Alcohol absorbs water

The secret is to seal the fuel system. Does your gas cap on the small engine have a little hole in it for a vent-----is it too difficult to put a piece of tape over it to seal it?? Also, I've seen 5 gallon gas cans with the pour spout open because the employ lost the cap. Is it any wonder they have a problem. If I lose the cap. I tightly stuff a paper towel in the end and then take a plastic baggie and use a bread wrapper twistum to seal it. If a vent is sealed there will be no air exchange or water problem plus the lighter molecules of gasoline won't float off leaving the heavy ones that are the goo. This could also be said for airplanes. Last winter my partially filled 2 gallon jug with 2 cycle E10/oil mix was sucked in when the October Iowa air contracted in January---this told me I had a good seal. It's not rocket science.

So I have a question Marty. We were working on a dozer and had some rubber hose clamps off. We soaked them in gasoline to clean them. After a day of soaking they were swelled so badly that they would not fit on the hose, we had to cut them down to fit. We've never had that happen with E0 gasoline. I have been told that ethanol with swell rubber that is not designed for it. So if the hoses on my lawnmower or honda pump aren't designed for it, won't they swell up and choke off? I'm asking as a serious question.

David

ethanol with swell rubber that is not designed for it

This is true. Does anybody in recent times use rubber like that. I'm guessing your hose clamps are pretty old. Why did you use gas instead of parts cleaner solvent? It is interesting that Steve, Pioneer Hybrids and many others have success and others don't. My 20 year old Lawnboy has rubber and it has never been changed. Here is a picture of different refinery gasoline swelling on seals vs pure ethanol. Maybe your gas oline comes from an unlucky refinery.

Well its a 2008 komatsu dozer, so no its not that old. As well, my brand new JD lawn mower says right in the manual that use of ethanol fuel is not reccommended.

Putting aside the politics of whether it should have been there to begin with, it seems monumentally stupid to still be manufacturing products that can't tolerate it decades after it became common in many places.

It's one thing to have the alcohol in there it's another to keep adding more and more all the time like Obamacare it just keeps getting worse

Not trying to offend you Marty, but just wanted you and others to hear our side of the story and the many problems that ethanol blended unleaded caused us.

There was about a year and a half that there was no clean unleaded available in our region and we were forced to buy ethanol-gas. Ethanol blended unleaded was only good for about 2-3 weeks and after that we had to blend it with 100LL to get our machines to run it. Yes, we tried every additive under the sun, no beans.

During that time we had to use the ethanol blend, we had just bought a brand new Polaris ranger and 4 wheeler. Also used a CJ-7 and K5 blazer that run on unleaded. We only bought 91/93 premium. The Polaris ranger had to have the fuel pump replaced twice in one year. The 4 wheeler also burnt up a fuel pump. The CJ-7 and K5 both had to have all fuel lines replaced and carbs re-built. Even after all that it still would only run for 2-3 weeks before the engines would pop, snort, and after they got hot vapor lock and quit. Some loads of fuel did that from day one. I also ran it in my Yamaha YZ 450 dirt bike, didnt have to replace anything but it would backfire and switched to 100LL almost immediately. We finally just bit the bullet after a year and started running 100LL only in our gas machines. No more problems!!!

Low and behold, clean unleaded came back and we have not had one single problem since we started running it again over 2 years. It stores just fine for up to 6 months and even longer with Sta-bil additive. From my perspective this was not an isolated event. All vehicles exhibiting the same symptoms that ran perfectly before and after using the ethanol blended gas.

We also use auxiliary booster pumps with little Honda engines to pump water as backup if a well goes down or just to make headway after a big leak. They were new in 2004 I believe and never had a problem till they ran on ethanol. Had to rebuild the carbs on them and replace the fuel line, less trouble with those but it still caused problems.

The reason I'm going through the trouble to write this short novel is mostly cause I'm sick and stuck in bed bored out of my mind, but also cause it's frustrating when something caused us so many headaches/time/money/loss in production etc.

If it was straight ethanol brewed in the Americas I'd be burning hundreds of gallons a month

A1 wrote

As well, my brand new JD lawn mower says right in the manual that use of ethanol fuel is not reccommended.

the Z925M Flex Fuel can run on any blend of ethanol-mixed fuel, up to E85

http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/cor ... mower.page

Skalywag, glad to hear I'm not the only one. Marty, how much extra for the flex fuel option? When buying mine that was not made known to me as an option.

