Ethanol in Gasoline

It really does depend on who you listen to:

People against ethanol in marine fuels

People not against ethanol in marine fuels

I would lean heavily towards the BoatUS opinion. They underwrite their insurance, so they have a little more invested in the game. But, BoatUS does state that there is no marine engine warrantied for E15, the next big step.

That last link is a good read on the subject.

I had purchased a 2 cycle gas powered leaf blower. When I was researching it. There were a lot of complaints that owners of new blowers used ethonal mixed gas for their leaf blowers and when their leaf blower died within the warranty.

Using the ethanol mixed gas voided the warranty,

I find these debates amusing being I for one am now running E30 or higher in everything we own.

All of our vehicles that are not set up for propane use it without problems. All of our lawn/ garden and heavy work tractors and other machines run on it without problems and even my weedwacker and chainsaws seem to have no problems using E30 as their base fuels either. AT worse a few carburetor adjustments for the old stuff was all that I have ever had to do.

I don't know what to say exactly other than it works for me.

I haven't experience anything either, but we purchased a lot of like new chainsaws for 1/4 to 1/3 of the price of new, some didn't even used up their first can of oil mix....... All because the person who bought it, didn't know how to operate or maintain it........ Or found out making fire wood was work...... ;)

rubber fuel lines or stainless?

A mix of everything. The 94 Mercury Grand Marquis and the 99 Ford F250 are what ever the stock lines are.

Everything else is a mix and match of whatever fuel lines happen to be on them of which all have some rubber parts for the fuel filter connections.

Lawn a g garden equipment is stock rubber.

One new addition as of tonight is my daughters go cart which for it maden voyage is running on E30 with stock rubber lines! That has a Craftsman Eager 1 (Tecumseh) 4.5 HP push mower engine from a lawn mower I bought in the mid 90's that has maybe 20 running hours on it.

I have heard all kinds of horror stories concerning ethanol in gasoline. I have heard all about fuel lines deteriorating from it. I also have seen original "rubber" vacuum lines from Ford just fall apart from the outside. Just like it had dried up and started to flake off when touched.

Most of what I see you have in the fleet should be better than the older carburated automotive engines. In the 60s manufacturers started to use a type of foam float in carburetors. They were bad enough with good gasoline. I would be afraid of them in ethanol mixes. The carbs on your small engines have floats that are either hard plastic, or brass, but both are hollow, and available. I believe the industrial nature of the small engines have forced the manufacturers of them to face the ethanol issue years ago. The worst thing you have to worry about, IMHO is the "rubber" hose in the fuel tank that is on the discharge side of the fuel pump. My guess is that you will find out in due time just how well the hoses hold up. Keep a watch for diminished engine performance on the car and truck. Might be worth it to take a fuel pressure reading now as a reference point for future troubleshooting. Good luck. I think any issues are years away for you.

tcm I currently have 5 count them 5 Stiel chainsaws that have new or rebuilt carbs on them. All were run on E15 or less, all tried to overheat, and all had a build up of white corrosion in the carb bowl area's and passages. Since the last trip to my friends house that used to work for Stiel to get all of them working for this seasons cutting I decided to use Tru-fuel premixed from TSC cost me about 6.00 a quart slightly less then Stiel's brand but works fine. No issues to this point I don't like the cost but beats the alternative. I have been told to look around the airports to find non ethanol fuels as it is supposedly a requirement for them to run their equipment on straight fuels/non ethanol fuels don't know if that is correct or not but will look as soon as I get a chance. A friend is using aviation, gas in all of his lawn equipment since he was getting it for free when they were testing the fuel before every fueling now they have a recycling machine so they don't have to dispose of what they have to test before every fueling to test for water in the tanks. Also one other thing I noticed was the oil mix would separate in about an hour or so after mixing in the tank and the fuel cans you could see the separation of the oils and fuel as well as the alcohol at different levels in a site glass. I just this afternoon heard from a friend of mine that Joe Gibbs Racing is producing a fuel additive for all carberated engines that set for a lot of their life to keep the alcohol from attacking the aluminum and pot-metal carbs I might try it and see if will work with oil mix for my two strokes. Just my two cents. Duke.

