Posted on 03/11/2015 6:59:16 AM PDT by thackney
There have been a lot of old-car fires lately. I went through the ’70s, the ’80s and most of the ’90s without ever having read much about car fires. Suddenly, they are happening all over the place. Here’s one reason: The ethanol in modern gasoline—about 10 percent in many states—is so corrosive, it eats through either the fuel-pump diaphragm, old rubber fuel lines or a pot metal part, then leaks out on a hot engine … and ka-bloooooie!!!
As someone who collects old cars, and keeps them up religiously, I am now replacing fuel-pressure regulators every 12 to 18 months. New cars are equipped with fuel lines that are resistant to ethanol damage, but with older cars, the worst can happen—you’re going down the road, and suddenly your car is on fire.
There’s more. I find that gasoline, which used to last about a year and a half or two years, is pretty much done after a month or so these days. If I run a car from the teens or ’20s and fill it up with modern fuel, then it sits for more than two months, I often can’t get it to start.
Ethanol will absorb water from ambient air. In a modern vehicle, with a sealed fuel system, ethanol fuel has a harder time picking up water from the air. But in a vintage car, the water content of fuel can rise, causing corrosion and inhibiting combustion.
It gets worse. Ethanol is a solvent that can loosen the sludge, varnish and dirt that accumulate in a fuel tank. That mixture can clog fuel lines and block carburetor jets.
Blame the Renewable Fuel Standard. This government-mandated rule requires certain amounts of ethanol and other biofuels be blended with gasoline and diesel fuel. But when Congress first passed RFS as part of the Energy Policy Act in 2005, our demand for energy was increasing. Today, it’s the opposite. Total demand for fuel has decreased thanks to more-efficient vehicles, more hybrids and increased environmental awareness. The EPA is set to release the 2015 standard in June. Meanwhile, some legislators are pushing to reform or eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard entirely.
I just don’t see the need for ethanol. I understand the theory—these giant agri-business companies can process corn, add the resulting blend to gasoline and we’ll be using and importing less gasoline. But they say this diversion of the corn supply is negatively affecting food prices, and the ethanol-spiked gas we’re forced to buy is really awful.
The big growers of corn have sold us a bill of goods. Some people are making a lot of money because of ethanol. But as they divert production from food to fuel, food prices inevitably will rise. Now, if you don’t mind paying $10 for a tortilla ...
Last week, I went to start up one of my Duesenbergs. When I pulled out of the spot where it had been parked for about a month, I saw a huge pool of gas. I looked at it while it was running and saw gas just pouring out. “OK, I’ve got to buy another fuel regulator.” I pulled it out and opened it up. The fiber diaphragm was eaten right through. Should manufacturers make diaphragms for old cars out of modern materials like Viton or Teflon? Yes, they should, but not all of them do. Consequently, your chances of a fire remain.
Here’s another problem: When you have vehicles with fuel cells in their gas tanks, ethanol tends to eat the coating out of the fuel cell. If you have an old motorcycle and redo the fuel tank, the first thing you do is seal the tank with some sealant. It’s generally a cream or a gray color, and it looks like you painted the inside of the tank. On a lot of my bikes now, I’ll open the gas tank and I’ll go in with a long set of tweezers. I’m pulling out sheets of this coating. Really, it comes out in 6-inch strips.
The ethanol is just eating it up and clogging the fuel pump because it’ll move around as a sheet of material and block the opening. With cars like my McLaren F1, if I buy a 55-gallon drum of VP racing gas, the fuel cell will last twice as long.
It’s time for us as automobile enthusiasts to dig in our heels and start writing to our congressmen and senators about the Renewable Fuel Standard, or we’ll be forced to use even more ethanol. Most people assume, “Oh, that’ll never happen. They’ll never do that.” Remember prohibition? In 1920, all the saloons were closed. It took until 1933 before legal liquor came back.
Most people don’t really look at what goes into their car. Obviously, the days of high-octane gas like Sunoco 260 are long gone. Those of us with older vehicles are the ones who end up paying the price. The car manufacturers don’t care. They don’t mind if your vintage car burns up or breaks down. They want to sell you a new one. It’s hard for enthusiasts. We really have nowhere to go.
So write those letters, but I also suggest you drain and clean your old car’s fuel tank, use a quality fuel-tank sealer that’s impervious to ethanol, replace fuel filters, keep all the screens clear and use a fuel stabilizer (added to a full fuel tank), if your car is to be stored for the winter season.
Oh, and keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Anybody that needs food should hate turning corn into an unneeded, inefficient, and except for specific needs or applications, a lackluster source of energy.
Our Marathon station up the street sells non-ethonal gas - for about 45 cents more a gallon than regular.
So now that a mega-celebrity realizes the utter foolishness and destructiveness of ethanol, maybe somebody in government can be made to listen.
Personally, if I could find the one person responsible for its infestation in our fuel supply, I’d slap him upside the head with a 2by4.
