This is a nice little trick. Looks like it might even be an easy way to filter the ethanol out of the gasoline. Have you ever tried using the gas afterwards?(or drinking the water hahahaha)

Thanks for that.  I had seen similar on the tube, but they made it sound like the remaning gas was somehow "better" .. though I really doubted it.  Your explaination makes more sense.

I personally believe that the additives to the Ethanol enriched gas assists in the gas being able to retain/retain more water.  So what I wouldn't mind having is the antidote to that... be able to remove the ethanol, then remove the additives (and the trapped water) leaving tada... gasoline. This would not be useful for new gas... but it would let me "revive" older ( not OLD) ethanol gas. Living in MS is heck on gas, as we go weeks with extremely high humidity. Those additives that help the ethanol be abosrbed (and water as a octane booster) also soak up all the moisture in the air.  It only takes one good rain to have water soaked ethanol.

Routy wrote on 06/18/12 at 07:52:04:


I was not intending to open an ethanol debate with this thread - I just wanted everyone to have a way to test for ethanol if they wanted to.  

You have been very fortunate.....you must have a good fuel source, low temperature swings, low humidity....or something in your favor.  The most damage seems to occur on engines where the fuel flow is gravity - and the diaphragm petcock on the Savage helps to alleviate the problem by not letting fuel flow to the petcock when the engine is not running.  On engines like mowers where the system does not have a shut off, the gasoline portion of the fuel evaporates and when the float drops it lets more fuel in.....the process keeps repeating until the only thing left in the float bowl is ethanol.....and the aluminum becomes badly corroded as a result.    I have worked on small engines since 1973 and I have witnessed the change.  It used to be that when an engine came in for service after sitting for long periods - the fuel system would be badly varnished and it would have gummy, sticky, smelly goo stuck on everything.  Since ethanol became common the damage has shifted from being varnish to being the corrosion of aluminum parts and dissolving rubber parts.  I have repaired lots of equipment for neighbors, friend and relatives, and I know which have been damaged by ethanol - and the "shelf life" of the fuel has descreased dramically.  Diaphragms in carbs used to get stiff when they got old - now they dissolve.  My uncle had a couple of muscle cars that had to have the accelerator pump diaphragms replaced each spring after winter storage because the ethanol had dissolved them...and I was the one who replaced them.  The nylon fuel tank in my Sherco expanded and became soft when the ethanol acted as a solvent to the tank and made it unusable in only 3 months...the new tank is now 3 years old and has no problems since I started avoiding ethanol.  In the high humidity, large temperature swing Cincinnati area - the ethanol fuel does cause problems.

If your system work for you.....great.  For those of us wanting to avoid problems with ethanol......it would be nice to have a choice.