Does gas really go bad?

[MossRoad]

My first power mower was a $89 Sears circa 1983 that I'd haul around on the roof of my Plymouth Valiant every Thursday as part of my rental property management business...

Amazing mower and thrifty... did wear out several sets of wheels... the clamshell catcher never faltered but eventually there was nothing left on the deck solid enough to patch...

I think I too have the motor under the bench.

The replacement mowers all with increased HP were fuel thirsty and all met their demise from bent cranks from hitting something tenants left in the grass such as pitching horseshoes...

Currently Honda Powered Husky $199 then mower... thankfully used enough so that fuel going stale has not been an issue and the Honda motor I like

:laughing: That's what I have too!!! :laughing:

It's a push mower, with big rear wheels. Got it at TSC or Rural King. Can't remember. Honda engine. I never change the oil or fuel in that, either. I want to see how it compares to the Briggs on the old Sears. It doesn't have a primer bulb, though. It has that weird choke lever that starts retracting as soon as you pull down the RUN bar on the handle. It takes a few resets of the choke to get it going anytime the temp is below 50, or the first start of the year. I've started just pulling the rope 4-5 times before bothering to set the choke. Then it starts the first pull with the choke.

 

[ultrarunner]

Can't remember ever mowing/starting in 50 degree weather ;-)

Temps generally very mild here and one pull with slider choke and go...

 

[MossRoad]

Can't remember ever mowing/starting in 50 degree weather ;-)

Temps generally very mild here and one pull with slider choke and go...

We do get the temperature swings here, that's for sure. There's an old joke about the weather in northern Indiana..... if you don't like the weather, wait an hour.

 

[MossRoad]

I think it's plagiarized from Mark Twain's reference to New England.

 

[ultrarunner]

The weather in Oakland CA is about as mild as it gets... heaters were optional in older homes back in the day and not unusual to see multi-million dollar homes with no A/C.

I've thought about adding a Stihl battery mower since I have charger and batteries.

Doubtful battery would be a good match for back to back all day mowing...

So far all my bad gas problems are with seasonal or seldom used motors...

 

[not2old]

I had this problem years ago when I converted an engine to propane. The dry fuel doesn't wash the back of the valves. Apparently the carbon comes from oil working it's way through the valve guides and then being subject to the heat. This was on a souped up 460 Ford producing over 450 HP and it had a very large effect on the power.

 

[MossRoad]

I had this problem years ago when I converted an engine to propane. The dry fuel doesn't wash the back of the valves. Apparently the carbon comes from oil working it's way through the valve guides and then being subject to the heat. This was on a souped up 460 Ford producing over 450 HP and it had a very large effect on the power.

Ahhh, now I remember. The oil, not the fuel. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

The weather in Oakland CA is about as mild as it gets... heaters were optional in older homes back in the day and not unusual to see multi-million dollar homes with no A/C.

I've thought about adding a Stihl battery mower since I have charger and batteries.

Doubtful battery would be a good match for back to back all day mowing...

So far all my bad gas problems are with seasonal or seldom used motors...

Yes, I think you are probably the extreme example of number of engines in storage here on TBN. :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

Yes, I think you are probably the extreme example of number of engines in storage here on TBN. :thumbsup:

Just counting off the top of my head, we have in order of use most to least:
4 running vehicles
the PT425
the push mower
weed eater/pole saw
2 chainsaws
pressure washer
log splitter
generator

And that's it. Just 12 gas engines. All use 87 octane E10. None go longer than about 11 months without use.

How many vehicles do you have in storage now? And what do you do to them to keep the fuel issues at bay?

 

[4570Man]

Just counting off the top of my head, we have in order of use most to least:
4 running vehicles
the PT425
the push mower
weed eater/pole saw
2 chainsaws
pressure washer
log splitter
generator

And that's it. Just 12 gas engines. All use 87 octane E10. None go longer than about 11 months without use.

How many vehicles do you have in storage now? And what do you do to them to keep the fuel issues at bay?

I’ve got a varying number of vehicles. 4 currently, a backhoe, lawnmower, 4 chainsaws, hedge clipper, push mower that I might as well not have, pressure washers, a couple weed eaters, a wood splitter, gas engine air compressor, generator, and probably stuff I’m forgetting about. The push mower is the only one that’s ever had a fuel problem and it’s been years since I used it. I’ve never had a problem with ethanol free gas going bad. I don’t drain anything either. Personally I think it’s worse than not doing anything especially when you do a half way job and just dump the tank.

 

[ultrarunner]

I'm sure lots of problems brewing...

The fleet has been totally neglected since 2015 due to health issues with Mom.

Car tabs make it easy to track with some going back as far as 2012.

Batteries, brakes, fluids and fuel suffer and tires too.

I really should have been diligent putting vehicles on blocks but the hiatus was not planned...

I regularly drove the classics to work when I had 9-6 hours but 4 am is just to early to drive the 1913 Speedster or Corvette.

With regret it may eventually come to individually get a car road ready to sell.

Gasoline really has never been a problem prior to ethanol...

I'm guessing 75+ engines including tractors and gas power tools.

Of course I could do nothing and it could make for an interesting barn find someday.

 

[Oaktree]

I guess that I've been lucky, we've only had it since around 2008. I bought a new Echo chainsaw that year, and the warranty clearly stated that it was voided if I ran gas with ethanol in it.

