Water in fuel

Avgas was probably higher octane rating than what was available at the roadside pumps.

During WW 2, 100 octane was used to give higher power in aero engines.

The only downside in those days was that some of the Tetra Ethyl Lead anti knock additive could become a lead deposit on the valves. It wasn't until the early 60s that 100 octane road fuel became available, because of the need for cars like the Rover P5. Even today, unleaded "Super" petrol is 97 or 98 Research Octane Number, depending on where you buy. Standard unleaded petrol is 95 RON, at least in UK.

Howard.

When I was a lad petrol came as 2 star, 3 start etc up to 5 star. Despite my strongest arguments my dad always put 5 star in even with fairly low compression engines, it cost more so it must be better.

The samples should be put in a waste container and disposed of properly. Eye witness evidence, stains on the ramp and dead grass on parking areas indicate it is often just dumped.

Avgas is leaded and will kill your catalyst / O2 sensors and is illegal for road use as the corret tax has not been paid. Jet A is not good for modern diret injection diesels du to poor lubricity and i likewise illegal for road use.

Robert G8RPI.

Edited By Robert Atkinson 2 on 27/09/2019 20:18:14

I think the latest postings are slowly drifting off subject again but I have been dying to write something.

AVGAS went up to an octane rating of 130. All the piston aircraft engines used by the British and Americans in the War were designed and initially developed before the War. These engines were either naturally aspirated or had a very low boost pressures. The compression ratio was usually about 7:1 and the octane rating of the fuel was 100 or lower. As the War progressed fuels with higher octane ratings allowed the boost pressure to be increased resulting in very large increases in power with no change in compression ratio.

One little question: How do you dispose of waste fuel responsibly?

JA

Edited By JA on 27/09/2019 20:22:57

I have personally seen a foreign cargo jet dumping fuel when close to landing. A descending cloud about 1/2 mile long over Someones farm is kind of hard to miss.

I think that method was invented by a Mr. J. Ettison.

That's how you get fuel in your water.

Tim

At long last I have been tempted to weigh in to the ethanol in petrol debate. The "problems" with ethanol fuel seem to have been greatly exaggerated to me. Australia has been using up to 10% ethanol in fuel for many years (10-15?).

In this time I have used it in three Toyotas dating from circa 1980 to 2000 plus in a variety of vintage and veteran motorcycles. I have never had the slightest problem from its use but the oldest Toyota runs a bit more smoothly on ethanol fuel, probably because of a rather poor state of tune.

More to the point is that I have never seen any reports of people having problems with ethanol fuel. Given the normal human tendency to knock anything new -it's not as good as what we used to have- I think it is safe to say that anyone using ethanol fuels is most unlikely to suffer any problems, despite theoretical disadvantages from possible water content and solvent power on fuel lines etc.

I don't include people who are using tank liners or fibreglass tanks in this comment. However being a very cold-intolerant person, my vintage bikes often sit for months in the winter and I have not noticed any rust formation in the tanks.

Maybe the dampness of the climate has an influence but there again I have never heard of problems from the tropical, monsoon area of Australia either

Chas

I think that's a good point! There can't be many places in the world where petrol is alcohol free, standard British petrol is up to 5%, and Premium Grades are likely to be higher. It's not new either - the Model T Ford was designed to run on Alcohol, and many petrols in the 1920s and 1930s contained it.  Hundreds of millions of cars are burning ethanol loaded petrol without an trouble.

I guess the vehicles most likely to have problems are those built during the heyday of Leaded Petrol, say 1950 to 1980. During this period cars rarely encountered alcohol, and their designers might have used materials sensitive to it or the dissolved water it can carry. They weren't designing cars to last, and had no notion they might become 'classics' or that Lead was going to be phased out!

However, by the early seventies it was well known that Lead was done for, making it likely that designers would allow for Ethanol in future. And of course many of the plastics and metals used to make cars are tolerant anyway.

Bottom line, modern cars and very old cars are OK, and there's a reasonable chance 1950 to 1980 won't be effected either. Cars built between 1980 and, say 2000 should be better again.

