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kazaroo

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"I have an '87 Wellcraft t

"I have an '87 Wellcraft that has sat about 3 years, waiting for a fresh engine. I know - 3 years, but I've bought a new house and moved, etc. The gasoline, about 85 gallons, treated yearly with a stabilizer has been in the tank the whole time. Is it usable with more dry-gas type treatments and maybe an octane boost? It is pre-MTBE gas. If I need to dispose of it, does anyone know where in the South Jersey area?"
 
"It may be OK. Try pulling som

"It may be OK. Try pulling some off and running it in a lawnmower or something. You may be able to slowly get rid of it through your car. Be careful mixing it with ethanol treated gas!

I just suffered through an E-10 water absorbtion nightmare... the gas was only sitting for 2 months! After doing a little reading, I found out ethanol will absorb water pretty quickly and the gas will still look perfectly normal. It won't burn normally though!

Fuel stabilizer is now a must for even short layup periods as non ethanol treated fuel is getting pretty scarce."
 
"I wouldn't run it in an o

"I wouldn't run it in an old motor, so doing it with a new one would be out of he question, for me. If you take a fuel sample, it's not going to be easy to tell if it's good, really. It won't look like new gas because of the stabilizer, especially if you used Sta-Bil, and it probably has a very strong, non-fresh smell. The octane has dropped and it's not worth paying for analysis to find out what that is, so the octane boost will be a complete guess. You can call a marina or car service shop to see what they do with old gas.

Three years is just too long to keep gas."
 
"sometimes you can dump gas al

"sometimes you can dump gas along with waste motor oil, but no in quantities like that. My car shop had a 300 gallon waste oil tank and i would have no problem dumping 20 gallons of fuel in as well.

If you can drain down the tank to some degree, you might get away with topping off with high grade pump gas - diluting the existing fuel, then running it through. 3 years is a long time for gas though. The lawnmower test isnt a bad idea in my view."
 
"I just read another article r

"I just read another article regarding lay-up periods with ethanol treated fuel. It recommends for extended lay-up, to leave as little fuel in the tank as possible. This is contary to what's been pretty standard in the past (ie. leaving it as full as possible). Stabilzer is a must either way.
It also states that for fuel that has had a chance to absorb water, dilution is the solution... mix it with as much higher octane fresh fuel as possible.

For Jim's case though, since the old gas is non-ethanol treated, mixing it with new, ethanol treated fuel, is very 'iffy', and may cause even more problems if it has a chance to sit.

I wouldn't top off the boat tank with fresh gas unless, 1) you're sure the boat will actually run on it, and 2) you can use it fairly quickly.

The lawnmower test ought to tell you the fuel's relative worth... and if it doesn't run, it's not too hard to turn the lawnmower over and drain the bad gas out into a old litter box, and you only have one spark plug to clean. Then the question is how to get rid of the other 84-1/2 gallons in the boat."
 
"These have some general info:

"These have some general info:
http://www.usedboats.com/enewsland2.html#ethanol
http://powerboat.about.com/od/maintenance/a/Engines_ethanol.htm
This one says to leave the tank >95% full:
http://www.uscgboating.org/waypoints/archived/oct06/art7_winterize.htm
Another good one:
http://www.boatingworldonline.com/issues/2006/07/lifestyle/Boatcraft-Q-A/Questio ns_and_Answers.php

The article I referenced above is in Sport Fishing Magazine. The name of the article is Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don't
It recommends emptying the tank, but if that's not possible, filling it to >95% full is the next best alternative... with stabilizer."
 
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