Alcohol/gas

Saturday morning left to meet up with car buddies. Got about a block away and smelled gas, pulled over and checked. Sure enough there’s a puddle of gas under the front of my car. Turned around and pulled it onto my lift, and let it cool. Expected to find a loose fuel connection, surprised to find the fuel pump itself is leaking at the bottom diaphragm, just a little over a year old. Fuel pump is a bugger to get at, not looking forward to this. Decided to change over to an electric pump and plate off the mechanical on the block.

Talking to the guy at the parts house, told him the diaphragm gave out in a little over a year? He said, “what kind of fuel stabilizer you using?”. I said fuel stabilizer, what would I need that for, I use Chevron Supreme. He said “Alcohol in the gas, you need a stabilizer to prevent damaging the rubber parts”. I said what alcohol, not suppose to be any in the fuel. He said, “No, they just don’t have to post it any more, most are running 10%”.

So I do some research and boy is he right! The law states that they don’t have to use alcohol, they just have to meet the epa standards, and guess what, alcohol gets it there, but they’re not required to post it any more!!! Really, been buying expensive gas thinking I was doing the right thing for my motor only to be hoodwinked! Turns out there are only two stations in California not using alcohol in their gas and both are near the Oregon border, 200+ miles away..

And it gets worse, turns out the alcohol attracts moisture even more so in our vented gas tanks, causing even more troubles. Plus, on carbureted motors there is gas that sits on top of the pistons at shut down, which gets into the oil attracting water in the oil as well! And, not all fuel stabilizers are rated for vented/carbureted fuel systems. Best solution is to use marine fuel stabilizers for the added water protection.

Hopefully this helps someone else before they find out the hard way about alcohol and its damaging nature to our motors….

Been putting up with that garbage, more or less, since the oil embargo. If Ethanol wasn't subsidized it would probably go away and the reason I use Lucas fuel injector cleaner every third tank or so.

36, mentioned it before, but it's a subject that bothers me a lot. The ethanol blends start going into phase separation within about two weeks, and without a stabilizer you'll lose 7% to 9% on octane rating. Just sitting in your tank, your 92 octane will drop to 83 to 86 octane. Nice, huh?

That's our Uncle looking out for us.

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Originally Posted by cffisher

That's our Uncle looking out for us.

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I'm all for ethanol production, but what galls me is that Uncle subsidizes the production, and then creates a false market for it with the fuel additives. If we let the production of ethanol float with the actual demand, and let the price of ethanol float based on supply, demand and actual production costs the volume produced would plummet. We'd have more efficient fuel again, plus we'd be using our crops for feed & food vs conversion to alcohol. The ethanol industry is one of the greatest crimes against humanity that we've seen to date.

The only thing I'll disagree with is that they're using a food source for the production when in fact they are using the land that could be used to produce edible corn. One of the reason for the high price of beef and pork especially those animals that are grain fed.

Ive been around this topic a few times... Keep in mind the winter blend is right around the corner so ethanol will be dropping slightly.

Summer-Blend vs Winter-Blend Gasoline: What’s the Difference? - Popular Mechanics

So I'm guessing that we need to buy fuel stabilizer and rubber "shares" to help offset the financial burden that Uncle is placing on us with inefficient fuel ? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Stabil has a recent addition to their line - STA-BIL® Ethanol Fuel Treatment & Stabalizer

ever wonder what happens to the fuel in the tank underground ? in reality the fuel is weeks old to begin with, not to mention how long since it was refined. i have found buying high octane helps with my gas tools here on the farm. it does not eat up rubber as bad . it also sets in one of my tractors for months on end.
as for growing it a farmer is going to grow what sells. beef is high because of the drought and the lifting of sanctions on us beef .

The gas we get now just plain sucks. It's catering to the EPA and the government for all the new "Green" type vehicles. At work we have gas vehicles that go through a carb every year and a half. The alcohol content was up to 40% in our equipment a couple years ago. The airport wasn't testing their gas, and like mentioned, the moisture content was out of this world too. We had to start running stabilizer to help the rubber components live and keep corrosion down as well.

Plus like Shine was saying about the tanks underground.............. You'd be shocked to find out how many fuel stations don't have filters on their pumps. They don't install them to save money. Casey's Corporation was one of the worst up here.

If you guys think the ethanol thing is crap, be lucky you don't have to purchase much diesel. Most states are bio-diesel states and the states don't have to disclose the mixture in it either. Iowa is a B20 state which means you could have up to 20% bio in your fuel. Who cares right? Well bio starts to get thick at 40* and can gel at 34*. It gets worse MPG and algae and bacteria thrive in it. Just what you want in your fuel right?

And the whole crop production thing............... Iowa is a main streamer in Ethanol production. The state wasn't making enough money from the ethanol plants and was going to pull the plug on the entire operation 2 years ago. The state stepped in made some new laws and made some tax changes and the state was buying a certain percentage of the corn produced here to make fuel from. So what happened? It drove the price of corn way up which drove prices of everything else way up. People keep blaiming droughts for the beef prices beeing high. That's part of it. The other part is the winter storm last year that killed off a million cattle in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and surrounding areas. We haven't seen the full circle effect from that yet. It's coming and it isn't going away I imagine either.

Safeguard

in the last few years many ranchers here sold off much of their herd. no hay and the cost of feed was too much. add the removal of beef sanctions and ranchers trying to restock the herds and prices are up there. highest i've ever seen .