One of the perks I miss most about working in the junkyards was the FREE gas we'd get from junked cars..it seemed many folks cars always blew a motor right after filling the tank!..and since its a royal pain to get gas out of later model tanks with the anti-siphon ball and "flapper" in the filler neck,few people ever drained the gas,especially if it was a few months old..
We used to hoist the cars up with the forkloader and use an air chisel to poke a hole in the tank in the lowest corner and catch it with a funnel we made from an old Poulan Springs water cooler bottle and a length of filler neck hose,drained it into a clear 55 gallon plastic drum,and we'd let it sit undisturbed at least a day or two before attempting to use any of it..then we'd use a transfer pump to suck out what we needed off the top of the barrel,all the water would settle to the bottom and it was easy to tell where the gas ended and the water began..when we got down to the watery stuff,we'd dump it in another barrel to be hauled off as waste,though many times my boss simply poured in on the seats of a junk car headed for the crusher,and 90% of it would evaporate very fast in the hot summer sun..
We had a WIX gas filter like gas pumps use that had a water separator drain on it (almost identical to the diesel fuel filter on my '82 GMC 's 6.2)--we'd drain any water out of it daily,and if we were really paranoid we'd use cotton in a screened funnel to filter it as we dumped it in our vehicles..T-shirts work good!.
We didn't have much trouble using "old" gas as long as it wasn't super stale or varnished,my carbed vehicles burned just about anything,though my co-workers fuel injected cars did clog a few fuel filters and idled crappy on some of the stuff se used..but I didn't mind having to put a new gas filter on every month or two,for 3 bucks and 40+ bucks of free gas,it was worth it!..I used it in my lawn tractors and mowers too,with few issues..
Todays gas evaporates a lot faster than the old leaded gas did..leave a pail out to the air and it'll be 90% gone in a day or two,especially if its in the sun..
