Gloppy Gas

P

pcator

New member
In the Feb. issue of "Go Boating" on page 31 they talk about gas losing up to 50% of the octane in as little as 30 days after putting gas in the tank. I find this hard to believe. They recommend putting in a preservative. How do you keep up with how much to put in as you top off your tanks. What do others do about this?

Patrick
 
We've never had any real troubles with gas on our boats. If I think we'll not do much boating for a while (yeah, right) I'll add Sta-Bil. Usually, though, we just fill 'er up and go. We run a spin on filter/separator, too.

Rick
 
I did not see that article, but it sounds like one of the many side effects of using an ETHANOL blend in the gas tank. It can't be just sitting gas, or the fuel in our 10,000 gallon tank at our Marina would be worthless after winter, and after 24 years I promise you that is not the case. I know ethanol causes "Phase Separation" after 30-90 days and that can really make a percentage of the fuel worthless. This is all book smarts, because it has been a factor in my part of the country yet.
The more I read about it, the less I think it is helping our country and is more a spin for the Corn Farmers.
If you think you've gotten Ethanol, or you expect you might be forced to buy some in your travels, stock up on the filters you have on the back of the C-Dory, and get ready to change them. We're suggesting to our customers to change the filter within an hour of running on the mix (adding ethanol to straight gas), and then a least another change at 2 hrs, and then keep some filters (more than one) handy. Had several customers who had the boat just stop , and it was a clogged filter after they got gas from states south of here. A real show stopper that hit without warning. An easy way to ruin a nice day, and easily preventable but you have to have some knowledge, and with the slow introduction and the various state rules, it is not knowledge that you would routinely come across.

Go BRATS!

Good Luck!
 
Wayne-

Both the Federal Government and the individual states share control of the laws controlling production, distribution, and labeling of petroleum and, specifically, gasoline products.

The general rule is that while any gasoline that contains ethanol (or methanol) should, by law, be labeled as such, it often is not! So I guess you never really know for sure. No guarantees!

I don't know about anyone else, but in the case of the E10 (10% ethanol) formulated gas, I can actually smell the ethanol in the gas mixture as I put it into the tank.

Unfortunately, there isn't any way to avoid gas with ethanol in it, at least in California, where it seems to be in all gas mixtures. Interesstingly, the gas formula varies from metropolitan to rural areas, and also varies with the season.

I have, however, heard of a few persons buying aviation gas to avoid the ethanol.

I think the biggest problem occurs when ethanol containing gas is added to older boats that have never had it before, as it breaks loose varnish deposits in fuels systems and wrecks havoc as it absorbs moisture that has been accumulating in the gas tanks over the many years.

New boats and motors seem to be able to handle it better with their clean systems and are also built with the use of ethanol containing fuel in mind.

The above is to the best of my knowledge after reading on the subject in the past and from my recall. Others may want to clarify points made and/or to point out exceptions!

Joe.

 
Many thanks, Joe:

My sense is...that a few years back, it typically was labeled as containing 10% ethanol (such as Sunoco gas), but it typically no longer is (at least, if it is not more than 10% ethanol).

Perhaps, as you suggest, labeling requirements vary in different states?

Isn't most gas now 10% ethanol? Can one buy 100% gas? Is aviation gas hard to find?

What does ethanol smell like?
 
Wayne-

The ethanol/gasoline mixture smells like somebody dumped a bottle of vodka in a gallon of gas, naturally enough!

I'vew never tried to buy aviation gas, but don't think there's any prohibition other than he price, which is higher. There may be a road tax issue, however.

I think most all gas now has 10% ethanol in it, a concession to the congressional delegations to the Corn States!

As far as I know, the states do have varying regulations in addition to those federal requirements that are stateswide.

Joe.
 
As a corn producer, I want to thank all of you for doubling the price of corn this year! But not all fuel in Florida has ethinol-fortunately. I don't see Corn ethanol as a solution to the energy problems.

We do leave fuel in various vehicles for 6 or more months at a time. We usually add fuel stabalizers, but occasionally miss a tank. Never had a problem. But we do run the gas out of small motors (like standby generators and small kickers) and start the larger engines at least once every two weeks, and let them warm up to operating temperature.
 
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