Are you ready for 15 to 20% Ethanol and fuel System damage ?

We already can not buy ethanol free gas here!! No it wont be always available!!!

We would have to go over 50 miles one way to get to an ethanol free pump!

At 10% its killed several of our chain saws and weed whackers. All our vehicles are 92 and older.

Its bull what they are doing. What good is this cleaner fuel if you cant afford new vehicles and all new power tools, which many can not. I would imagine most can not afford to replace all their power equipment with new right now.

And when it comes to new, 2 cycle engines dont commonly come ethanol friendly.
Ethanol friendly power tools cost a heck of a lot of money!
Not a little higher in cost, an insanely higher amount.

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We have 3 stations who have signs saying they proudly have no ethanol in thier gas. I try to only go to them.

I have not been able to buy ethanol free gas for well over a decade: cars, lawn mower, tiller, chain saw.... don't see the big deal.

I wish we had E85 stations near here as my next vehicle purchase would be based on that. Unfortunatly the closest station is over 20 miles away.

Ethanol does not have the btu content that gasoline does. It takes more of the blend compared to gasoline to develop the same power. Anyone paying the same price for a gasoline/alcohol blend as compared to straight gasoline is getting ripped off plain and simple.

Thirty years ago I bought a book that covered running vehicles on 100% alcohol. Even at that time there were issues with fuel system components being damaged. Some of the parts had to be replaced before you started using alcohol. On a gallon for gallon basis you would see at least a 30% drop in mileage using alcohol.

With a blend you will also experience a drop in mileage. It won't be 30% and may not be great enough for the average person to notice

I've noticed that one gas station about 2 hours away has started advertising alcohol free gasoline. As soon as I can get in touch with the folks at a local airport, I'm going to start running avgas in my small engines.

I've already had fuel lines leak and need replaced on new equipment.

I have used 10% Ethanol now for many years in my '94 Buick Century, and not one single problem with it in fact when checking gas mileage I get 30 to 31 at freeway speeds '67 mph, with AC on.
Not bad at all.
Now I am looking at my owners manual for that car.
And it is IMO only that some are getting Ethanol and Methanol Confused. As some may even think they are the same. And that is far from the truth.
My Owners manual says Methanol is Corrosive~! Not Ethanol.~!
It says Methanol can eta rubber parts some plastics etc. DO NOT USE fuel that contains Methanol~! But not only says I CAN use Ethanol up to 10% but says NOTHING about Ethanol being bad on rubber or plastics parts.~!
Now as far as those "other" additives, like MTBE and such called Oxygenated fuels My Old 1967 Chevy Impala with the 283 engine LOVE IT~!!!!! Never had so much power in the old Chevy..
And I used Those types of additives for many years while living in Phoenix, AZ, and that Chevy never ran so good in its life~!
And I use use 10% Ethanol in my '89 GMC Pickup and get great gas mileage. Last time I checked that was pulling my pony trailer on the InterState System and got 22 mpg, not bad at all for a Full Sized 1/2 Ton PU with very close to 300K miles on it.~
So if the Owners Manual for my '94 Buick says things about Methanol which is NOT GOOD to use if would have said the same thing if Ethanol was bad to use also........ But it does not and says go ahead and use Ethanol up to 10% mix. Not sure what 15% might do but I am sure it will not be that bad at all....
So IMHO that all this do not use ethanol as it is bad for engines is coming from anti-ethanol reports, and is a lot to do about nothing...

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Actually the '55 Oldsmobiles and '38 Pontiacs are much more resistant to alcohol since they used all metal fuel lines and metal parts in the carburetors. Very little if any plastic in them besides maybe the needle in the speedometer. Its non-alcohol resistant plastics and rubbers that cause the problem. And frankly anybody restoring an antique car is either going to replace the fuel tank or have it cleaned and coated.

The only real problem I have with alcohol is things like older chainsaws where the manufacture is out of buisiness or since the product is considered beyond its expected life, nobody is going to design alcohol resistant replacement parts for it. Lot older small engine stuff, just getting replacement parts at all can be quite the treasure hunt and you have to be able and willing to adapt non-original parts. And if my old chainsaws die, well too bad, but not like I am out huge amount money, and somebody will make a chainsaw that meets current market conditons. Hopefully an affordable one.

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I have a 1950`s something Farmall M tractor, I can`t burn ethonal in this tractor. Have tried, it just burns to hot. Tractor starts spiting and sputering and will die. Replace with reg. gasoline and she runs fine figure that one out will ya. I have found out that if you put a cup full of diesel fuel in a tank of ethonal gas it does help. I don`t have the answers, don`t have much I can do about it anyway. > Thanks Marc

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I found one site that said methanol is an ethanol additive. If the problem truly is methanol then why is it permitted to be added to gasoline without any notification to the unsuspecting buyer????? All the gas pumps around here say up to 10% ethanol added.

