'Dirty' or 'bad' gas... ideas?
 

I've got about 600 gallons and more coming of 'dirty' and 'bad' gas... evaporated gas [mostly aromatic oils, etc but low alcohol content] and otherwise contaminated gasoline... We have the filtration setup already to get all the crap out of it, water settles out in the bulk tank and gets drained regularly, and we use the fuel in our farm equipment and small engines. It works, albeit not as well as 'fresh' gas in those applications, but MPG isn't really the idea when it's farm equipment and when it's free/otherwise wasted fuel.

Just wondering if anyone has an idea for another use for it, since it seems like we'll have so much coming that I'm gonna have to get a couple more bulk tanks to keep it all.

For one thing, I wanna see if it'll run in the work truck at all, even if it goes into reduced power mode... I'll also use some to cut the lube oils I use for fuel in the diesel engines and lower the overall viscosity to make it easier to run in those...

Any other ideas?

Fuel for Coleman lanterns?

If you are really frugal you could light your entire home with multiple lanterns... :D

I wish I was closer, I'd stop by to fill up my car.

Maybe half and half with fresh gas in your cars?

Yeah I'd just use it to extend my regular gasoline... I'm thinking most of the BTU's are still there.

I'd ease into it, the same way I suggest people who have never tried E85 before to start out- start with maybe a gallon or two in with a full tank of fresh then increase the ratio until you notice any issues.

1. Bottle it and label as 'injector cleaner' or 'engine flush'.
2. PROFIT!!!!

(of course, don't really do this!)

More likely "Injector Clog".

Frank - I'm planning on that, actually. Most of our vehicles have knock retarders in them at this point, and I"ve run stuff on 'bad' gas already before without noticable issues other than mild loss of power at the top end.

At the very least, my Chevy 2500 could run it, and if i put the F150 on the road, I know that will run it too since it's running now on the gas that was put in it like 8 years ago when it was parked. [302 auto with 108k]

I wanted to use some of it as a cutter for the lube oils to run the backhoe, that D179 engine doesn't like thick fuel like my 7.3's did.

You'd like to think that, but the fact is, bad gas is still has the same lubricity, and still cleans up coke and tar from additives. We've been using it for years to clean up other oil based products. Once the dirt and stuff is out of it, there's nothing in the gas that will coke an injector any faster than 'clean' gas straight out of the pump. All that's missing from it is the normally low spirit content anyway.

At this point, I could mix it with some methanol and 'renew' it, but I'm not buying a 55gal drum of meth to do that when I know it works fine as-is.

Bad gas likely works fine in a diesel so long as its blended. Army used to mix diesel oil and gasoline and call it mo-gas.

In a gasser I would mix in a little e85 and call it good.

It'll actually burn fine in older IDI type diesels and certain DI diesels without being blended. I've run my VW IDI on raw gas before... only thing is, it ain't gonna start again if you shut it off, because the pump can't build enough pressure to pop off the injectors with the thinner fuel while trying to start [low RPM].

I prefer to blend it because we already run used oil in the diesel engines [truck, 6.5kw generator, backhoe] and some of the engines aren't fond of the viscosity of the used oil, but still run on it, albeit slightly more smokey than they would be with #2. It's the equivalent of running 'bunker fuel' when you use untreated lube oils, so slightly more smoke is to be expected. I'm still working on getting the parts I need to build a centrifuge to clean the oil better before running it, which should cut down on the smoke some as well.

It works well blended with biodiesel in a diesel engine. Makes for a tolerably good anti-gel, and the lower the octane the better.

VW used to recommend mixing up to 20% RUG with your diesel in colder months/climates to aid in starting/running in their diesel engines.

1. after long time storing octane rating of gasoline may be slightly lower. so, use it in older engines with lower compression ratio, or without overheating and extremal loads.

2. if light components evaporated, cold start ability of gasoline will suffer. if outside is hot weather it may be not so important. or you can add about 5-10% of something like isopentane for cold weather.

The '98 work van runs it pretty well, but doesn't start up as quickly and the TCC shutters lock/unlock under certain load situations. Typically if it starts doing this, I'll either just push the pedal further to unlock it completely, or let the vehicle slow down [usually happens on light grades where it would normally stay locked around 50MPH or so].

There's also some pinging under heavy accel and heavy load [climbing hills] at any RPM, but it's not so pronounced that I"m actually worried about it.

My LQ9 powered Chevy on the other hand, only suffers from cold start problems and the constant need to replace fuel filters. Other than that, it runs beautifully on the 'bad' fuel from the bulk tank, no pinging or detectable loss of power over running pump gas. Of course, I rarely if ever use the engine to it's full potential of 325hp and 400tq, so any loss there wouldn't be detectable anyway. It's a 7200lb truck that's used only when it's carrying weight, and it still does just dandy at that.

if good filtration, water removing, cold starts and lower OR is not a problem - i do not see other possible problems of using this fuel :) i think there is nothing to worry about.

Yeah I just figured someone might have another idea for using it... I haven't been adding anything to it, and it sits in a bulk tank and gets pumped off about 5 gallon at a time off the top [why I haven't been updating the fuel log for the van] and used in whatever needs gas that day.

I'll probably also use some of it to thin out the waste oil I have once I get a few paychecks in and go buy the centrifuge I was going to build. Aint' got time fa dat.

Check with the Waste Vegetable Oil crowd.
 

Some of them cut their WVO with 10% or so of regular unleaded gasoline to get flow in the winter months. If your price is low, they may be willing to drive out for some cheap "winter additives".

I imagine I'd sell some, but I don't know how much... it saves me more money than I'd make off it, so financially speaking, selling it is a bad idea.