It makes me mad as hell to have pay up to .30 cents more per gallon for gasoline without ethanol in it, or add up to .40 cents per gallon for a preservative for the ethanol crap.
And Scott Walker supports the mandates for the use of this crap.
Or at least as long as he campaigns in Iowa, he does.
Yes, everyone who has studied this issue know these facts. The question is “how do we get rid of this damn ethanol use mandate?”
Another government fiasco caused by the idiots in DC.
>>Last week, I went to start up one of my Duesenbergs
Poor Jay Leno. Must be hell to deal with this on one of your Duesenbergs.
(Cue the huge manatee meme!)
But wait just one little minute! Those people in Iowa are entitled to that money they get for Corn Ethanol!
Just ask them.
I certainly agree, concur and empathize with Leno. In addition to vehicle issues, all of my lawn tools, tractors, blowers, weed eaters and edgers have been ruined because of ethanol in the gasoline.
Leno is right on the mark with regard to food prices as well.
Ethanol is a real noxious problem and needs to be banished from gasoline, pronto.
He’s a car enthusiast. He should now what crap Ethanol is.
Even in the New York Times:
End the Ethanol Rip-Off
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/end-the-ethanol-rip-off.html?_r=0
MARCH 10, 2015
...The tax is hidden because, on paper, it appears as a clean-energy mandate. Federal law currently requires fuel retailers to blend about 13 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year into the gasoline they sell to the public, making the gas more expensive. This year, that mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, will impose about $10 billion in additional fuel costs on motorists.
Congress created the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005 with several goals in mind: energy security, rural economic development and environmental protection. But the indirect environmental costs involved, including growing, harvesting and processing corn into fuel, are significant. Ethanol diverts corn from the food supply, driving up food costs; it promotes inefficient and harmful land-use strategies; and it can damage small engines. But a more fundamental problem is its high cost when compared with conventional gasoline. And that higher cost is directly related to its lower energy density.
Ethanol contains about 76,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Gasoline contains about 114,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Therefore, to get the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, a motorist must buy about 1.5 gallons of ethanol.
Fueleconomy.gov, a site run by the federal government, advises that vehicles running on the most common form of ethanol-blended fuel, E10 (which contains 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline), will typically get “3 percent to 4 percent fewer miles per gallon” than they would if they were running on pure gasoline. That mileage penalty — in essence, a tax — must be paid at the pump through the purchase of additional fuel.
And that takes us to the cost issue. Since 1982, officials in Nebraska (which is the second-largest ethanol producer, behind Iowa) have been monitoring monthly and annual wholesale, or “rack,” prices for ethanol and gasoline at fuel depots in Omaha. In December 2014, the rack price of a gallon of ethanol was $2.40, while a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $1.73. But recall that we need 1.5 gallons of ethanol to match the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline. That means you would need to pay about $3.60 to get the same amount of energy as from a gallon of gasoline, making ethanol about twice as expensive....
Excerpted
This really isn't about Jay Leno.
If anyone is interested, you can make gasoline more stable for storage by washing it with water. Put a half gallon of water and three gallons of gas in a five gallon container, and shake a couple time over the course of a few hours. The alcohol and many of the bad hygroscopic additives will go in to the water layer, and the gas layer will be dryer and cleaner than it was before you started.
You do lose a couple octane numbers.
I do this for my chainsaw and lawnmower gas.
In Leno’s case, he can certainly afford to avoid the problem if he chose to. There are non ethanol gas sources in California. And his argument is tailored to the old car enthusiast. But it lacks the best argument - gas prices and taxes are higher because of the ethanol blending. Gas which is blended lowers the miles per gallon results in cars. It is costing the consumer with little benefit.
Course, he is in California, and blended gas is unlikely to ever disappear for the mainline gas stations, and if anything, the blending will be increased no matter how many cars are destroyed.
That’s why on automobiles built since the middle 1990’s, the entire fuel delivery system has used far better materials to prevent the type of corrosion Jay Leno experiences with older cars.
It is not just vintage cars that are effected by ethanol. Despite new cars being made with ethanol resistant fuel systems ethanol is still corroding them. I used ethanol laced gas in by 1995 Blazer and ended up having to replace the fuel injectors as they were eaten through. There is now a push to increase ethanol in gasoline from 10% to 15%. The EPA claims there will be no harm, but manufactures say other wise.
Ethanol is hygroscopic. Doesn’t just absorb water. It sucks it right out of the air. I keep it out of my car if possible.
Premium straight gasoline sells for $.50 over 87 oxy here.
Dear Scott,
Don't come asking for my vote, you won't get it.
If he answers that he'd use ethanol if his rigs ran on gasoline, then look him in the eye and ask him if he'd use the ethanol blend if his equipment were hypothetically gasoline-powered. If nothing else, you'll be able to identify the ones who can lie convincingly.
Mr. niteowl77
*"Farmer" is a somewhat obsolete and quaint term for the big operators.
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