The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Fuel question

Hi there,

Working on a running 1950 GMC 150 truck, and I am wondering if it is worthwhile to run premium fuel rather than regular.

Thanks,

James

No need to run premium on a low compression engine like the GMC six.

No need for premium but some regions its the only way to get no ethanol is buy premium ( not all premium is non ethanol just some markets or regions and excuse to charge more ).

I avoid ethanol fuel like the plague in all engine that are not run on regular basis. Some regions or markets do not offer non ethanol fuel at any cost.

X2

X3........ Fortunately in Oklahoma it is fairly easy to buy real gas.🛠

The only issue I've had with E10 is restarting the engine when hot. It tends to percolate out of the float bowl more easily & fill the runners with vapor. I usually run non ethanol gas but often can't find it when on tours. I prefer non alcohol but don't stress when I have to use it.

This may have been on hear before, puregas.org. click on state at bottom and will give all places for ethanolfree gas. Self edited by users. Great when traveling out of state..

Been running E10 in all of my vehicles, ever since they started it which I believe was some 30 years
ago in our area.
Run it in all four trucks and the cars which are 2015, 2014, 2015, 1997, 1950, 1954. Us it in
two motor cycles and all of my lawn equipment, tractors, mowers, snow blowers, tillers, log splitters, etc.
Never had any fuel problem with any of them even when they've sat for a year or two without running.
The fuel percolation problem when parked hot, common to the Stovebolts that Tiny mentioned was the
same when I tried a few tanks of regular leaded auto fuel that is sold for some of the aircraft that are
approved to run it.
I last fueled up Old Blue, my bone stock '50 exactly one year ago last summer. Because of broken
rear springs and badly broken right wrist, she's been parked all this time. Just this past week
I finally got all the broken parts replaced or healed and cranked her up. Started right off the
bat as soon as I got fuel up to the carb. Been driving out the full tank of year old fuel for several
days now, put a couple hundred miles on it in city driving and out on the highway at speeds
up to 70. No problems with the fuel. I do add Stabilizer at each fill up. Have made a habit of
that ever since I bought the truck in '05. Practice that same thing for all the lawn equipment
which may set for long periods with out being started.
If you're having problems with the E10 fuel that you're using......try another gas station.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

DG, you got me thinking about the possibility of regional formulation differences of 10% ethanol fuel. You haven't had any problems in the arctic zone where you live, yet many of us are having nightmares with it in the balmy, humid mid-Atlantic area, especially with small 2-cycle engines.
Personally, I can't get more than 2 years out of an accelerator pump diaphragm in a YF 2100 in my '50. They turn mushy and begin to leak, causing an extremely rich situation, requiring pulling out the throttle knob to rev it up to burn the excess fuel in order to limp it home.

Another problem that I noticed was the gasket under the fuel sending unit deformed badly on my new build after less than 200 miles of operation.
I had a 216 in my '52 with a Rochester B (leather accelerator pump) which sat for ten years without running and when I started it up the first time in ten years, as soon as it got gas to the carb, it fired right up and purred just as smooth as it did 10 years prior. I ran nothing but 10% ethanol in it form the day I bought it.

I suspect that it is not the ethanol causing the issues, but rather, the volatile additives which makes the ethanol usable in some gasoline engines. Maybe these additives are monkeyed with in different regions for some reason and the unintended consequence is soft parts deterioration.
It is so bad here that most folks buy the cans of premixed real gasoline/2-cycle oil product for their weed eaters and such to get more than a summer of use out of them.
Carl

I dont have that problem around here, not with anything.. just keep on purring like a kitten
my lawn mower is probably 10 yrs ago, I did have to get a new weed eater last yr... someone
stole mine, had that sucker for many yrs.. no problem with either, vehicles work great
except for the bird and the stupid adapter plate gasket.. so far.. so good

drove the 52 for more then 10 yrs, no fuel problem, I take that back, I did
replace the fuel pump once, but no other fuel problem

93°F here today Carl, having a streak of hot weather, bout 20° above normal
for this time of year. Have been to big car shows in town where it took an hour of
idling in line before we got parked. Some times close to 100°. Many street rods
parked alongside the road with vapor lock, Old Blue survived just fine.
dg

I've been running regular pump gas in my '62 C10 ever since I got it in 2005. Sometimes it would sit for a month or two, but lately, it gets driven at least 4 - 5 times a week or more.

After the 67 250 I6 a PO put in it died (worn nylon faced timing gears), I put the '67 327 V8 in. That's a 10:1 comp engine that's still all stock (never rebuilt) except for the Holley model 4175 650cfm carb and it runs well on regular 87 octane. I'm still running a factory distributor with points and factory coil.

No problems with fuel. It's hard to be picky out here in California. You get the gas they give you. Almost everything has ethanol in it.