ethanol gas & my m37

[judge4guns]

What do I have to worry about with ethanol gas running in my m37? The engine is a rebuilt Chevy 350 short block, but all the hoses, filters, fuel pump etc were installed where leaded gas was available. I live in Illinois, so all I have is 10% ethanol to run on. Would it be better to run higher or lower octane. I read in another forum that higher octane would reduce power, but I thought higher would actually run closer to non- ethanol gas. Which is correct? I don't have the capability of cleaning the ethanol out of my gas, nor do I have access to av fuel.

[T. Highway]

Have you looked at this site to see if a station is nearby with real gas?

http://www.pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=IL

Bert

[w30bob]

Hi judge,

I'm fairly new to the M37 forum, so take what I say with a big grain of salt. Most of the problems I've had with Ethanol are related to storage, not regular usage. Gasoline with Ethanol in it has a very short shelf life and the Ethanol is corrosive in nature. If you leave an Ethanol fuel sit in a carburetor or fuel system it will attack (break down) the rubber components (if they were not designed for Ethanol) and turn to solvent fairly quickly. On the M37 I think the biggest issue is the fuel pumps don't have pumping diaphragms that are made of material that is resistive to Ethanol. So all the old rebuild kits for these pumps need newer material diaphragms to work with Ethanol fuels. We've talked about this recently and you can do a quick search to find out the name of the company that sells the correct fuel pump diaphragm (I can't remember it right now).

What I do with all my equipment, meaning mowers, chippers, tractors, or anthing that sits unused for more than a few weeks, is to drain the fuel systems of each. It's a pain on some for sure, but I've taken apart carbs that have had Ethanol fuels sitting in them and they were not pretty. They had to have the Purple Power bath....if you know what I mean. I haven't had any rubber hoses fail as a direct result from Ethanol.....but I may be the exception. I'm sure others will chime in with more info.

So I think the answer to your question is rebuild the fuel pump with the newer diaphragms and use the truck regularly. If you can't use it regularly then find a way to get the fuel out of the fuel system until you are ready to use it. As a side note.....I've just started using the Ethanol version of Sta-Bil for Marine use....it's blue instead of red. So I don't have an opinion on it yet, but I'll have a better idea of how well it works this spring when I go to fire up the stuff I put it in. I've also been told to use a product called Sea Foam, which is another fuel stabilizer. I'm sure others have opinions both good and bad on fuel stabilizers. So bottom line......use the common sense approach. Ethanol fuel is bad stuff. We have to use it, but when we don't drive our trucks regularly we need to treat it as any other bad chemical we use. Just my 2 cents.

regards,
bob

[BleedDemon]

Any results on the effect of the marine Stabil or ethanol?

[w30bob]

Hi Bleed,

Well........I've had no problems with any of the stuff I put the Marine Sta-Bil in.....so I'm going to say for that for up to 6 months the stuff works. How long does it work?.....Not sure on that one. One interesting note is that with my 2-stroke stuff that uses premix fuel/oil....I've never added anything to the fuel and never had any problems associated with Ethanol. The oil must help preserve the fuel, or protect the rubber parts.

I checked the website Bert listed. There was a Sunoco station listed that's right around the corner from me, and someone posted they sell non-Ethanol fuel. That post was just a little over a month ago. So I called the station and was told they sell fuel with the minimum amount of ethanol....not NO ethanol. Almost all of the other stations near me on the list are marinas. I thought automotive gas stations were required to sell ethanol blended fuel, whereas marinas are not. But I could be wrong.......wouldn't be the first time.

I'll be trying the Sea Foam this winter, although a buddy of mine with an automotive repair shop said the best results occur when you mix the Sea Foam with the Marine Sta-Bil. I know.....this is getting to be a pain in the butt! Let's get back to making gasoline out of crude oil and leave the corn for eating!

regards,
bob

[milstencil]

Do a search of this forum, ethanol, seafoam.
It's been talked about extensively on here.
Rick

[Sal]

The two links below have some good info on the subject.

http://www.fuel-testers.com/is_gas_addi ... _list.html

http://www.goldeagle.com/UserFiles/file ... %20PSL.pdf

Sal

[jimmy_stikx]

Really, Kerosene is the main ingredient in Stabil? Interesting

[m37jarhead]

Hi Bleed,

Well........I've had no problems with any of the stuff I put the Marine Sta-Bil in.....so I'm going to say for that for up to 6 months the stuff works. How long does it work?.....Not sure on that one. One interesting note is that with my 2-stroke stuff that uses premix fuel/oil....I've never added anything to the fuel and never had any problems associated with Ethanol. The oil must help preserve the fuel, or protect the rubber parts.

I checked the website Bert listed. There was a Sunoco station listed that's right around the corner from me, and someone posted they sell non-Ethanol fuel. That post was just a little over a month ago. So I called the station and was told they sell fuel with the minimum amount of ethanol....not NO ethanol. Almost all of the other stations near me on the list are marinas. I thought automotive gas stations were required to sell ethanol blended fuel, whereas marinas are not. But I could be wrong.......wouldn't be the first time.

I'll be trying the Sea Foam this winter, although a buddy of mine with an automotive repair shop said the best results occur when you mix the Sea Foam with the Marine Sta-Bil. I know.....this is getting to be a pain in the butt! Let's get back to making gasoline out of crude oil and leave the corn for eating!

regards,
bob

W30bob is probably on the right track. I visited with the Sta-bil people at their booth at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Phoenix last January.
The discussion was entirely about ethanol fuels.
They recommended "marine" Sta-bil. As Bob said, it's blue, not red. The Sta-bil people sounded pretty confident about using the "marine"
product with ethanol fuels. I guess time will tell. But, as we all know, ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different opinions.
Jerry

[pwrwagonfire]

I try and run High test in my M-37 as much as possible...but I'm not sure how much of a difference it really makes. Seems to make the truck idle smoother however.

I try and run with stabil in the tank at all times

I work for my state's forestry agency as a firefighter. We started putting Marine stabil in EVERYTHING about 3 years ago...pretty decent results it seems.