Wow larry... you should publish that you would put 80% of the carb
rebuilders out of business. So many people bought gas gensets during
the last hurricane and did nothing but put stabil in the tanks (If they
did that...) I suspect most of them won't start this season (Assuming
we get a real hurricane again and not that Ernesto wimp...)

One thing you did not mention was Gasohol's ability to EAT a fiberglass
tank. Great article in Boat US magazine about all the old small
Bertrams having to replace their gas tanks.



Larry wrote:

sherwindu wrote in
:


I have been reading lately that gasohol is bad for boat engines. It
deteriorates in 30 to 60 days, and I'm not sure products like Stabil
can control it. I personally have put
Stabil in my gas just after buying it, yet I have had to clean the
jets on my Yamaha
9.9T three times this season. I have two filters, one on the tank
line and one in the
engine, but they are not doing the job. Someone recommended going to
10 micron filters. I don't know what is inside the engine but my tank
filter is 40 microns. If the
gasohol truely breaks down this quickly, one would have to plan to
swap out the boat gas at frequent intervals. I'm also told the newer
tank lines are made of a material that is more resistant to the
gasohol problem. Right now, I don't have any
good solutions to this problem.




Wanna make it stop? Simply RUN THE ENGINE DRY every time you use it.

There's nothing in the gas clogging up the Yamaha. The gas in the float
bowl is simply evaporating leaving behind a brown coating of shellac on
everything, including the inside to the tiny jets that meter the fuel.
Switching to a 4-stroke outboard makes this problem MUCH worse because
there is no lube oil in the gas to keep the shellac soft and dissolvable
between uses, so it turns to hard shellac and clogs the carbs all up.

Take the time to unplug the gas tank from the motor and run it dry at the
dock, instead of just shutting it down and going anal retentive on deck
cleaning. The filters filter out particles. There aren't any, just gas.
It's the gas that's the problem, itself. A 1-micron filter isn't going
to cure it.

Stop wasting your time on the diesel-fuel-in-a-can products like Stabil.
It's useless.....here's why....

Gas never "goes bad". What?! You must be CRAZY! ALL gas "goes bad".

No, that's not true. Gas EVAPORATES and the lighter elements in the gas
that give it its octane power always evaporate first, leaving you with a
tank full of heavier elements and gas with very low octane
rating....still gas, but hard to fire with spark plugs.

Solution - NEVER leave a tank EMPTY, like every boat at the dock does all
the time, gas or diesel.

A half empty gas or diesel tank BREATHES, every 24 hours, a large volume
of vapor. As the sun rises, the tank pressurizes as the vapor pressure
increases with temperature. The vapor, loaded with those light elements
that make gas go great, are pumped out whatever vent there is throughout
the day. You notice a slight smell of fuel near the vent pipe. The sun
sets, the air cools, the relative humidity of the air goes to 100% and
coats everything it touches with dew. The tank cools, the vapor pressure
drops to less than the air pressure and sucks in a big volume of water-
saturated air all night at 100% humidity. The tank cools below the dew
point of this load of rain and water condenses on the exposed walls of
the tank, forming droplets whos weight exceed the capillary action of
them sticking to the walls. The droplets get bigger as gravity slides
them down into other droplets, forming drops. As they slide past the
level of the fuel, being heavier than fuel, the slide down under the fuel
to collect in the exact point the manufacturer put the pickup tube for
the engine....the lowest point. Eventually, later when it's too late,
the water will get deep enough, because under the fuel load it will NOT
evaporate again when the tank gets hot tomorrow, the pickup tube will
suck it up into the cheap gas filters without a water separator and it
will end up snuggled against the main jet in the bottom of the float bowl
of the engine, making it run like crap or refuse to start or stall out as
soon as you start it.

The other problem recreates it self every morning as this dastardly cycle
continues unabated every 24 hours....when the next load of vapors with
those light elements that make gas go get expelled, leaving behind gas on
its way to becoming that awful smelling shellac we call "bad gas".