However, there are a mass of unknowns in this. Well-known that elderly engineers often cling to what worked in their youth and block change if they can. Even more sinister is the dreaded accountant - they like to switch at the point of minimum cost - when all the old-stock has been used up, or not at all if the replacement is more expensive! And the owners will time changeovers to suit the business, which might mean nothing happens until they've relocated the factory. How these factors pan-out in the components used to build and repair an old-car is hard to predict.

I suppose it's unwise to expect cheap straightforward motoring from a Classic Car. Owning one always involves a certain amount of bother. Lead free petrol is another issue, though reasonable substitutes are available. Another problem is long-term storage of petrol in the tank of an infrequently run car. Petrol is 'Best Before' it's 6 months old and it goes off rapidly thereafter causing other problems for engines.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 28/09/2019 10:07:13

Anyone remember Cleveland Discol, It was advertised as 'the alcohol petrol', and was certainly sold in the 50's

**LINK**

Off subject again. Read my original question/post and you'll see what I've been trying to find out. I'm not interested in how efficiently ethanol burns in the engine or whether it'll do any harm to the engine, nor water injection, we are stuck with what's available at the pumps.

What is alarming is the hidden rust this mixture appears to cause. Several here have stated how well their cars run on ethanol petrol mix, well maybe they do, mine does, but do you know what's going on inside, I guess not.

I have a few pictures of the petrol tank, vintage 2001, and the two fuel pumps vintage 2017. These apparently replaced the originals when the problem was first noticed. I would attach them if I knew how to.

Here is a linky to some more information Mercury marine engines and ethanol

I was tempted to search for the above as I remember seeing a new outboard motor with the annotation on the carton 'Warranty void if ethanol fuel used' . This was about 10 years ago.

* Danny M *

.

... It’s top of the list of FAQs

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=103028&p=1

MichaelG.

Thank you Michael for the link, I've now created an album and will include the photos. (unfortunately the photos seem to have a mind of their own on here and I can't get the text where I want it, sorry about that. First attempt to load photos).

These show the degree of corrosion in a car from 2001, so not that old. The tank is of that vintage but the pumps are only two years old and are genuine Jaguar parts.

Top pic shows the pumps

Middle pic shows the bottom of the tank

Bottom pic show the pump sump in more detail

My fellow club member had a lot of hassle trying to diagnose the loss of power with the car, and after exhausting all ideas (On board diagnostics didn't really help in this case) finally had the courage to remove the tank, not an easy operation. What he found amazed everyone, but he has now replaced the lot with new genuine parts and it's all OK again, but for how long?

It would be great if someone can come up with answer to my original question, as engineers we like to deal in specifics rather than supposition. As I said early on in this thread, using additives including IPA may well sort this out, but without doing a strip down, how do you know if it works? And what do the internals of your car look like?

.

You’re welcome ... Thanks for the very interesting pictures !!

MichaelG.

It comes to mind, when I bought my first new Ford Escort Estate the fuel tank was leaking, I went to the Ford garage under warranty and they agreed and ordered a new tank but after a 2 week wait decided to take things into hand myself. Drained the tank and flushed out with water a few times and could not smell petrol anymore. I was able to take it to a friend who had a gas torch and fluxed the the cleaned area and flooded it with solder and killed spirits.

On examination I could see tha the petrol tank interior was lead coated ! so no corrosion.

PS, never did get the replacement petrol tank. Thank you Ford.

PS. sorry, I forgot to mention that this was an Export car, which may have a relavance.

Edited By Clive Hartland on 29/09/2019 09:00:22

Sorry, I missed out a crucial bit of the detective work....and age thing.

The diagnostics seemed to point to the fuel gauge/sensor not behaving as it should, and after a long time spent getting to and removing said sensor, this is what came out and focused attention on the tank and pump condition.

I have started a new thread on Bio Diesel just to inform users of Diesel engines really. The investigation into that is very interesting with some startling pictures on the 'net.