You know the gas is bad when....

[big pappa b]

Some of you remember when I was complaining about trying to get rid of this old gas I had in my K5. Well since we moved here to NC and I have 3 acres of land I thought I had found a use for it. There was a HUGE pile of tree limbs/branches and i thought I would use the gas to get it going. I have 2 - 5 gallon jerry cans full of this old crap. I dumped 1 whole can ( 5 gallons ) on it and moved WAYYYYYYY back. Lit a ball of paper a began throwing them at the pile. I have about 6 flaming balls of paper all over this pile and it still wouldn't light. That gas was no more potent thansome weak lighter fluid at best. Ended up lighting cardboard and sticking it under the pile to get it going.
No wonder I had trouble getting the K5 to run right

 

[rjfguitar]

How old of gas?

 

[stallion85]

I can just see it now......Air Force TSgt burns down whole neighborhood with balls of paper and 10 gallons of gas



Sounds like some pretty crappy fuel. Did you replace that tanks yet?

 

[big pappa b]

I dont have a neighborhood or neighbors ;-)

Trying to find a fuel cell right now

 

[big pappa b]

How old of gas?

Well, the truck sat for about 1.5- 2 years before I got it and then was another year before I got it running

 

[dontoe]

Did it still smell like gasoline?


That's amazing..........any Chemist types here what knows what happens to it?

 

[Poohbair]

Gas turns to Varnish when it gets old... and it smells like it too...

I have run rigs on 5+ yr old gas and got them to run.. sure, they run better w/ new gas, but they will run on old stuff...

 

[big pappa b]

It ran enough but stalled on me a few times...in the middle of an intersection

 

[big pappa b]

Did it still smell like gasoline?

barely

 

[ntsqd]

Did it still smell like gasoline?


That's amazing..........any Chemist types here what knows what happens to it?

I'll take a stab at it though not a Chemist. When you smell gas what you are smelling are the so-called "Light Ends" (LE) LE's are the parts of the gasoline blend that vaporizes easily, other parts of gas don't vaporize as easily ("Heavy Ends"?)
It is the LE's that make getting the fire going easy. The "HE"s are like trying to light diesel fuel. It'll work, but not like gasoline does.

Since the fuel had a few years to 'lose' it's LE's all that was left were the "HE"s.

 

[gravdigr]

My friend's a chemist. He works with synthetic polymers but he has a colleague(sp?) that is working on alternative fuel for diesel engines (corn oil and what not). Maybe they can tell us.