EPA proposes reducing ethanol requirements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/us/for-first-time-epa-proposes-reducing-ethanol-requirement-for-gas-mix.html

Obama administration backing off?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/t/story/things-ethanol-20858968?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

I'm not the sharpest tack box by any means. But this ethanol thing is out of hand. It's right in line with the wind turbines. People are getting rich. Govt getting bigger and more controlling. And WE are paying for it. Under the guise of saving the "environment".
It's assanine to make food into fuel when our fuel supply will WAY out last our country in the first place and most likely the earth. Don't wanna stir up a whole other subject there. Just my thoughts.
Like most things. If it makes sense, makes money, or works better; govt need not get involved and subsidize. Capitalism will get it done.
I wouldn't mind a choice. But forcing the crap down my throat only makes me hate it that much more. The stuff does NOT work as good, yet. Follow the $ and you'll find the real reason they do what they do 99.9 times out of 100.
I think we need to get back to focusing on the cow farts that are eroding the ozone. That's something worth investing in! I'm so pissed every time I pass a pasture with cows and no one even seems to care.

You should invent a cow fart plug/filter 55'...Might even win a Nobel Peace Prize for your Bovine ass plug

And yeah A1 you are definitely not alone, anyone who has to store the stuff knows well the problems with ethanol blend unleaded. I think the maritime crowd knows better than most why ethanol is not good for everyone...

55wagon wrote:I'm so pissed every time I pass a pasture with cows and no one even seems to care.

I care...I really do...everytime I go past I'm thinking "damn look at all those cheeseburgers and ribeyes!"

Fart ladies fart.

[edited for inappropriate content (the adding of)]

Haha Phil!!
Told ya I'm not the sharpest. Hell I even mistyped the phrase.
I'm actually in the process of turning my 180 into a 180 Prius hybrid! It's gonna be sweet!!

I'm actually in the process of turning my 180 into a 180 Prius hybrid! It's gonna be sweet!!

I'm thinking about making mine into duel fuel. Putting in 10 to 1 compression pistons, AGE 85 and one of those natural gas tanks in a belly pod. Nope, that new 94 octane no lead avgas isn't going to work with that high compression setup. Oh and I agree with you Jason on the capitalism. Bring the aircraft carriers home from the Persian Gulf and let the oil companies buy their own gunboats and hired guns. I bet the Middle East oil price would go up and imagine that West Texas Intermediate and Canadian Tar Sands would follow. Just think if the oil companies wouldn't have made me wait in line to get 10 gallons on even/odd days back in 1973, I might think like you guys. I'm always amazed that so many people think that a monopoly gives good deals.

180Marty wrote:Just think if the oil companies wouldn't have made me wait in line to get 10 gallons on even/odd days back in 1973, I might think like you guys.

Remember those days well. But now I'm going to really piss you off. A long time friend of mine worked for Exxon back in those days. His job was to coordinate holding full tankers outside U.S. waters during that "trumped up" oil crisis.

A long time friend of mine worked for Exxon back in those days. His job was to coordinate holding full tankers outside U.S. waters during that "trumped up" oil crisis.

I was 16 and didn't know what I know now. I wonder if your friend felt good about what he was doing? I can still see the picture on the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch of a guy in Detroit making ethanol from garbage for his Harley. Really impressed me and made me realize alternatives are good. One other thought on all you guys having problems, how come Brazil has motorcycles, chainsaws, mowers, etc and they can run on 25% ethanol and that some airplanes on 100%. Amazing!!

Marty, I am not sure why we have so many problems with ethanol. The rumors I have heard is that it is the additives they put in ethanol blended unleaded that do most of the damage. The other rumor is that companies will take shit fuel that doesn't meet grade anymore and blend it with ethanol to "spike" the octane back to a legal level.

The issue with adding ethanol to unleaded is that while it increases the octane initially it also causes the octane to begin deteriorating immediately after, whereas clean unleaded remains stabile for 6 months before the octane begins to deteriorate. So anyone who has to store fuel is basically screwed after just a few weeks when the octane is no longer high enough for most engines. I am no expert and can only speak to our experience at the ranch.

I talked to a guy who produces fuel bladders for experimental airplanes and while ethanol blended unleaded from the pumps will eat them up, the same bladders are used in top fuel dragsters and airplanes running straight ethanol with no problems. He was of the opinion that the additives mandated by the Feds in our ethanol blends were the culprit.

There was a guy who paid an A&P buddy of mine to install new bladders in his 182. Two weeks later he came back furious about how my friend had to give him his money back because he f'd the bladders up. He went to the guys hangar and took one whiff of the fuel through the gas cap and asked if he had been running unleaded and the guy said yeah. Well there is no clean unleaded around there and he just dumped ethanol blend in there from the gas station. My friend sumped his tanks and half a gallon of black gooey crap came out both sides. Think it trashed his motor??? My buddy did not warranty anything, sucks to be that guy.

I am all for running ethanol in my bird and since I can legally do it with the Texas Skyways STC I am in the process of learning how to make it. On a small scale brewing our own fuel like ethanol or biodiesel on the farm/ranch or at home is viable and great. On a large scale, well time will tell I guess.