Storing a car - how does Ethanol change things

[R1chy]

After my last day at the track this year, the common theme of conversation in the paddock was winter storage and how to protect our car's fuel systems. Common practice in the past was to fill the fuel tank up with gas, put in a fuel stabilizer, run the engine to make sure the mixture was through out the system, then in the spring drain the tank (using the old gas in the low cost yard equipment), fill up with high octane race fuel and hit the track.

However, many of us are starting to question the effects of Ethanol "enriched" gas. Even the Wikipedia entry has the following --> "One problem with ethanol is that because it is easily miscible with water, it cannot be efficiently shipped through modern pipelines, like liquid hydrocarbons, over long distances.[57] Mechanics also have seen increased cases of damage to small engines, particularly the carburetor, attributable to ethanol's increased water retention in fuel over time."

I understand that the main problem is that it's hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water from the air. Which is the reason why we fill our tanks to begin with - to avoid harmful moisture in the fuel tank. Additionally the lifespan of E10 is about 3 weeks.

The use of STA-BIL is well proven in most circles and now they make a Marine Formula version of STA-BIL that includes Ethanol Treatment. Is this the answer?

Any Chemical Engineers or knowledgeable folks out there with some facts that can provide insight into this problem? What are the effects of Ethanol on the fuel tank, hoses, and carburetor? What is the best method to combat the negative effects?

Looking forward to a full discussion on this topic. R1chy

 

[malibu101]

I'm (sadly) ready to pack my summer fun car away for winter and I too have been pondering this same issue. After fogging I remove the fuel bowls (Holley) to remove all gas from the carb which I normally do for winter hibernation.
I too fill the tank to avoid condensation and siphon it out in spring and run it through the daily driver and yard equipment.
Now I wonder what I'm in for with the gas in the tank come spring. I'm watching for answers too.

 

[Cheeseking]

Ethanol is the devil! Here are some good sites for related info.
http://pure-gas.org/
http://www.fuel-testers.com/index.html

 

[fflintstone]

I would love to here from a chemical engineer on this as well. I have been having an ever-increasing problem with fuel going bad and gumming up carbs on most small engines. I now use stabil in all the gas that goes in a can. On anything that has a fuel shut off I now run the carb completely dry.
Ethanol used to be blamed for attacking some gasket materials in carburetors. I try to avoid ethanol gas like the plague, and here in Michigan we still can buy gas without ethanol. However they add a lot of different stuff to fuel these days to reduce emissions.

 

[JCQuick]

well its easy gas and water does not mix well however alcohol and water mix just fine add achol to gas and if water is introduced the alcohol absorbs the water that is mixed with the alcohol. in the industry its called phase seperation. and its a big problem

Wait till you see the issues with DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) the new bifg thing out there causes
The tree hugers are going to be the ruin of this country

 

[RobSmith]

I've heard from vintage car restorers that the ethanol will separate from the petrol and can't be remixed....it has damaged some of their cars engines when the straight ethanol gets sucked into the carby etc. The trick now is to drain the tank for long periods of storage.

 

[Scout Driver]

I have stored my '83 Hurst Olds over the past few winters with an E30 blend in the tank. The last thing I do is blend in some SeaFoam and run the car before parking it. Never had issues. Car runs great and I have seen a slight gain in mileage too.

On the farm we have collector tractors from the 1950's that run an E10 blend. Never had a problem with them either.

Scott

 

[55chevrolet]

up in these parts, western canada,you can buy premium gas ,it has no ethanol .It can be used for your last tank in fall and reduces problem.daryl

 

[urgti]

Luckily I live in a boating community and have non oxygenated at two stations nearby. I only use this in everything I own. My newest car is a 93 so nothing I have is going to like E10. It usually costs about 10-15 cents more a gallon but it probably is cheaper in the end when you work out the added fuel mileage.

Also the big hot rod (MSRA) club in my state publishes a page with known stations state wide that carry the good old stuff.

 

[Tman]

I have stored my '83 Hurst Olds over the past few winters with an E30 blend in the tank. The last thing I do is blend in some SeaFoam and run the car before parking it. Never had issues. Car runs great and I have seen a slight gain in mileage too.

On the farm we have collector tractors from the 1950's that run an E10 blend. Never had a problem with them either.

Scott

WAIT! The sky is not falling!

Yup, we have had Ethanol out here for 25-30 years. I find things store as with with Stabil as without. Hot rods, tractors, lawnmowers..........they all get at least a 10% blend from the pumps.

Since the OP mentioned draining the tank in spring anyway you should be fine.