Now that you mention it, I don't recall E-gas much before the mid-00s. To be sure, many small engine manufacturers dragged their feet about making their products E10 compatible.
Curiously, what did petroleum companies put in gas in the early 00s for an oxygenate, I believe MTBE was banned around '02.

Older engines also had carburetors that metered poorly and were jetted rich. One reason why 15 mpg was considered good for an American car in the '60s. Be around running old restored muscle cars and you can smell the raw gas in the exhaust.

Not just muscle cars. I've got a mid-60s Mopar with a slant 6 and you can smell the gas in the exhaust on it too.

 

[aczlan]

We have a 2013 Impala with GDI. We never had any concerns with carbon deposits on the backs of the valves. I never saw any performance decrease in it over the 135,000 miles... before the engine failed! :laughing: Something failed in the VVT system. Cam sequencer(s), solenoids, camshafts themselves. We're not sure. The mechanic never dug into it farther than finding huge amounts of metal shavings in the screens on the solenoids. Had to get a junkyard replacement. I've seen the videos of the carbon deposits, and it makes a lot of sense that since no fuel ever touches the backs of the valve, they never get washed. But it's just air on the back of the intake valves, isn't it? Where would the carbon come from? There's no fuel there.

Crankcase ventilation system dumping oily air into the intake?

Aaron Z

 

[Texasmark]

Gasoline fuels are a time and temp sensitive commodity and are not made for long term storage. They run down pipelines without oxygen until they reach our tanks or cans. Oxygen cross links with it and it changes into something our engines and fuel systems do not like. Heat makes this process happen faster, same as most chemical reactions. All our temporary use engine fuels here has some Seafoam mixed in them to keep this process from happening. Seafoam is much cheaper than cleaning a fuel sytem out.

I used to work in a marine where cleaning out bad fuel was 70% of our work. Note how I didn't mention alcohol. Long live seafoam!

SF is Naptha, Alcohol, and light Mineral Oil, per the MSDS. The small amount of alcohol is there to absorb small amounts of moisture that may occur in your tank as a result of condensation. It is in every tank of my small engines both 2 and 4 strokers. My 2 stroke outboard had an oz per every gallon I put in the tank. It has proven itself to me time and time again. On a couple of occasions, I had old engines that hadn't been run for years...tanks run dry prior to storage. Put in new fuel with adequate supply of SF and in 10min. or so, running like new. Road vehicle gets it off and on being frequently used or something else to ensure the injectors get adequate cleaning.

 

[CobyRupert]

Something I don’t understand, or most likely I’m fundamentally wrong and someone can explain:
If dry gas is basically alcohol that attaches to water so that the water can pass through motor and be burnt off and engine can still run, how come ethanol gas is more susceptible to getting water contaminated fuel?

 

[ArlyA]

Something I don稚 understand, or most likely I知 fundamentally wrong and someone can explain:
If dry gas is basically alcohol that attaches to water so that the water can pass through motor and be burnt off and engine can still run, how come ethanol gas is more susceptible to getting water contaminated fuel?

Why do you say that dry gasoline, is the same thing as alcohol?? Alcohol and water like each other. If you put a bottle of 70% in your cabinet. Check it again in a few years and it might then be 50%. Those two chemicals really do attract each other.

 

[k0ua]

Something I don’t understand, or most likely I’m fundamentally wrong and someone can explain:
If dry gas is basically alcohol that attaches to water so that the water can pass through motor and be burnt off and engine can still run, how come ethanol gas is more susceptible to getting water contaminated fuel?

Because a "gas drier" like the Methanol that comes in the yellow / blue plastic bottle are something you add to your fuel tank because of the condensate formed on the walls of the tank because you were not smart enough to keep you tank full of fuel. And this condensate has slid down below the fuel and formed water pockets that may have frozen and clogged up the fuel inlet. This is different than having the ethanol in your fuel acting as a sponge mixing with the water in the air all of the time and causing a phase separation in the fuel where the alcohol is no longer properly mixed with the fuel. This mixture can cause carburetor parts and some rubber parts (if not designed to resist this damage) to be damaged.

So one is a "rescue" package and the other is a detrimental additive that is working all of the time to suck in water (hydroscopic) to your fuel supply. Of course the oxygenation factor that the alcohol provides is necessary because we no longer use the deadly lead compounds for that function. So it is kind of a double edged sword, we need it in our fuel and and our automobile engines are made to use it and it doesn't seem to cause harm there. The problems come in on the simple small engines of our power tools. Of course a lot of these are rapidly going to electric battery power and battery technology is improving at a rapid pace anyway.

 

[ultrarunner]

Fuel Injected and Non-Vented fuel tanks don't seem to have issues as vented fuel systems.

 

[MossRoad]

Something I don’t understand, or most likely I’m fundamentally wrong and someone can explain:
If dry gas is basically alcohol that attaches to water so that the water can pass through motor and be burnt off and engine can still run, how come ethanol gas is more susceptible to getting water contaminated fuel?

When's the last time you had a fuel line freeze using E10 gasoline?

 

[RalphVa]

Think it can because there are a lot more chemicals in it that can chemically react, given time. Stuff even tastes and smells way different from the old, fresh gas we used to have. Change came when they took the lead out and had to leave or add back some chemicals in there for octane improvement. That was a LOONG time ago, before many of you were born.

Ralph