Spring fuel alert

Now that spring is starting to make an appearance in some areas of the Northern Hemisphere - thought I should send out a bit of an alert to something I've run into this year.

Background - was helping a friend get his bike out of winter storage.

So we're doing all the usual stuff. We decided to drain the fuel tank to make sure he didn't get any water in it. His tank is about 18 litres so we drained it into a old 6.5 gallon glass carboy he had in the garage. After it was about 1/2 way, we noticed something strange - the fuel looked "cloudy".
Warning number one.
So we let it finish draining while we went about the other tasks - bled the brakes, checked pads, replaced oil/filter, general lubrication - that stuff. Went back to get the tank and noticed something strange -- the bottom couple inches of fuel was sort of cloudy/clear.
Warning number two.
Ladies and Gentlemen - let me introduce you to "Phase Separation"

Seems when he filled up at the end of last year (early November) for storage, he used basic regular 87 fuel - which thanks to the Canadian/Ontario government contains at least 10% ethanol. So now after 4 months being stored in an unheated garage the fuel seems to have picked up some water -- note that phase separation can occur even just in storage without exposure to water I'm told!

Damn good thing we didn't try to fire up the bike with that in it, because that's the first thing that would have been getting sucked into the fuel pickup! Can't think that water/ethanol/some gas mix would be good for bikes. And there was probably close to a litre of it in there.

Anyway, we siphoned off the remaining fuel on top of that layer for use in his truck - with the removal of the ethanol the octane rating goes down to the low 80's, and the separation probably took some of the additive package out as well. Got his bike a new tank full of premium. The 91 octane isn't much benefit, but we're told it probably doesn't have ethanol in it at this point (no one's clear on that here in Ontario). And even if it does, at least it's fresh fuel.

So folks - be aware of what might be lurking at the bottom of your fuel tank if it's been stored full and sitting a while! I know I'm going to be draining mine into that carboy and checking it this year...
Damn ethanol...

 

My understanding is that ethanol is a cheap/common way to boost octane. In other words, higher octane fuel is more likely to contain ethanol.

Here in the states too I think there is almost always 10% ethanol in the gasoline. The EPA is now allowing 15% for some vehicles, which would require the stations to have an additional pump. How long do you think it will be until the lobbyists get it changed to 15% across the board so they don't need additional pumps?

So far Sta-bil has seemed to keep me out of the woods.

 

My understanding of a news blurb is that the EPA is getting ready to go to 15% due to the "success" of the 10% blend.

Also - I just found 4.3 Billion barrels of oil in North America, called the Bakken formation - - enough oil for 2,000 years !!

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

We don't need alcohol in our gas, but there's a way they can further cheat us. Alcohol can hold a little water and still stay blended.
I took a quart of fresh gas, a 20CC syringe and put water into the gas and shook the container. There was now 40CC of water/alcohol mix at the bottom. What does this prove? That the gas was already fully loaded with water, and couldn't take another 2%. The separated water/alcohol mix was then burned.

 

Regarding Bakken - check out the Wiki article:
Bakken Formation

Of note these two lines:
By the end of 2010 oil production rates had reached 458,000 barrels per day outstripping the capacity to ship oil out of the Bakken. The production technology gain has led a veteran industry insider to declare the USGS estimates are too low.

I'm not a big fan of ethanol, but I'm not against it for automotive use. What ticks me off is we don't have any OPTION in using it in engines not designed for it (like our bikes).

 

Some Gas Stations will cheat you on their fuel... my friend was riding bike last summer home 300 mile trip... low on gass and filled up with what he thought was premo gass... it was the low end crap... they put in their premo tank.... he had to limp it home...