15% ethanol!?!?

[radman1]

Could the problem be from using ethanol based gasoline in engines/tanks that have never seen ethanol? It maybe the ethanol is cleaning the tanks better and resulting in more debris and junk getting in the carbs, fuel lines ect. It may be much more noticeable in motors than don't get used a low and have conventional gas sitting in the tanks and carbs longer. Ethanol has been around for 10-15+ years and the manufactures have adapted. Many of the carb cleaners and injector cleaners have some component of alcohol in them.

 

[Diamondpilot]

You are right about the ethanol cleaning out tanks. My uncle owns a Shell Gas Station. He changed his filters once ever 3-4 months. When he switched over to 10% he had to change the filters a few times the first day, once the second day, then 3-4 days later then once a week and the once a month. Now that he has ran tons of fuel though it, about 25,000 gallons per day, he is back to the normal schedule. Anyway, he said the first few days they were changing the filters on the pump right and left.

Chris

 

[FlaDon]

Ethanol has been around for a long time. Why would the mechanic just now see "this type of increase of the gell around the pickups in the last 8 months and he sees no end in sight"?

There is a lot of misinformation about ethanol floating around and some of it is 20 years old. I think mechanics are the majority of the culprits.

You can believe what you want but facts prove you wrong. One thing that has shown up is that when gas tanks have been tested when the hoses failed, they were in the 12% range or greater for ethanol. Now how do you find that out? Really simple. B&S ( and others ) sell test kits. How does it get that high? When a truck leaves a filling facility, it might have all the alcohol mix in one tank while another tank may have straight gas. Get to the station and dump the mix in first. Then fill with the non-mixed. Can't take all the non-mixed? Then the alcohol level can be greater than the 10%. Why not mix it all at the port? So that the truck can be used for non-contaminated fuel also. Same applies to different types of Diesel fuels. Alcohol was only phased in for year round use in 2005 when the Feds passed the 2005 Federal Energy Policy Act. Many people had major problems at that point when the crud gas cleaned all sorts of materials out of fuel tanks. And we had a customer in this week with a completely clogged fuel line. The gasoline had cause the fuel line to swell shut.

 

[FlaDon]

You are right about the ethanol cleaning out tanks. My uncle owns a Shell Gas Station. He changed his filters once ever 3-4 months. When he switched over to 10% he had to change the filters a few times the first day, once the second day, then 3-4 days later then once a week and the once a month. Now that he has ran tons of fuel though it, about 25,000 gallons per day, he is back to the normal schedule. Anyway, he said the first few days they were changing the filters on the pump right and left.

Chris

Yep.

The same sort of thing with the gasoline happened when the Diesel was changed to LSD. By the time ULSD came out, people had already had to fix most of the problems.

 

[Marveltone]

In Minnesota, most of the "road gas" is labeled "E10" (10% ethanol), or "oxygenated" gas. The "non-oxygenated " is just good old fashioned gas without the ethanol.

 

[brokenot]

Fact (from Briggs & Stratton):
B&S allows the use of oxygenate blended gasoline where the oxygenate content is up to 10% ethanol (gasohol) or up to 15% MTBE (Methyl tertiary butyl ether) by volume. However, ethanol blended gasoline can attract moisture which leads to separation and formation of acids during storage. Acidic gasoline can damage the fuel system of an engine while in storage. B&S strongly recommends removing ethanol-blended fuels from engine during storage.
Use of gasoline containing higher than the EPA approved limits, for volume percentage of ethanol more than 10%, or MTBE more than 15%, may cause engine damage and will void engine warranty.

Ethanol certainly doesn't help matters any, but the vast majority of small engine shops would have little or nothing to do IF the end-user took the precautions spelled out clearly in the manuals their equipment came with when it comes to storage prep. Additionally, in order to meet more stringent regs, small engine manufacturers are running things leaner than ever. Poor practices by the end-users are then compounded. Five or ten years ago, a main jet could be one-third clogged with goo and the engine would still start/run/perform. That's no longer the case. Jets are sized to be just big enough to flow the amount of fuel required for the engine to run properly. And that's when everything is brand new and clean.

