Posted on 04/23/2014 6:20:29 AM PDT by thackney
I think we oughta make these EPA pukes, the politicians who voted in laws to mandate it and the cronies that bribed them to do it to drink a gallon of it.
Ahhh, once again we see those pesky unintended consequences of gubermint meddling are alive and well.
Anyone who has torn down a small 2 stroke carb can tell you ethanol demolishes engines... Rubber/plastic parts swell and harden and if given enough time eventually dissolve them.
However, ethanol is a great anti-knock agent, but I don’t know what levels it would be needed to support just this effect.
Ethanol was being used for anti knock from the beginning but was replaced by Tetraethyllead in the 1920s... Which of course was just flat out insane, but not recognized at the time. We literally pumped uncounted amounts of neurotoxin into our environment burning fuel with TEL, and it wasn’t until the 70s that finally this stupidity was discovered and ended.
I am curious what level of Ethanol is needed to aid in Anti-Knock.. if it is 10% as most gas has these days, or less.
However given the choice between having to do maintenance on an engine, or pumping lead into the environment I’ll take the engine maintenance every time. The idea that its some grand replacement for gasoline proper with E85 and whatnot, well that’s just flat out silliness.
Refine more gasoline without the ethanol so we can use it in these vehicles and not pay thru the nose. sheesh, simple fix.
They knew all along.
Yup, same here. Few more weeks and I will get to pick up all sorts of yard equipment left a the curbs be people who have no clue the ethanol based "mix" they left in their machines all winter gummed up the carb's. I'll sell them on craigslist later after I clean them up.
Not so simple. The problem is not a shortage of gasoline, but a surplus of foolish government regulations.
If EPA’s Ethanol is produced from Corn, then how many gallons of Diesel or Gasoline does it take to produce one gallon of Ethanol?
* Note: Prep. to plant, planting Corn, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting, the actual production of Ethanol, and final transportation to customer friendly filling stations all require combustion of fossil fuels.
It will be interesting to see how our tax dollars are being used by the Feds to subsidize the production of Ethanol which the Federal EPA documents causes damage to the engines we buy from partially nationalized, Federally regulated automobile manufacturers.
Factoid for the Day: Corn is a Green and renewable, whereas Tax Dollars are green, but not renewable.
If engineered for the combustion of ethanol, the internal combustion engine does well. But such an engine would do probably equally as well, if with a hydrocarbon fuel (natural gas, propane, butane), there was also injected a small amount of water.
At the temperatures within the combustion chamber, the water (very small amount) converts to H2 and carbon monoxide when it is in the presence of the partially burned hydrocarbon fuel, and proceeds to reburn in the excess of oxygen introduced with the fuel-air mixture, adding still more to the thermal efficiency of the engine operation.
And water is ever so much cheaper than ethanol.
I know, sounds counterintuitive, but it was tried back in the 1950’s with carburetor-induction engines, and while it had mixed results, with a newer engine-management system keyed to LPG fuels, it could make already efficient engines even more efficient.
Essentially, this is a gasification process based on the Fischer-Tropsch reaction.
Carried out right at the point of consumption.
Only if you are a pro logger or something.
Most chainsaws flat out say use alcohol free fuel, if you don’t follow that advice you do indeed risk wear, mostly to the rings and piston, though over time you could wear out the cylinder itself.
However, for most home users, who are using their chainsaws a few hours a year, not going to notice much of a problem even if you use fuel with ethanol.
And while you can pay a repairman an arm and a leg for labor, parts for small 2 strokes are relatively cheap, and they aren’t that hard to fix, only a few real parts on the things honestly.
But a few damaged engines is the price we have to pay so that vote-buying can go on as usual.
1992 Buick Roadmaster
has stall episodes and gets less fuel economy on alcohol blended fuel. I pay the 14 cents a gallon premium and save headache and gas.
Government needs to eat its own cooking.
Most parts are dirt cheap for these little 2 strokes, carb rebuild kit <$10 in most cases, and O rings are nothing as well. Even a piston can be found for $25 or less.
O Ring/Piston replacement are less common, but given enough time can need them. I’ve run 2 strokes for many may seasons on cheap 87 octane 10% ethanol gas before I’ve even needed to do a carb rebuild. Usually because the ethanol has made the pump rubber to inflexible to effectively pump the gas... So maybe 30 minutes at most and <$10 I rebuild the carb and am good to go.
Of course if you want to avoid this, you can always hunt down and use the more expensive fuel that doesn’t have alcohol in it. To me, as a home owner just using my weedwacker maybe 30-40 hours a year this seems like overkill.
If I was a pro doing it daily for 8 hours a day I’d probably hunt down the better gas.
Understand, but you have to realize that I have engines/yard tools that are very old. I have a Golden Boy edger 4 cycle that was new in 1971...my Craftsman Lawn Mower is 1991 era.....likewise for a lot of the rest of it. Try buying a gasket set for a newer (5 years) Honda Harmony II...they’re not easy to find, nor cheap..
My favorite little tool is the Mantis 2 cycle tiller I have. It’s one of the first ones they made it seems like. It also is from the 70s. Those parts are hard to find and a little more expensive. It really took some searching and research to find a good alternative carburetor and parts for it to rebuild it.
Only the narrow minded will refuse to see that this is really one of Obama’s successful job creation programs.
He is creating jobs for people who build cars and car engines in Mexico, Korea and Japan.
That’s what I do.
There is one gas staion in my are that sells ethanol free gasoline.
It is always at least $1.00 a gallon more than premium with ethanol.
Check out EBAY, you’ll be amazed what you can find. I know older engines are always hard to find parts for, period.. 40 year old ANYTHING can be hard to find parts for.
Of course, if you really just want to get rid of ethanol from your gas, its not really that hard to do...
You can google it, but here is a post on how one guy did it
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/removing-ethanol-gasoline-12697.html
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but lets face it, if you are using tools from the 70s, which is your perogative, that’s the same as if my parents were using tools from the 30s, and while growing up my dad had his share of hand me downs he’d inherited, NOTHING dated 40 years back in our shed except maybe an old manual lawn mower rusting in the back corner.
I understand you may love your old tools, but at that point you are an antique collector, and as such, assume the responsibility that something that old is going to require extra care and feeding.
I did the same a few years ago after talking to a guy on a tree crew. They were having many problems with their saws until they went ethanol free. I swear by it. My only gripe is the only way to get it here is 91 octane which is expensive. I use it in my lawn tractor, snow-blower. weed-eaters, chainsaws and my outboard. It adds up.
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