Stihl

Right you are,, ethanol eats the fuel lines and parts made of "those" types of plastic in a year or so. On top of that it takes just as much energy to make ethanol as gasoline. So there you have it tree huggers....

thank the farm lobby

This is an interesting documentary called

King Corn

State-by-state ethanol labeling requirements are listed at fuel-testers.com.

Stations in Miss. that claim no ethanol in their gas: MS

My Echo chain saw manual gas up to 10% ethanol is OK.

All of you that do not have a problem live in the northern states. It is a real friggin problem in the southern states with high humidity. all of my engines that use it have to be run weekly or they have probl;ems. My automobiles do not due top the fact they are fuel injected. If you live in the northern states you do not have a problem and should tell what state you live in. On all my 2 cycle engines i have to replace the fuel lines yearly due to the alcohol eating up the lines inside the fuel tanks. When we had nothing but unleaded without alcohol I never had to replace the lines. S o go screw yourself if you do not have a problem. The government is causing us a problem with the alcohol fuel and it is driving up food costs and screwing up our fuel. You like it--Live with it and pay the higher price. JMPO

I always use the highest octane for the leaf blower and the mowers. Even the 80's mower seems to work OK.

During the high use season, I just use fuel. Once, the fall comes around, Sta-bil is added.

The Stihl leaf blower gets the synthetic Stihl oil now.

The Stihl as a blower works fine, but as a vacuum nothing really works or is designed as it should be.

My Rant.

I had to have a zipper sewn in with tabs on both ends for the bag, Stihl's jams and breaks. I created a flared end for the intake which works better, The intake tube likes to "fall off", so I had to create a locking mechanism for that. The guard also fall off if you hit it "just right". It grabbed my jacket once when it fell off. There is no safety switch there, And it "loves to jam" right at the "blower intake". I'd lie to see the intake oval rather than round. I did "try" to make friction a bit less by placing Teflon tape on one side of the blower housing, I never got around to doing the other side. I think it helps a little. The clamping knob loves to get lost because of the thread class of fit. The nut just spins off by itself. I will be trying a belleville washer there. There should be an easy way to disconnect the bag, clip mechanism. Planning to adapt another blowers system eventually. The lock and turn on the intake tube is crap. You have to disconnect it somewhere to empty the bag and that mechanism is not quick or desireable. The fins break on the blower. Upgraded part for that, but I think the velocity is less. $125 for a muffler/Cat converter isn't cheap.

Now, I had an Echo leaf blower/vac and I blew the engine 2x. Echo admitted that their design was faulty and offered me a downgrade or my money back. The leaves I have to vacuum are heavy pulverize and create dust; Oak. I also have some huge leaves that block the tube easily. The outside of the cylinder head ended up with a lot of dust and it could not cool properly, the the engine siezed - twice.

I've bought three bags for the Stihl. The last one I took to the shoe repair place to have a new zipper put in, One blower assy. Two or three intakes. Two or three vacuum exit tubes. A few start knobs etc. One muffler. Lemon?

Stihl has no interest in consumer input. Echo did.

Thank God that I have been a strong believer in Diesel engined cars since the early to middle 80's. I was also a strong believer in Diesel engines for boats even before that!!!

No worries about ethanol, I even use it once a year to clear out any water that might be in the diesel tank, half a liter in a full tank of diesel appears to work....though slight increase of wear in the diesel pump may result.....I don't believe it is added yet here, but that may change....

The diesel engines usually cost more (here at any rate as they are loved!), but generally last longer and use far less fuel per mile (both boats and cars) for comparable vehicles/boats, using same or similar motors, though a true comparison between diesel and Gas/petrol engines is not easy.....

The only REAL extra requirement (as I see it!) is only top quality motor oil and filters with regular replacement of both. My car requires that once about every 20,000 miles.....which I find acceptable.

Many forget the safety side differences as diesel fuel below about +110°C is unlikely to burn without a wick or similar, whereas Gas/Petrol can explode, due to its volatile nature to well below freezing point, with a just a spark from clothing.....

