Water in gas

[ChrisWhewell]

My '56 Ferguson F40 tractor has the old school water separator glass bowl between the gas tank and the carburetor. I noticed it was half full of water a month ago, so ran the tank dry and cleaned the glass. Then I got new fresh gasoline and now a month later I go out and look and its half full of water again. So, the ethanol gasoline comes with water in it. I think the max spec is on the order of 0.3% water. Imagine, if you could reap the profits by adding just 0.1% water to the entire nation's gasoline supply, how much money that would be. Meantime, in the Reatta, the same problem is present as on the tractor, but for the recirculation of the fuel pump back into the tank from the fuel rail, so we really don't notice it, except if you have a crap idle quality, that could be the problem. I've been adding isopropanol to my car's tank. Luckily I don't drive much. The refineries owners suck, giving us sh*t gasoline.

[drtidmore]

Just where the water is getting into the gasoline infrastructure is the question, but remember that ethanol is highly hydrophilic and will pull moisture right out of the air.  Ethanol was a poor choice of an oxygenating additive due to the tendency to collect water and its ability to destroy rubber products, but it was better than MTBE and was a political gift to big agra complete with federal subsidies for growing the corn from which virtually all our ethanol is derived.  Those of us driving more vintage cars, which were never intended to be exposed to ethanol, are suffering its effects the worst.  I too use an ethanol stabilizing additive (Lucus) and have been for the past 3+ years since I first realized how much damage it had already done to the Reatta fuel tank/pump/pulsator.  Even with the use of the Lucus additive however, as I posted, I recently had another fuel pump begin to fail and when I replaced it with a new Bosch unit which is rated for E85, I found another good handful of dark, coffee ground sized, corrosion nestled in around the area of the fuel pump (3+ years ago there was lots more and I cleaned it all out at the time), so now I am replacing the fuel tank.  I am hoping that be treating the new Dorman tank with POR15 gas tank sealer before installation (they claim it is impervious to even 100% ethanol as well as virtually all solvents), I will be heading off future issues.  

 

I am considering the installation, assuming I could find a suitable location, of a fuel/water separator/filter.  I have never liked the location of the factory fuel filter due to difficulty in changing it, so maybe I just remove it, install lines to a 3rd party filter/separator and then I can monitor how much water is accumulating as well as keeping it OUT of the injection system and trapping it rather than sending it back to the tank

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by drtidmore (see edit history)

[ChrisWhewell]

MTBE is awesome. ARCO had extra t-butanol from its propylene oxide plant in Alabama in the early 70's so they reacted it with MeOH and made MTBE, and began selling it to refineries, who used it about 5 years before EPA found out. Then ARCO filed for a waiver and it was granted. Perfect additive. The ignorant crybaby legislators who banned it did so because of "leaking tanks", MTBE in the water supply. What a load of hogwash - if underground tanks are leaking, the remedy is to fix the tanks. It wasn't just MTBE leaking, it was gasoline, which also contains benzene, so those political whackos again make no sense. An executive of Ethyl Corp gave a speech to some of us students once, talking about how the bad guys were trying to get ethanol into gasoline for a long time. The problem with ethanol gasoline, is that the headspace in the tank can easily be in the range of explosibility limits, whereas when using MTBE, or even normal gasoline, it is not. Ethanol in fuel is a ripoff, nobody likes it except the people who are selling water as gasoline. I should teach the rednecks how to recover the alcohol. For $2 a gallon at 10%, you could get 12 ounces of 190 proof, which if cut with water to 95 proof would provide one fifth of "vodka", plus you can return the other 90% to the tank. Maybe if backwoodsers started making hooch from this crap gasoline they're now selling, it would force the industry to go back to normal fuel. Not. lol

[89RedDarkGrey]

4 hours ago, drtidmore said:

I have never liked the location of the factory fuel filter due to difficulty in changing it

 

I, too- plan to relocate the filter, and run nylon lines entirely.

[bikemikey]

For what it's worth, when I installed a new fuel tank on my 89 Reatta, I started using a product called Sta-bil 360 at every fill up. It is suppose to give off a vapor and protect the part of the tank void of fuel from corrosion. It also tames the  ethanol. It's been about a year now and the idle is perfect so far . The product is fairly new so I guess time will tell. 

Just a thought.

[89RedDarkGrey]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/17182075?wmlspartner=wmtlabs&adid=22222222222009132476&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=e&wl1=o&wl2=c&wl3=10364291302&wl4=kwd-1103085642268&wl12=17182075_0&wl14=&veh=sem

[drtidmore]

51 minutes ago, bikemikey said:

For what it's worth, when I installed a new fuel tank on my 89 Reatta, I started using a product called Sta-bil 360 at every fill up. It is suppose to give off a vapor and protect the part of the tank void of fuel from corrosion. It also tames the  ethanol. It's been about a year now and the idle is perfect so far . The product is fairly new so I guess time will tell. 