 

[sdowney717]

If the gasoline phase separates, you have alcohol-water mix on the bottom and plain old gasoline on top.
If you then pump out the alcohol-water layer, you have plain old gasoline.
It could be that the gas might be of a lower knock quality with the alcohol gone.
If I had a large amount of phase separated gas, I would do a lot to make sure I could still use it. Like pump out the water, put in an octane booster, put in some PRI-G which works great restoring old gasoline.
http://www.prepare-now.com/pri-g.html

 

[BillK]

This is an interesting thread because there seems to be a great difference from person to person on the problems or lack there of. I personally just have not seen any issues in my own vehicles or yard equipment. Our fuel has had at least 10 % ethanol for probably the last 5 years ?

My 84 S-10 sat unused next to my house for almost 2 years. This last July I decided I needed to start driving it again so I fixed the electrical gremlins that caused me to park it. I put a battery in it, turned the key and after cranking for about 15 seconds the mighty 2.8 fired up and acted like nothing had happened. Just took it through emissions testing this AM and passed with flying colors. The oil hasn't even been changed since before I parked it.

I pulled my chipper shredder out of the garage last weekend. It probably hasn't been run in two years at least. Hit the choke, started right up on the second pull ..... two year old 87 Octane Shell.

I wonder if there is a big difference in the different "maufacturers" blends. I have been using Shell pretty exclusively in the last ten years or so.

On the other hand, I have seen some cylinder heads in the shop that have had major issues. Most had the valves stuck with what looked like dried up Indian Head gasket shellac ??? All of them have been off old cars that have been sitting for many years, probably 5 or longer.

So from what I have seen around this area, I see absolutely no need to do anything special for a 3 or 4 month winter vacation.

If there seems to be a problem in your area, run it almost empty and put 5 gallons of leaded racing gas in it, drive it a couple of miles to get it in the entire fuel system and park it.

Other opinions ? Has anyone actually had a problem with this, or are we just going by what we see on the internet ?

 

[JCQuick]

If the gasoline phase separates, you have alcohol-water mix on the bottom and plain old gasoline on top.
If you then pump out the alcohol-water layer, you have plain old gasoline.
It could be that the gas might be of a lower knock quality with the alcohol gone.
If I had a large amount of phase separated gas, I would do a lot to make sure I could still use it. Like pump out the water, put in an octane booster, put in some PRI-G which works great restoring old gasoline.
http://www.prepare-now.com/pri-g.html

Thats not true at all the alchol stays with the gas and also ***** up the water. when the e-10 first hit Fla 2 years ago I had lots of customers have big issues with water being in the tanks. One of them a well known rental car company had to dispose of 6K of gas due to water.
Non ethnol gas water does indeed settle to the bottom thats why the probes have water floats on them and suction pumps are 4" from the bottom of the tank.

 

[Lkdelta]

My 84 S-10 sat unused next to my house for almost 2 years. This last July I decided I needed to start driving it again so I fixed the electrical gremlins that caused me to park it. I put a battery in it, turned the key and after cranking for about 15 seconds the mighty 2.8 fired up and acted like nothing had happened. Just took it through emissions testing this AM and passed with flying colors. The oil hasn't even been changed since before I parked it.


Other opinions ? Has anyone actually had a problem with this, or are we just going by what we see on the internet ?

And we have 04 F550 super duty snow plow that was parked after the march 2010 snow "bomb" here in the north east, tried to start last week and the fuel pump was frozen, the mechanic was pretty sure was because of the fuel

 

[sdowney717]

Thats not true at all the alchol stays with the gas and also ***** up the water. when the e-10 first hit Fla 2 years ago I had lots of customers have big issues with water being in the tanks. One of them a well known rental car company had to dispose of 6K of gas due to water.
No ethnol gas water does indeend settle to the bottom thats why the probes have water floats on them and suction pumps are 4" from the bottom of the tank.

the alcohol water mix phase separates and settles out EVEN from just the moisture in the air

FACT is once enough water is absorbed by ethanol in the gasoline, the ethanol and water mix simply separates out from the gasoline.

 

[Skin]

On anything that has a fuel shut off I now run the carb completely dry.
.

Just a word of warning here, you cannot run a carbureted motor dry if it has float chambers [bowls]. There will always be residual fuel at the low points so you really need to use the plunger/drain screw [if equiped] or simply remove the bowls and dry them out by hand. Otherwise the little amount of fuel left evaporates very quickly and leaves behind a powder residue which will act as debris when you turn the fuel back on. The only thing you can trully run dry [dry enough for storage anyway] are diaphragm carburetors.

