The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Ethanol gas for the first time......???

Just took delivery of a '62 C-10 that came from a non-ethanol state. The only type of gas I can get in my state are blends with 10% ethanol. Are there any precautions I should take when adding ethanol fuel to the truck for the first time? I have seen the ethanol play hell on older carbed engines around here and don't want to go through that with my new to me truck.

If that is all you can get you should be prepared for extra maintenance. Anything rubber will suffer. They do make special fuel hoses just for ethanol so I would start by replacing all the fuel lines. The Carb internals will deteriorate faster and you should stay on top of that. You don't say what engine you have but it probably isn't made to run ethanol and may need a rebuild sooner than later. There will be some on here that disagree with me about ethanol but I know there is problems associated with the stuff. As long as I can buy real gas I won't put ethanol in anything.

I have to disagree. We've had ethanol here since the mid '70s, and I've run all of my vehicles on it for the last 20+ years. I have yet to see any of the problems that are claimed with use of ethanol. Some areas, like Colorado, have been using since these trucks were new. I would think if it were as much of a problem as some of the horror stories claim, there would have been reports of it 60+ years ago.

Buy some Stabil fuel stabilizer (red bottle)and use it if the truck isn't going to be driven much. That's what I do and have had good luck in doing so.

Hope that helps.

_____
John

Thanks for the responses guys! I can buy non-ethanol gas from a local sunoco station near me....they sell it in the 5-gallon pail. It's a little pricey, but it might be the way to go for the next few months until the truck gets put away for the winter.

See if any of these gas stations are near you.

http://www.pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=MA

Definitely replace your old rubber lines with the ethanol resistant kind. I have an '81 chevy and all of the rubber lines got ruined by the ethanol fuel here. They are old, but they were fine for a while and then all of a sudden the truck started running poorly. Timing is spot on, carburetor is too. Fuel filters are new, but the lines I haven't replaced on top of the tanks are shot, causing the fuel pump to lose prime and cavitate. On my '65 I replaced all the rubber lines before they got too bad, and they were in bad shape when I took them off. I was shocked that the truck even ran as good as it did, because the hoses were very brittle and deteriorated. May have been old age, but I wasn't taking any chances. Definitely rebuild the carb with ethanol resistant parts too. I think from there you're good to go with keeping it tuned up.

The valves suffer from unleaded gas and adding etahonal makes it worse. The lead lubricated the valve seats. Add a quart of diesel to every tankful of gas. and the hoses and rubber parts do sometines go bad. My daily driver is a 66 GMC 250 six and its the original engine. And the diesel in the gas works for me.