The only sites claiming that ethanol doesn't harm engines or components are the pro-ethanol sites.

Maybe the water absorbancy doesn't cause a problem in the less humid areas of the country. But here in humid Ohio it does cause problems. There have been a few times when it was really wet and humid where the vehicles would not run at all because of the water absorbed by the ethanol. The only solution is to add dry gas (yep, alcohol, rubbing alcohol to be exact).

What makes it ethanol friendly, different seals, gaskets, hoses?

I haven't purchased a new small engined tool in quite some time, does this mean the manufacturer's are actually carrying two different lines of same tool, one that is ethanol friendly and one that is not?

Or is this some sort of transitional phase where all power tools are changing over to be ethanol friendly and then those will be the only model available?

Actually ethanol bleded gas can handle water intrusion better then non-ethanol blended gas - to a point.

That point comes when the ethanol in the gas absorbs enough water to cause it to seperate from the gas. This is called phase seperation and when it happens all the water, ethanol and gunk loosened by the ethanol sits on the bottom of the tank and is sucked up into the fuel delivery system.


It would take much less water to cause a similiar situation in non-ethanol blended gas.

Add a good fuel stabilizer to any fuel that may sit around for awhile before being used and you should be ok. I use seafoam myself. I add it to the five gallon cans that feed the small equipment. Everything, weedwacker, lawn mower, outboard engines, that sat around all winter fired up as easily as they ever have this spring.

I also agree that the ethanol thing is just the latest SCAM on the Amercan public.

Well I will speak from my personal uses. The only solvent used in fiberglass resin is methel ethel keytone, which is used to cause the resin to set up. To clean up or thin the resin acetone is all you can use. Any thing else used you just as well throw the resin away. I have tried different thinners and it just doesn't work. Once fiberglass sits up I have no idea how long it would take acetone to damage the fiberglass.
Now using ethanol for fuel you need to do several things to the engine. Yep it does run hotter than gasoline so you need to rejet the carb and reset the timing. You will use around one third to one half more than with plain gasoline. The extra is not burned but used to cool the pistons. On drag care running ethanol or methanol you see the flames coming out the pipes, that is the unburned fuel.
I do know that at ten percent in a 1975 Datsun 280Z it will drop the emissions. Sam

And don't forget, ALL INDY Racing cars are now Racing on Ethanol only fuel.
And in a few years Nascar cars will also be switching to Ethanol for fuel.

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One of the very few 'good news' stories for the upper midwest - if we can get 12-15% ethanol 'allowed' by the EPA.

_Methanol_ is the bad boy that does damage, and is a solvent. It is _not_ what gets added to the gasoline.

_Ethanol_ is grain alchohol - same stuff you drink - and has very minor problems. Biggest one is if you have a dirty, varnished up gas tank, the ethanol will clean it out & clog your fuel filter. Well - the problem is you have a lot of gummy junk in your gas tank, probably good to get that cleaned out....

You don't have to mess with gas de-icers any more, as the ethanol already does that for you. The folks with boats who have issues already had issues with letting too much water into their gasoline - at some point you just get too much water in your fuel because you ain't taking care of it. Sheez. The ethanol will help for small issues; for big issues you'd have problems on pure gasoline too. It's a non-issue for most folk who take care of their stuff.

A lot of the misinformation on etrhanol is put out by oil-producing states & companies. You are getting fed intetionally misleading info, like the methanol issues - which, again, is a _totally_ different type of alcohol.

Several studies have found the average automobile actually runs better (more mpg) on a 15-25% ethanol content vs the current 10% level. While there is less btu in a gallon of ethanol, it is far more stable, and has a cleaner, more even burn rate. So it has better efficiency at about a 20% rate than it does at a 10% rate in most current auto engines.

There are a lot of E85 pumps around here, a lot of folks will create their own blend, by using some E10 and some E85, and coming up with about E25 in their tanks.

There is a _lot_ of misinformation on this topic, kinda sad.

We've had E10 for a couple decades here, it works well in Minnesota, been running my old gas tractors, and lawn mowers, and chain saws on it. It works, works fine.

You look at what is going on in the Gulfs right now (Spill in Mexican, war by Persian), and folks want to drop cleaner, better, home-grown fuel and keep using up the costly oil.....

I don't get that. Don't get it at all.