 

[340six]

My car has always been ok after long storage but run just 110 with lead.
The hurricane gas in the barrels for use in the generator was 3+ years old with Stay-byl in it and ran fine in everything.
It was great to have 6.5 days of fuel after the last hurricane hit. I had more gas than needed but was starting to worry after 6 days lol
One year we ran it for power on a job site and picked it as is with straight gas, it did not run so well when used again.
I ran it with gas and sea foam and all was good again.
really thought i was in for a rebuild on the carb and new lines but the sea foam cleaned it up.
The longer it ran the better it ran
Now every gallon gets Sty-Bil

 

[Lkdelta]

the alcohol water mix phase separates and settles out EVEN from just the moisture in the air

FACT is once enough water is absorbed by ethanol in the gasoline, the ethanol and water mix simply separates out from the gasoline.

For the big tanks, (10,000 gal+) there is a water indicating paste to rub onto the dipsticks. It changes color if water is present at the bottom.
Would a smaller dipstick and some of that paste pickup the mix that has separated out "in my gas cans"?

 

[sdowney717]

Engines using carburation, gasoline boat owners and small engines will have a lot more trouble with phase separation than fuel injected cars with sealed from the atmosphere fuel systems and gasoline that is used up soon.

AND they have approved E15 for use in 2007 and newer engines. You know people will simply fill up old cars with E15.
When driving in New Jersey, I filled up with E17 in a 1998 jeep and a 1994 Buick Roadmaster and never had any troubles.

for example this here
http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-forum/138759-e-10-issue.html

Find out from your marina if they are pumping E10 or not. If they are pumping E10, then you do have phase separation. If they don't know, then have them contact their bulk distributor and ask, or I'll describe a way to test for it in a moment.

When water intrudes into E10 gasoline, either through a loose cap, etc, on your boat or into the supply tank at the marina, the alcohol in the E10 will suspend up to 0.3% by volume of that water and the mixture will burn in your motors without any problems. But if a large enough volume of water intrudes to where it exceeds 0.5% by volume, then bam, phase separation occurs. The rate at which the water intrudes, slow or all at once, is not relevant. It's just whenever it exceeds the 0.5% threshold. Phase separation occurs fairly rapidly, but not all at once. It will begin with a thin layer, and then grow over a period of hours until it is complete.

The phased separated water is still chemically bonded to the alcohol, so it is not pure water. You can pump or drain that out. Then you need to restore the octane of the remaining gasoline because you have lost the ethanol which contributes to the octane rating. Assuming you started with regular gas, this can be done by adding back pure ethanol or adding premium grade gasoline, or a combination. This is basically how gas stations handle this problem.

 

[sdowney717]

Would a smaller dipstick and some of that paste pickup the mix that has separated out "in my gas cans"?

I dont know, probably will.
If you have phase separated gas in a gas can, when you pour it into an engine tank you are getting pure gasoline likely of a low octane quality. Keep pouring and eventually you will get to the alcohol-water layer.

Point is as the hull truth poster says, you can save phase separated fuel by using an octane booster or mixing in premium gas. After pumping out the alcohol - water layer.
Or perhaps run it in lawnmowers which likely will run OK on lower quality gas.

Do a test with some E10 gasoline, pour into a clear jar, add water watch it cloud up, keep putting in water and at some point the alcohol wont be able to absorb or keep it in suspension and it will form a layer at the bottom. The pure gas ontop will clear up and you will see a distinct layer of alcohol - water on the bottom. (Fit for drinking what proof is that?)

 

[Torque1st]

Otherwise the little amount of fuel left evaporates very quickly and leaves behind a powder residue which will act as debris when you turn the fuel back on.

That "powder" is corrosion from the aluminum caused by the alcohol-water mix in the fuel.

For winter storage drain and dry the fuel tanks, lines, and carb etc then seal it up against moisture as well as you can. Fogging the fuel tank and carb with some oil mix will help those parts.

Ethanol blends <5% are usually no problem if consumed rapidly and replaced. 10% blends can produce problems with elastomer degradation at the higher temperatures found under the hood. Most of the modern EFI vehicles are set up with elastomers, seals, and coatings that avoid the temperature problem. E15 is a nightmare...

 

[Stuart in MN]

We've had e10 in Minnesota for around 20 years now. I haven't had any issues with it when storing my cars for the winter (and all my cars are old.) I do usually put in some Sta-bil or Seafoam before storing them, but I've missed it some years without issues. No problems with the lawn mower, either. It does seem to gum up my motorcycle carbs pretty quickly, though.