dimanche 30 avril 2017

Is pure gasoline worth the extra money?

I've been using non ethanol (even after there was a choice) in my mowers and my Trabant 601 which has a 2 cycle engine because of issues I've read about ethanol in gravity feed fuel systems.

I wonder if I'm throwing my money away paying 10 to 15 cents more per gallon for this stuff. Is pure gasoline really any better than E10? Or should I say is E10 really that bad?

I've always heard it will eat natural rubber. So lawnmower engines built after 200? uses neoprene fuel hoses, o-rings, etc which alcohol won't attack. And I've heard it will corrode aluminum which newer carburetors are made of anyway.

The other day I got out my MTD which is my backup riding mower. But I occasionally use it a couple of times during the season just to make sure it's going to run when I need it. Well my Husqvarna's mower deck has a busted spindle so I needed to mow my yard.

I had not used it since last fall and topped the tank off with pure gasoline before putting it up for the season. I noticed about a quart of gasoline had evaporated between October and April. That seems quite a bit. Where did the gasoline go? I wondered if the float valve was not seating and the crankcase was full of gas. At this moment the level on the dipstick showed normal.

At first the engine ran fine but after an hour or so it started running rough then after I shut it off for about 10 minutes to chit chat with my father, I tried to restart it, the engine was hydro locked. Gasoline was pouring out everywhere. I hooked it to my father's truck and we pulled it up the hill to my garage. I took the carburetor off and cleaned the float valve and passages with carb cleaner. The spark plug was fouled from where it had been running rough and the crankcase was full of gas. So I had to bead blast the spark plug and change the oil (which it needed both anyway) but this put me an hour behind my mowing.

I really didn't find any crude in the float valve. However this carburetor has a non adjustable (no brass tabs to bend) white plastic float and the float initially would not pivot on it's own.

I'm not real sure what the deal was but after putting the carb back together and testing it to make sure the float valve was working the mower ran fine the rest of the day.

Spring of 2016: Somehow water got into the fuel tank in my Husqvarna (Craftsman) over the winter. My guess is I forgot to top the tank off and moisture in the void condensed and sunk to the bottom. I had always heard E10 will absorb water and sink to the bottom. Well water will do the same in pure gasoline.

I blinded over two fuel filters until I figured out what was happening. I filtered all of this gas through one of those Mr. Funnels and was able to filter out the water. The mower ran fine on this same batch of gasoline.

The reason I've been buying pure gasoline to begin with is to avoid both of these problems that seem to occur primarily with gravity feed fuel systems. But it seems my efforts were all for naught.

I've been using E10 in my 68 Ford Fairlane, 1980 Fiat Spider, 1987 Yugo, 2003 Subaru and my 1998 Chevrolet van for ages with no problems. I have had no issues with E10 eating rubber parts on any of these vehicles. Some of hoses on my older vehicles is Gates LOL which is made of neoprene. I have no idea if the Subaru and my Chevy van are setup for E10 since they were built before E10 became somewhat the standard 10 years ago.

I have tested E10 versus pure gasoline on my Subaru and Chevy van. No difference in gas mileage whatsoever.

So is pure gasoline worth the extra money? Is E10 really that bad?

From my experience, I've had the same issues with pure gasoline I've been trying to avoid from using E10, no difference in gas mileage, no damage to rubber parts from using E10.

What's your experience?


Is pure gasoline worth the extra money?

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