May I suggest that the next time that you need a vehicle (or a boat!) that you consider buying one with a Diesel engine, then this possible problem with ethanol simply won't exist for you anymore.....but each to his own, as ever....

I trust you all had a great Easter, I know I did!! Even the weather here was great!!!

In some coastal states marinas are not permitted to sell ethanol/gasoline at any concentration. This is due to the water problems with the blend and the high concentrations of water vapor. Due to the sales restrictions may people who trailer their boats and used to fuel up at gas stations must either buy the ethanol/gasoline blend with its problems or pay more for marina ethanol free gasoline. Marina prices are always higher due to the conception that if you can afford to have a boat you can afford to pay more for the conveniences.

Some die hard people who seek ethanol free gasoline at nearly any price will fill their cars up at a marina. This is usually at a premium price of 30-60% over an automobile gas station.

Good Luck, Old Salt

http://www.cycleworld.com/2014/04/19/ama-epa-acknowledges-ethanol-damages-engines/

Even the EPA says the stuff is bad. But then again, when did the EPA (or any government agency) ever get anything right?

As the owner of a marine repair shop all of the horror stories have seen regarding the ethanol gasoline. It has increased my business just about 3 fold.

The problem as understood by me is that the ethanol absorbs water from the humidity in the air. This is why the southern folks have more of an issue with it. The ethanol absorbs water but at a saturation point the water will separate and drop to the bottom of the gas tank. Last year I overhauled a fuel system of a boat that sat for 2 years under cover. 6 of the 10 gallons in his tank was water. (Remember gas tanks are vented to the air) Ethanol absorbed the water and the gas evaporated. The water water will cause corrosion in the fuel system, the ethanol deteriorate the rubber components and these seem to be the main issue.

However all is not lost. Change is here and we just adapt to it. Some pointers

* Always use a stabilizer in your fuel unless your going to burn the tanks of fuel in less than a week. This will keep your fuel from separating and the sabil product has conditioning agents to minimize corrosion and rubber deterioration.

* When leaving your gas powered weed trimmer, outboard engine for a week or more of inactivity run the fuel line empty.

* If more than a week try fogging the carbs with good quality fogging oil

Folks who have followed this advice have very few fuel problems.

Enjoy the good weather

All good advice, however, it does seem to be triggering my 'irony sensor' when we heed to put additives into the fuel to correct for what other additives are doing.

I'm not the only one seeing the 'it worked before, then they added this, now we need to add that to fix things' pattern, am I?

I live in Texas and have had to replace weed-eater fuel lines several times, as the lines crack and break seal with fittings. Replacement line is usually about $1, but that cost does not include the time or inconvenience. When it fails, I have to spend a day gathering parts and in repair. Tubing options and identification of the plastic parts impacted by the alcohol are my next option, but the plastic prime button on my weed eater is also made of the same failing plastic. My option has been to retain an older weed eater of the same model and keep it repaired and ready to swap chores when the other fails, but that would not be an option for a boat owner.

What are the characteristics and properties of both the self-destructing and non-impacted flexible fuel lines? Any advice on specifying fuel line replacement parts?

A Google search for compatibility:

http://www.iea-amf.org/content/fuel_information/ethanol/e10/e10_compatibility

So, I guess the solution is fuel injection for all engines including lawn and leaf blowers.

Interesting post. Thanks.

Or, if the property isn't too large that recharging becomes an inconvienence, switch to electric mowers, weed-whackers and leaf blowers. I can't think of any additives they could put into electricity to cause incompatibility with the wires and motors.

Thanks! This analysis provides material compatibility and material names for fuel line alternatives. Interesting how aluminum interacts with ethanol and creates a gel that clogs filters and jets. Guess I need to dig out my tubing bender and learn how to work with stainless ;-0, or find the other options in the right diameter.

Bending stainless tubing is just as easy as many other metals. Also somewhat easier than some of the very soft ones. It won't bend in your hands when you don't want it to.

Good Luck, Old Salt