Long story short, lazy end-users used to be able to get by longer when they made the choice to not read or ignore what the manufacturer spelled out for them. If their practices haven't changed, their laziness will make matters worse.

There's a lot of exaggeration going on. This is one example:

when small engine repair shops start reporting that they are seeing problems at a rate about 8x of what they had seen in the past in the last year it's not hard to point to the problem.

Are they seeing fueling problems? Perhaps....but not at 8X of what they saw previously. And if they're blaming all of what they're seeing on the newest gasoline formulations....it's time for them to start looking for a new line of work.

 

[FlaDon]

Ethanol certainly doesn't help matters any, but the vast majority of small engine shops would have little or nothing to do IF the end-user took the precautions spelled out clearly in the manuals their equipment came with when it comes to storage prep. Additionally, in order to meet more stringent regs, small engine manufacturers are running things leaner than ever. Poor practices by the end-users are then compounded. Five or ten years ago, a main jet could be one-third clogged with goo and the engine would still start/run/perform. That's no longer the case. Jets are sized to be just big enough to flow the amount of fuel required for the engine to run properly. And that's when everything is brand new and clean.

Long story short, lazy end-users used to be able to get by longer when they made the choice to not read or ignore what the manufacturer spelled out for them. If their practices haven't changed, their laziness will make matters worse.

There's a lot of exaggeration going on. This is one example:



Are they seeing fueling problems? Perhaps....but not at 8X of what they saw previously. And if they're blaming all of what they're seeing on the newest gasoline formulations....it's time for them to start looking for a new line of work.

You forget, mower shops will always be busy as nothing stops stupid. Ever see the damage a section of rebar can do to a mower deck?

 

[DEWFPO]

I've run lawn mowers, gas tractors, chain saws, trimmers, chippers, and everything else on 15% ethanol gasoline since about 1985 and have not had a single problem with any of them.

DEWFPO

 

[Marveltone]

I've run lawn mowers, gas tractors, chain saws, trimmers, chippers, and everything else on 15% ethanol gasoline since about 1985 and have not had a single problem with any of them.

DEWFPO

I have a 1982 Honda CB900C motorcycle that I had to take to the shop a few years ago. It was hard to start, ran rough, and had no power. The mechanic took the carbs apart and found they were black inside! What had happened was the ethanol that I had been using had disintegrated the rubber fuel components, and they had coated the carburetors with rubber.

Apparently, the older rubber components don't like the ethanol, while the newer engines use neoprene instead... much more tolerant. Ethanol cost me over $300!

I now stick with non-oxy.

 

[David_Kb7uns]

Well with having the 15% ethanol here in Oregon for over a year and a half, we are now coming into many of the small engines having a full season of use, storage and attemped use again.

It is not a good thing and the damage done and loss of fuel economy has brought such a backlash that the gas stations that have 3 tanks and do not blend the fuel to get mid grade, are now carrying clear premium fuel. Last winter the cardlock that the loggers use started carrying the clear but there was no way for normal users to get it. Boat owners were going to the local airport to get the clear fuel if they were not close to the marine fuel docks at the coast. The moisture that we have here and other conditions contribute to major problems. You go to local saw shops and the number of engines disabled by the fuel melting fuel lines, diaphrams and plugging carbs is large and repair time are extended for several weeks. If you do get your engines to run on it many carbs are not able to richen the mixture enough to compensate for the loss of BTUs in the fuel and the motors do not power up or idle very good. The costs to users of the E15 blend is enormous and a lot of down time and money to fix.

Our county has also seen over 10% decrease in fleet fuel mileage with no savings with the ethanol but an increase in fuel prices. It has some county commissioners looking to have the laws repealed on the ethanol content.

I did have some foresight into this before the E15 hit and got a diesel lawn mower and retired the gasoline one.


David Kb7uns