The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Using today's gas

My 48 3100's engine was rebuilt prior to my purchasing the truck. I love the truck and drive it whenever I have the opportunity. My question is will it handle today's gasoline for a long period of time or will the gas affect the engine later on?

Yep, she'll drink it up with gusto CL.
There is an ongoing myth that you have to use leaded fuel in an
engine that was baptized in it. You won't have any problems
running the E10 sold most everywhere now days. I'm just turning
over 16K on my '50, 216 and the only problems I've had is it
wants to percolate in the carb when its hot out, and the fuel
mileage isn't as good when she drinking a cocktail.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

That's good to know. I thought I read where after a period of time using today's gas she would have to be redone. One more, is there a particular grade of gas to use as far as octane is concerned?

Not really. Use the regular. It will be okay.

Yep, once again, plain old decaf is all she needs at the low
compression ratios these engines have, none of that hi-test
stuff, anyone tells you to use it, you'll just be wasting
your money.

DG

If you can buy 100% gasoline, use it for long term storage. It seems to store better with out the alcohol added. If you are going to be driving it regularly, say once a month or more, use the cheapest you can get from a decent station.

Joe

Originally there was a myth that non lead fuels would cause the valve seats to fail in short order. That was proved pretty much false with the exceptions of engines that are required to be at full load for long periods of time. Just cruising around empty like most of us in a 1/2 ton truck, there are absolutely no issues with E10 . With that said, for some reason my riding lawn mower does not like e10, probably because the alky causes it to run at the lean limit or its affinity to attract water.

I started moving into my new place the spring of 2012. The
7,000 Watt back up generator was stored in the barn for at
least a year before that while the house sat on the market.
Who knows how long before that it had been refueled. I've
only had to run it a coupe of times because of power outages
and that was only for short periods. I've only added a couple
of gallons of fresh fuel w/stabil to it and that was last
year. With the bad weather I fired it up at the beginning of
February and ran it for about 15 minutes to make sure all was
ok with it and the battery. Ran fine with that 4 to 5 or
older fuel in it.
Am doing a static test of fixed amounts of E-10 which I
botteled up at the beginning of last summer. Some inside the
barn sealed, and some open. Some outside in full sun sealed,
some vented. Some from the summer before. Gonna leave it all
for a full year and report what it looks like and how the
sealed fuel runs in a motor.

There are a lot of myth's about E-10 floating around out there also.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Boy, I would be very interested in your findings on the e10 fuel experiment. My father moored his 21 foot runabout boat with a Honda 150 outboard on it and had this bad habit of topping off the tanks with e10. He was always having problems with that engine running well until he had the mechanic drain the fuel tank and what we found was not pretty. The gas and alcohol had separated looked just like oil and vinegar. He kept a sample in a mason jar to show us. You could shake it up and set the jar down and the fuel would never re-combine with the alcohol. By this time some of the fuel was a few years old and my Dad was too cheap to buy the non alky fuel from the marina or a bottle of stabilizer either.

I'm looking forward to learn Denny's results.

"Today's gasoline" (OP's terminology) covers a host of evils.

(A) The stuff added in the late 1970's to increase volatility is one issue.
(B) The lack of lead is another issue.
(C) And, of course, ethanol yet another.

As mentioned earlier by sstock, the lack of lead is not a large problem with collector vehicles (unless they are tractors which regularly participate in tractor pulls, or are used on the farm). Racing, pulling a heavy trailer, or other environments which significantly load the engine can mean issues with lead-free gas and engines not designed for them. But for the general enthusiast, few, if any problems.

The higher volatility, and the lower BTU content of the ethanol cause more problems than the lack of lead.

I personally had one collector car that got started about once a year, where the sediment from the modern fuel evaporating STOPPED UP THE INPUT TUBE IN THE SENDING UNIT, REQUIRING THE TANK TO BE DROPPED AND A NEW SENDING UNIT INSTALLED.

Sediment from evaporation IS an issue, especially with collector vehicles.

Air-cooled vehicles suffer from the use of E-10 with the reduced energy content, as they tend to run hotter. My John Deere lawn and garden tractors will run all day on real gasoline; but put E-10 in the tank, and if the ambient is above 90 degrees F, will start to sputter, and eventually stall after 30 or so minutes. Of course, at my age, maybe not a bad thing to have an excuse to get out of the sun after 30 minutes

And starting the small engines after they sit unstarted for 3 to 4 weeks is an exercise in futility. I finally started buying starting fluid by the case; and simply start the small engine on the ether. Saves the battery and starter on electric starts, and my temper on hand crank engines. I do this on everything from a weed eater on up to a 450 HP collector vehicle, and have now for about 10~12 years with no known issues from using the ether.

The very best "insurance" for dealing with modern fuel is to start and run the engine at least once a week!

Jon.