Clearing out old gas from the fuel system

jimbo36 · Post by **jimbo36** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:03 am

In my case a friend who has a large storage tank on his farm, took the old gas. He adds it to other fuel and runs various farm equipment with it. My F36 has 2, 80 gal tanks. I was dealing with about 30 gals. 6, 5 gal cans.Not too bad.

risctaker, you said in your post you have 4 tanks?

jimbo36

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:46 am

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the good input. First and foremost, I would never "dump" the gas. I would pay for a proper EPA disposal before I did anything like that.

I have 4 tanks all with a different amout of gas so I'm taking an educated guess based on the gauge readings that I have approx 200 gallons of the stuff. If the old gas is of the MTBE variety as what "should" be found at all marinas then it could be "polished" - even if I do it myself by constructing a really good series of water separators, particle filters and a high-capacity electric pump to place on the dock. The inevitable water at the bottom can be siphoned off and safely dumped. "IF" I find out there was any E10 gas in there, then the entire 200 gal load isn't worth a S__T and the call to the EPA is next.

I"m thing of total removal & disposal of all tanks and repalcing them with 2 x smaller tanks. With the quality of gas we can all expect to get from now on (did you know E15 was recently approved for sale??)you really do NOT want to be keeping a large amount of gas on your boats. Smaller tanks and more frequent re-fills is the order of todays' society. The E10 stuff starts breaking down in only a few weeks time!.

I will take the consensus of the forum here and totally replace / re-build carbs, lines and filter. Thanks guys - U da best! Steve (risctaker)

jimbo36 · Post by **jimbo36** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:30 am

Steve, I was of the opinion, polishing was a diesel fuel thing.

Would you not be concerned about the octane level, even if you filtered it?
Crap fuel is crap fuel

I hear you on the shelf life of today's fuel.

Don't forget, limiting your fuel capacity will also limit your cruising range.

jimbo36

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:26 pm

Fuel "polishing" is both a gas and diesel thing but would be a useless exercise if I have a load of old E10 in the tanks. Yes, reducing the size of the tanks would reduce my cruising range but many of the boating magazines are starting to recommend either fuel tanks size reduction or NOT topping up your tanks unless you are leaving very shortly for an extended trip. All this due to the rapid breakdown of E10-laced gas. E15 is on the way so things will just get worse.

prowlersfish · Post by **prowlersfish** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:27 pm

Thats why many marinas are going back to normal fuel

alexander38 · Post by **alexander38** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:46 pm

Here's a way to handle corn gas its work for ( after two fuel pumps and carbs ) get your boat set to run corn gas if its in your area of travel such as here in Va. you'll in about 70% of the places I go . And then if I find real gas I can use it. The biggest trouble with the corn gas is the change over, and don't buy old stuff get it in places that sell a lot of it. And if you park your boat for a while treat the gas I usually double up on it. Also never ever let it sit in your carbs longer than a week. All this is just my 2 cents worth.

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:35 am

Thanks, Tony, Good advice for anyone these days.

Captain Blast Off · Post by **Captain Blast Off** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:02 am

After reading the entire thread I'm almost afraid to reply but...

I bought my boat from a guy who had it for over 5 years; when he bought it the tanks were full; when I bought it over five years later it still had a half tank in each tank; here is what I did.

Added double dose of fuel treatment (the kind that displaces water) changed the fuel / water separators and filled up the tanks. Once the tanks were full I added the correct amount of octain boost; everytime I could I added fresh fuel to the tanks.

I ran this mixture out and have had no problems; yes the engines were not very peppy until the good gas to bad ratio improved but it did work.

Now I do have old school 312's that would probably run on heating oil but both engines run excellent after burnung the old fuel out and tuning them up and yes I still run points (sorry that's another post).

Whatever you do think it through and have a plan

; you're getting a lot of good advise here.

Steve

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:59 am

Hey Steve. You are a very luck man! I say "lucky" because you obviously had the "old" style gas - the stuff we are SUPPOSED to get at the marinas containing MTBE NOT E10. If you had an old load of E10-laced gas you would have had very different results. I'm glad you worked your way through it so well. Actually, I have not yet confirmed if I have the MTBE or E-10 variety of gas in my tanks so stay tuned and I'll let you know how it all turns out.

BTW Steve - did you have to re-build your carbs, fuel pums and replace lines & filters after all that time sitting?

prowlersfish · Post by **prowlersfish** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:21 am

Your nose can tell you a lot about the condtion of the fuel

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:57 am

"Noise"? AS in Engine Sounds it is making while it is imploding on the bad fuel??

prowlersfish · Post by **prowlersfish** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:06 pm

Nose as in sniffer

Struts and Rudders · Post by **Struts and Rudders** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:05 pm

I myself am dealing with a load of bad/old fuel.
About 250 gallons it looks like.

We used an electric pump to remove the fuel from the tanks pumped it into 55 gallon drums and posted an add on Craigslist and the stuff was gone in less than an hour.

Getting rid of it through the legal recycling channels was time consuming and potentially expensive plus required the use of 5 gallon buckets or a hiring a hazmat truck to come to the site to pump it from drums, which ain't free!

The guy I gave it to will be cleaning it up and mixing it with new fuel prior to using it in in lawn care and farming equipment.

We chose to remove,inspect and clean the tanks and then decide on replacement tanks. All the copper fuel lines and manifolds will also be replaced.
It was a no brainer for us.

SRD
1980 F36

risctaker · Post by **risctaker** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:15 pm

hi SRD,

Your approach in the long run sound like the way to go. Thanks

Steve

Captain Blast Off · Post by **Captain Blast Off** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:26 pm

Been away from the site awhile...

No did not have to rebuild carbs the previous owner would fire the engines monthly and it must have been enough to keep everything from crudding up. He never drove the boat just ran the engines in the slip.