigglesworth]

Dont know if its true, but I have heard that the moonshiners used to run their moonshine by putting it in their tanks and running their cars off of it.

 

[BobL]

Argh. The chemist in me just can't take it anymore...

Ethanol just doesn't do that stuff to plastic - try it! I keep pure 200proof EtOH and all ratios of water mixes in PE squeeze bottles at work without a problem. SuperSipper anyone?

Small hydrocarbons (butane through hexane, some of the light amines and esters, etc) do a fine job of softening/dissolving plastic, and are soluble in gasoline in handful of percent concentrations at low temps. Get em hot and they're boiling right out. Race gas is loaded with this stuff, but it's *consistent* at least - you always get the same stuff.

The refineries are squeezing more of the junk they produce into gas because the other markets for that stuff disappeared and they've got to do something with it. It takes a competent chemist with a heck of an analytical lab to prove this - and it's tempting to accept 'it's the fault of the enviro-loons' as a convenient explanation.

Don't believe the hype. It ain't the booze doing that stuff, even if the reason it's there in the first place (thanks to the agriculture lobby) is a total sham.

I agree about the squeezing of extra stuff into gas aside from alcohol, about 20 years ago the Singapore spot price for toluene dropped below the spot price of gas and a lot of South East Asian gas was loaded up with toluene - way beyond the recommended limits and it played havoc with gaskets and other components in engines.

 

[Ollbuster]

The original post had nothing to due with plastics. The real problem I have had here in Humid Hot Missouri is moisture. The white milky substance at the bottom of a gas can is a reality and a relatively new one.

 

[Andy Harden]

Does anyone here use Sea-Foam? It is a fuel stabilizer like Sta-Bil but is formulated for ethanol. It seems to do a good job of preventing that white milky stuff in the bottom of the fuel cans. I haven’t had any problems with plastic containers getting soft on me.

 

[Boogieman142]

Don't know if this is any help or not but i noticed that after a while i was getting some clear fluid in the tanks of my saws, i'm assuming this is alcohol. I started using klotz super techniplate to atleast mix with it so there will be oil in it and no more clear fluid.

 

[Bambi]

I don't know what E 10 is. I guess around the country and the world they have different designations and or names for things. I did my homework on E85 and that was an eye opener. Remember that all the gas is controlled by criminal minds, people that are coniving and schemeing all the time. The law sez they are allowed 10% alky, do yo think they obey the laws? Maybe some days they pop in 15% or more. Most engines will work just fine with 10% it gets risky runnin more. I had to get a new fuel pump because of the gas and bought an OEM part and they stated emphatically because they could not gaurantee the gas, that they could not guarantee the new pump. OK they put other things in there that do things to plastic, rubber even metal.
What to do? Its a crap shoot, you have to do what everyone else in YOUR area does. What works in my area might not work in your area. I have had good luck with mid grade gas with Marine Stabil. I recommend the Marine stuff over the regular stuff. I also only mix in small batches. Don't know what the shelf life of the gas is today. Heck it could be 5 minutes or 5 years. As for AV gas and Racing gas, the stuff ain't cheap and would be very prohibitive to us folks that mill. I have had my share of gas doin funny things. One things that has been on my mind is getting the gas at the pump and then running it thru a filter into a Designated Clean can. Sounds stupid but we don't know what is in the gas. Everytime I dumped a fuel bowl it has been full of some kind of dirt and I have clean filters, something is gettin by.
Plastic was mentioned, some chemicals eat plastics, just as there are many types of chemicals so goes with plastics. Some are very chemical resistant, but I am sure there is some chemical out there that will eat it.
Not so funny story, years ago, I knew a fellow that was on some Race Team and for whatever reason they was always syphoning gas and of course he was the man. He could tell ya about gas almost like the wine and whiskey coneseurs. He would say this one went down smooth, this one was a little hard, some sat well in the stomach etc. He downed some Elf Racing gas, said he almost died, felt like an atomic bomb went off in his stomach, had to be hauled off to the hospital. Haven't seen him in years but knew he had all sorts of problems from all the chemicals in gas. Moral of the story, don't syphon gas, even the fumes are hazardous.
On another board that I am on, one of the guys sustained injuries because of two chemicals interacting. It seems that when brake clean comes in contact with argon gas, used in heli arc welding, it forms phosgene gas. There is no cure for the damage done by phosgene gas even in the smallest amounts.
We don't know what is in the gas, they had to remove one of the additives cuz it was super bad for the environment.
AV gas and Racing gas may be kool but, if you ever went to a car show with the guyz runnin the stuff, the exhaust fumes are terrible. Runnin a saw with those kind of fumes around is not my way of having fun.
I have used Gumout for years, but have been told recently that the chemicals in that eat the tips of the needles in carburetors, since many are tipped with some kind of plastic. They recomended using Lucas fuel injection cleaner instead. I still want to hear more about this SeaFoam stuff.
Good luck folks with the gas in your area.
Bambi

 

[Backwoods]

If I am not mistaken moonshine was kept in glass jars, there had to be a reason behind that. Maybe they just did not like the taste of tin cans.

Something is weakening, dissolving, deteriorating, or melting the plastic components in the fuel systems that were not doing it before the ethanol was added, what they added with the ethanol may be the culprit.

The local mechanic has a whole line of equipment out in front of his shop waiting for fuel system parts and everything is on back order, so that would indicate that he is real slow or it must be more wide spread then just local. Then again, last year before the ethanol was added, he did not have this problem.

The local parts house stocks an assortment of ethanol treatments including sea-foam but they sell more Stay-bil then all the rest combined, That would indicate that it either has a better advertizing program or it is the more affective product. Sea-foam seems to be the only real competitor that Stay-bil has and may even work better on different blends of gas.

I just hope the Oregon governor is having problems with his vehicles, since he went against the vote and snuck it in anyway.

 

[BobL]

It seems that when brake clean comes in contact with argon gas, used in heli arc welding, it forms phosgene gas. There is no cure for the damage done by phosgene gas even in the smallest amounts.
We don't know what is in the gas, they had to remove one of the additives cuz it was super bad for the environment.

This one is all over the web and the way it is being discussed demonstrates a very poor understanding of basic chemistry.

There is quite a bit of Argon in the air so if contact between Ar and chlorinated brake cleaner is a problem we'd all be dead. Argon in fact very unreactive and make no chemicals with other elements unless it is put under very very special conditions, and Ar certainly is not a component of phosgene gas (formula COCl2) there is no Ar in phosgene.

What is happening it the TIG and chlorinated brake cleaner situation is that when brake cleaner is heated to a high temperature it would normally react with oxygen from the air and burn into carbon oxide/dioxide and water but the Ar in the TIG shields the cleaner from the air so it decomposes instead of burning and one of the decomposition products happens to be phosgene. Chlorinated brake cleaner is not special, the same thing will happen with many other other chlorinated hydrocarbons.

The lesson here is clean your TIG welding joints very carefully especially if you use brake cleaner that contains chlorine. The other thing to do is remove chlorinated brake cleaner from your shop.