Todays Fuel and Fuel Components.

[Matt]

first off, Happy New Year to Y'all. was out in the shop today mucking about, and i remembered that earlier this spring when i went to turn on my fuel petcock on my rider that it had been completely "melted" or eaten by the fuel that was in it. It was an plastic inline straight petcock type for small engines, it had literally melted iteself to the point i couldnt even turn the selector to flow, i ended having to cut the fuel line just before it to remove it and running a new complete line from tank to carb because now the line was to short. So now, i have no petcock on this rider and a full tank of fuel with stabilizer and the fuel bowl on the kohler is full as well. Hate to not have the ability to shutoff the fuel but i completely forgot about it till today, my understanding in my neck of the woods is the regular fuel can contain up to 10% ethanol, wow, can this blend damage fuel components even when treated with fuel stabilizers, no wonder the older stuff is no fairing due to this new fuel blend. Just passing along my what i came upon today, and yes, the petcock i used was for small gasoline engines. peace!

[NO0C]

I refuse to buy that corn whiskey crap, if real gasoline is available and so far it still is, but currently at a $0.30/gal differential.

Why not just drain your system and pour it in you car/truck tank and fill it with fresh next spring and fit a new shut-off valve?

Good luck.

Best wishes to all for a wonderful 2016.

[KE4AVB]

It maybe just swelled and binding which is problem I have been running into especially on the Poulan chainsaws fuel caps the last year.

It appears to be a change in the fuel additives that appears to be doing it. I did recently had the same swelling problem on one of my storage containers where I couldn't get the cap off and on as it had swell so much without a large pair of pliers. I have been using the same container for several years and never had this problem until lately. It was about 15 gallons with Sta-bil added which also been adding during the same time frame to this container.

Once the fuel mix was removed from the container and it sat a week most of the swelling went away. Whatever it is it affecting some the plastics being used in the fuel systems. Most fuel systems plastics is HDPE which had been normally unaffected by these fuel blends until lately.

I do know that some areas are now getting the newer EPA mandated 15% ethanol blends vs the older 10% ethanol blends this is per my local fuel distributor so this might be the source of the problem but I thinking it is the other additives that are doing it as the problem varies depending how the fuel is blended causing it to be more reactive with the plastics.

With different fuel suppliers using different fuel additives would explain why some customers have more problems than others. I have seen fuel lines to deteriorate so fast that I could install new lines one day, go back less than a week later, and lines would be bad; switch fuel suppliers and the problem disappears. The different additives used would also explain why some customers has line swelling, others have shrinkage and hardening, and some that have no problems; all using the same fuel line.