--->Paul

Thank you and you post mirrors my post about the difference between ethanol and Methanol. And all the misleading info that has been spread around.
But you said Methanol is not added to gas. That is not really true.
As in many States now during the winter months they have what is called Oxygenated Fuels, and MTBE is one of those added. which is "Methyl tert-butyl ether"...
And also in the US it has been used in gasoline at low levels since 1979 to replace tetra-ethyl lead and to increase its octane rating helping prevent engine knocking. Oxygen helps gasoline burn more completely, reducing tailpipe emissions from pre-1984 motor vehicles.....
So Methanol is added to gasoline. And I bet THAT is what is causing many problems and Ethanol is just getting the Blame,, What do you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether

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It may be good for Minnesota but ethanol isn't good for anyone else in America for a whole lot of reasons. Biggest one being it takes as much oil to make ethanol as it does to to make gasoline so it is a total waste of time and resources.

This is completely wrong information.You are being misguided here.Do a little more research.There is a lot of product left after corn is made into ethanol and it is used for animal feed.There are subsidies and financial breaks made to oil companies.All of this should be taken into consideration.Ethanol is not the answer to the energy problem but it is one of the pieces for now.

And besides the corn that is used to make ethanol is not the type of corn that is used for people food. So much misinformation floating around concerting ethanol one would think we were talking about nais, or walmart, or monsanto lol

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http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...ostly.ssl.html

I have done my research and using ethanol DOES reduce fuel mileage. The higher the ethanol content, the lower your mileage. Even the EPA has proven that with their fuel efficiency ratings.

Additionally, the feed byproducts from ethanol, while edible for livestock, are not healthy in large quantities as they are being touted by the corn industry. This is from agroscience and biologists who have studied the effects of using those byproducts long term.

Older vehicles, particularly motorcycles, will be damaged by high ethanol fuel and the majority do not run well on even 10 percent ethanol fuel. This is coming from those who are motorcycle repair and maintenance experts who work on them daily.

There are lower BTUs in ethanol per unit than gasoline and that means that here is less energy when it is burned. The fact that one has to enrichen the mixture and waste more fuel to keep the engine from overheating tells me that most gasoline engines have to waste more fuel to compensate for the burn qualities of the ethanol blend fuel.

As for the removal of leaded fuels from the market, unless the valve seats and valves are replaced for hardened steel replacements, their wear will increase as there is no lead build up to cushion them while the engine runs. Will a leaded gas engine still run on unleaded? Yes. However, it will wear out significantly faster unless an alternative to lead additive is put in the fuel or the valves and valve seats are replaced with ones designed for unleaded fuels.

Just because an engine will run on a fuel doesn't mean that the particular engine is running on the best fuel it was designed for or that there are not consequences in the future for doing so.

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You have been mislead. There are reports that can 'prove' about anything one wishes to believe....

Ethanol plants continue to improve, they are works in progress. Twenty years ago getting 2.5 gallos of ethanol from a bu of corn was really good. Today, getting less than 2.8 gallons means you will fail. Likewise with propane/ natural gas use, it has been lowered.

A lot of the dried distillers - the left over feed - is being shipped to China, they like the stuff.

Any reliable, informed report on ethanol shows a 34% or so retuirn on energy over what is used. That's now "terrific" gain, but a 34% gain in energy is still a pretty nice gain. This includes growing the corn, hauling corn & fuel around. It's a positive gain, your data is either very old or very mis-informed. There was quite a few industries they wanted to see ethanol fail, and sent out quite a smoke-screen..... Hopefully that will change, now that an oil company has actually invested in ethanol plants and is moving forward in that direction.

Studies also show that if we ended ethanol as a fuel today, it would increase gasoline prices by 20-30 cents, and we would need to be buying more - sending more mony to the Persian Gulf. Worse balance of trade. We wouldn't have the refining capacity either.

We'd have to refine the gasoline more, if we lose the ethanol. They use the higher octane rating of ethanol to use lower grade gasoline.

Ethanol in gasoline changes the fumes from burning gasoline. in general the ethanol makes better air for us to breathe. American Lug Association has supported it for decades, and has lots of data for you.

And so on.

We don't have a perfect fuel. And blending in ethanol does change things, makes it different. Different isn't always perfect & rosey for everyone.

But without ethanol, we'd be in a worse place as a whole than we are with it.

While you are negative on ethanol, how would you replace it??? Go back to MTBE & wreck the groundwater??? Or just use more crude, and to heck with air quality? What? What's your plan to make things better?

It's easy to be negative, and complain when you have no solutions of your own.

What should we do? Sit on our rear & do nothing, sit around and wait for something perfect to drop in our lap before we do anything?

There ain't nothing better out there that actually works and we all can afford, so for today, we go forward with ethanol. It works, it helps stretch fuel supplies, it helps make cleaner air, it helps the balance of trade.

Why be against that?

--->Paul