Mixed up gasoline cans

[oosik]

Ha - just a short story. One of the local gas stations in Cheney offered supreme with no alcohol. To do this they eliminated mid range and supreme WITH alcohol. Their supreme with no alcohol - $3.38 a gallon. This lasted about two weeks. Now they are back to three grades WITH alcohol.

Perhaps another fairy tale about alcohol gasoline being no good. I could go on about alternate & more beneficial uses for corn - but that is not the point of this thread.

 

[two_bit_score]

I have two 5 gallon plastic gasoline containers. One has about 4 gallons of ethanol free 91 octane in it, the other has 4 gallons regular 87 pump gas with ethanol 10-15%. Is there some way to figure out which is which since they got mixed up? I need to use the ethanol-free in the riding mower and since it cost like $4.40 a gallon I'd like to use it for that and not repurchase if possible.

Wow $4.40 per gallon! Around here ethanol free gas is the same price as Premium.

Put a wrap of duct tape around the can with something written on it like "Ethanol FREE" for the future but I don't know an easy way to tell after they were switched.

 

[airbiscuit]

 

[Wagtail]

In the future, I'd 'mark' one of the containers so that you'll know which is which.

Duct tape comes in various colours, so a horizontal 'stripe' of, say, green for the ethanol blend would distinguish the red cans from eachother.

I have one 20ltr. 'red' can with a yellow duct tape band (also taped the handle 'yellow') that I use for diesel. The red 5ltr. can for 2-stroke has a black band. If it's plain red, then it's non-ethanol petrol (which is readily available where I live).

Oh, and use a permanent marker on top of the can that is 'marked' to say if it's diesel, 2-stroke or ethanol... in case someone else uses the can. Just in case.

 

[4570Man]

I run no ethanal in everything except vehicles but it’s only about 50 cents a gallon more and easy to get here. I’ve never had a carb problem and I’ve never bothered draining the fuel for storage either. I’m not convinced that helps anyway.

 

[redobbin]

Mix and dump in car. Paint an E on the side of one of the cans for ethanol. I have cans with O - oil mix, D - diesel, K - kerosene, everything else is no-ethanol gas.

 

[ruffdog]

Put a bit of water in a small container, preferably a tall narrow one similar to a test tube. Mark the height of the water on the tube, now pour in 5-10x as much gas, shake and let it settle. If the separation line between fuel and water is higher after letting it sit for a few minutes, it's the ethanol gas. Reason being ethanol will mix with water and separate out..........Mike

.....and we have a winner! I have been using this type of test since the 80's.

https://www.amazon.com/Etched-Ethanol-Content-Tester-Gasoline/dp/B07NMV8WGP

 

[airbiscuit]

Mix and dump in car. Paint an E on the side of one of the cans for ethanol. I have cans with O - oil mix, D - diesel, K - kerosene, everything else is no-ethanol gas.

THIS

 

[Richard]

It only matters because of the inconvenience it is causing.

The mower was running crappy, backfiring, bad idle, etc. So I drained the gas and replaced with Trufuel ethanol-free from Home Depot as a test. It immediately ran fine and i finished the grass cutting.

Could it be that maybe you had some crud in your tank and simply cleaned it out when you emptied it?

 

[shooterdon]

.....and we have a winner! I have been using this type of test since the 80's.

Amazon.com: Glass Laser Etched Ethanol Content Fuel Tester for Ethanol, E85, Gasoline: Automotive

A $15 solution to a $5 problem.