Just a thought.

I may give that a try as well, even though my soon-to-be POR15 lined new gas tank should be impervious to the ethanol demons.  The idle on my Reatta has never been an issue and is glassy smooth, but the corrosion inside the old tank clearly says that moisture has been at work.  Given what I found in the tank, makes me really wonder what, if any, the moisture has done to the inside of the lines to/from the gas tank to the engine?  When I pull the old tank once the new one is ready to install, I am going to see if I can detect any corrosion on the walls of the sender unit lines as well as on the chassis lines leading to the front of the vehicle.  

[ChrisWhewell]

E10 can hold about 15 milliliters of water per gallon before phase separation occurs. But E10 is typically about 8.8% ethanol, so a gallon of typical E10 can hold about 12 ml of water. Once separation occurs, the E10 in the upper layer is saturated with water, which means any further absorption of more water due to condensation will precipitate out. This pretty much suggests to me that pump gas already contains substantial water. There are bacteria that live in gasoline, and they do better for themselves when water is present. Many bacteria, including thiobacilus ferrooxidans, thrive on sulfur also, which is present in gasolines to some extent. The bacterium cause oxidation / reduction reactions to occur, so I suggest that perhaps once a colony gets established in the vehicle's tank, the bacterium are what is causing the tank corrosion. If this theory is correct, which seems likely, the answer is to use a biocide in the fuel tank every so often.

[drtidmore]

23 hours ago, ChrisWhewell said:

If this theory is correct, which seems likely, the answer is to use a biocide in the fuel tank every so often.

 

Chris, First off thanks for the great insight in a potential answer of both the cause of the tank corrosion and how to prevent it.  I find LOTS of biocides for diesel but have only found one that appears it might provide biocidal action in gasoline (Star Tone Enzyme Fuel Treatment).  While the website does not specifically list biocidal action, it discuss the exact issue you described and then offers two products, one for gasoline the other for diesel.  The reviews for it are good so I have ordered a large bottle (says treats 512 gallons).  It does state that it helps prevent phase separation and stabilizes ethanol/gasoline fuels. 

 

Do you have any tips on any other biocidal additives that might be suitable for gasoline. 

 

I just found an additive that is only a biocide and they do list it as appropriate for gasoline, as well as diesel.  (FPPK Killem).  It appears to be carry by FLAPS so I am looking to see if I can find it locally

 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by drtidmore (see edit history)

[89RedDarkGrey]

58 minutes ago, drtidmore said:

Do you have any tips on any other biocidal additives that might be suitable for gasoline

 

 

 

ACETONE. 1 OZ PER GALLON. ORGANIC SOLVENT.

[ChrisWhewell]

That's a tough question, lots of unknowns. It could even be that the bacterium cause water to separate out over time, if there's enough of them and their metabolism involves them pissing water, like we urinate. I think one needs to be careful, due to all the federal laws, what they recommend others to do, so I don't recommend anyone do anything. A few thoughts I'd put forth for researchers might be to use a little tetracycline or penicillin. Or perhaps an alkyl halide such as paradichlorbenzene. Possibly d-mannose might inhibit the bacteria's ability to stick to the sides of the tank. Or, alternately, glyceryl monolaurate (monolaurin). Yes, if I were a researcher, I'd definitely look into monolaurin as an additive. But, one issue is to not clog the fuel filter. In one extreme sense, chlorine bleach would work but probably corrode some components. A peroxide might be a good candidate, such as the urea peroxide in whitening dental pastes. I really don't know the answer, probably best to just go with what's been EPA approved and is on the market already, like the one you'd suggested. It would be nice to find the identity of the active ingredient and buy it in bulk to save money so we're not getting nickeled and dimed to death.

[drtidmore]

30 minutes ago, ChrisWhewell said:

 It would be nice to find the identity of the active ingredient and buy it in bulk to save money so we're not getting nickeled and dimed to death.

 

Here is what they list as the active ingredients on the Killem 

Active Ingredients: Diethylene glycol monomethyl ether -86% 2-(Thiocyanomethylthio) benzothiazole - 2.5% Methylene bis (thiocyanate) - 2.5% Inert Ingredients

[ChrisWhewell]

Thanks for that. Not only have "they" changed the gasoline so that it sucks, but they also took the zinc out of the motor oils. grrr. I run Harley Davidson motor oil in my John Deere lawn tractor

[91vert]

3 hours ago, ChrisWhewell said:

Thanks for that. Not only have "they" changed the gasoline so that it sucks, but they also took the zinc out of the motor oils. grrr. I run Harley Davidson motor oil in my John Deere lawn tractor

 

Do you use SYN 3 or the regular Harley oil ?

Does it have zinc in it ?

Cal.