Out in my storage shed, where the temperature goes to 10F in winter and
130F all summer, there sits a Honda EX5000 5KW generator. The feed tank
on the Honda is perfect...it's STEEL, not plastic. (More about plastic
in a second.) I bought this genset in 1989 just after 2 lawyers
advertised it when their power came back on after Hurricane Hugo, which
tore Charleston up awful. I've owned it ever since. Inside that steel
gas tank, in that awful hot storage shed, is about 2 gallons of the
cheapest regular gas available, from the cheapest station near home. The
tank is FULL to the point of overflowing. It cannot BREATHE as there is
no vapor space but a tiny bubble right under the cap. It has been that
way since 1989, always filled to the brim. I don't run the genset on
this tank. I have a fishtank air manifold, of brass, that lets me feed
the genset from a siphon hose, directly from my jerry cans, never having
to shut down the genset/let it cool/fill this tank/restart, which I think
is stupid. (You simply pinch the hose, remove it from jerry can A and
put it in jerry can B and let go the pinch and the siphon drop from the
jerry cans sitting on a little chair or other stand refills the carb,
continuously.) The gas in the tank is only used to fill the siphon hose
at the beginning of each use so I don't have to suck on it to get it
started. (Just lay the hose out under the tanks and open both manifold
valves until gas spurts out the hose, close the tank valve and insert the
hose into the first jerry can....simple.) So, I know the gas in the tank
is 1989 regular gas...no "stabilizer", no diesel-fuel-in-a-can for $8 a
pint. The generator bowl initially fills when you open these valves,
also from the 1989 gas in the tank, AND STARTS INSTANTLY EVERY TIME ON
THE FIRST OR SECOND PULL ON THE RECOIL STARTER.

So much for the "bad ol' gas" bull****. Simply KEEP THE TANK FULL SO IT
CANNOT BREATHE. Diesel doesn't evaporate like gas, being an oil, but
that water sliding down the walls from the half full diesel tank, every
boat at your marina has, causes diesel fuel to GROW ALGAE whos spores are
also SUCKED INTO THE HALF-FULL TANK. Algae cannot grow in diesel fuel
WITHOUT WATER to drink! If we fill the diesel tank, every time we use
it, no water will be ingested, no algae spores, either, and the algae
spores in the diesel fuel CANNOT live without water to drink...solving
that problem, too, without diesel-fuel-in-a-can agent orange at $8/pint.

A word about plastic tankage. IT SUCKS. The problem with polyethylene
is it's made from petroleum and its molecules are HUGE! In between the
huge molecules are spaces not big enough for gasoline to leak through,
BUT big enough for those little light molecules that give gas its high
octane kick to go through! Ever notice how a boat with a plastic gas
tank ALWAYS smells like there's a slight gas leak? There is! It's the
light molecules leaking through the cheap plastic tank! Those plastic
jerry cans also leak these molecules something awful because they're
thinner. Put a plastic jerry can full of gas to the top in your van and
drive it home. Even though it didn't leak a drop of gas around the
filler, your van smells like gas by the time you get home just awful. It
leaks that bad, that fast. NEVER store gas in a plastic jug over a week
or it will "go bad" leaking its light molecules into the surrounding air.
Anyone with a storage shed with a plastic gas tank in it full of gas
knows it always smells like gas. That's why....it's LEAKING! Plastic
boat tanks also suffer from this problem, but the storage time can
probably be extended to a month because the tanks are thicker walled,
reducing the molecular leakage some, and there's lots of gas in the tank
making lots more molecules available to be left over. DON'T STORE THE
BOAT WITH THE PLASTIC TANK WITH GAS IN IT. Run it as dry as you can get
it, drain the carb by running it dry, too, then put fresh gas in the
cheapass plastic tankage in the spring. You can't stop it from
leakage...unless you swap the crap tank for METAL.

A word on GASOHOL...or as we say in America now, "premium gas". (They're
using alcohol to increase the octane of regular gas and selling it for
premium because what we were using, tetraethyl lead, is forbidden,
now.)...

Alcohol attracts WATER like dropping a sponge into a bucketful. Of
course, here we are in the world wettest region of the planet....on
water. So, running high test gasohol or a real gasohol mix which is
worse, just fills your tank with water....it's OWN condensation problem.
There shouldn't be any questions from the class, so I'll close my lecture
on this note......(c;

Sorry.......(bell rings in hallway, students rush out for sex)
Larry