Phase Seperated Ethanol / Gas

[Ibtsoom]

Ok I started getting a bit of honey colored gunk out of my fuel water separator. At first I thought it was water -- at the suggestion of my mechanic I siphoned out the tank. Luckily the dip tube for my fuel line does not reach about the last 5 gallons in my tank. These are the pics of what I got out of that 5 gallon space. The clear fluid on top is gas and the 3.5 to 4 gallons of honey colored crap on the bottom is ETHANOL . I use my boat at least once a week and most times more than that. I run a lot of gas through it. Evidently just because it's being used doesn't mean that your gas wont phase separate on you. Check your water separator OFTEN!!

That second pic is upside down but you get the point..

[Swells]

Right, the honey-red stuff is not ethanol, but perhaps is a reaction to the tank sides - do you have a fiberglass tank? Resorcinol used in fiberglass is red colored. Aluminum boat tanks should not have such a reaction. Interesting pictures to say the least.

Not sure about ethanol being in a crystalline or "gray talcum powder" appearance either, as ethanol is chemically pure, clear, liquid, resembles something between clear Moonshine and drinking water. Again, I suspect that the ethanol has some junk in that needs to be filtered or there was a powerful secondary reaction.

Ethanol can be wet-milled or dry-milled but the outcome should be the same, pure denatured ethanol (with a touch of gasoline in it so you won't drink it). It is supposed to the filtered to below ~5 microns regardless of the type. The dry-mill method is more common these days because distillers want to sell the solids for animal feed supplements, called distiller's bottoms.

In a way, the gray stuff sounds like it is common to gasoline that has been handled in "dirty tank bottoms" at the loading rack, even fuel barges or the pipeline, the delivery semi-truck, and the gasoline store tank. One old boy in the Houston area had a third of a tank full of sand, silt, and dirt that had to be cleaned out.

[Ibtsoom]

Tank is poly -- if it's not ethanol I don't know what I had an extra 4 gallons of in the tank. All I know is the mechanic said it was ethanol and it sure as heck wasnt gas or water.

[Root Canal]

That's some nasty looking stuff. Glad it didn't get to your motor.

[rha]

I have run boats in Minnesota for years and it is near the center of ethanol production in the US, so we have had it as an additive to unleaded gas for years. As a result I put alot of it in boats. My boat mechanic said it is bad for inboard and outboard boat motors; he told me that after some expensive repairs on an inboard/outboard ski boat. In the land of ten thousand lakes, you can get marine gas without ethanol. Alternatively, there is a simple gas additive you can buy at Jamaica Beach hardware that treats regular unleaded gas to prevent the problems you have experienced. I use it whenever I fill up my five gallon tanks for the boat.

[gregr1971]

That's phase separation if I ever seen it!
When that ethanol crap first came out at the pumps, I was so busy I couldn't see straight, I can't begin to tell how many fuel systems I cleaned/replaced due to the phase separation,Especially the merc silver/grey fuel line.

[Swells]

I have no doubt it is phase separation, which the ethanol and gasoline will stratify into different levels, and the more pure ethanol will eat up anything plastic or poly. I think the chemistry is like the ethanol actually dissolves some of the soft material, which makes phthalate and other chemicals get released into the bottom of the tank. It is well known that ethanol is a powerful solvent.

Notice that this wasn't a problem as much in the automotive trade, where newer cars used more metal for tanks and tubing, and if gaskets and plastic fittings were used, they were of a very strong material that could withstand ethanol and methanol corrosion (this even happened with the new ultra-low sulfur diesel, a problem with leaks and fuel pump failures). The marine folks weren't as fast to update their parts.

There was a big lawsuit about this several years ago, since ethanol was eating up hundreds if not thousands of older vessels with fiberglass tanks. Not sure about the uptake from it. Nowadays, fiberglass is only used on some diesel boats. I'm afraid that anyone with a fiberglass tank has to chop that sucker out of there since you will always have ethanol problems as long as you have that kind of tank material. Or you can try to ask around for a marina that has no-ethanol fuel, which is more expensive than convenience store gas usually - although there are a few, like one or two Rudy's BBQ I have heard about, and a few stations down by Corpus.

[rha]

And we have it because there is a federal government mandate of 10% ethanol and a .50 per gallon tax incentive. Corn growers have gotten wealthy as corn, over alot of the last decade, has been been at all time high prices. So in addition to fixing your motor you get to pay taxes to subsidize ethanol production.

[Swells]

And we have it because there is a federal government mandate of 10% ethanol and a .50 per gallon tax incentive. Corn growers have gotten wealthy as corn, over alot of the last decade, has been been at all time high prices. So in addition to fixing your motor you get to pay taxes to subsidize ethanol production.

Figured out why meat has gotten so high? The corn market has run up prices to all time highs. It's affecting even the price of tortillas in Mexico. Our country has gone insane, I think!