ETHANOL
 

Anybody having fuel leakage problems? I just got an 09 shadow,took it to dealer today for a fuel leak. They had to order a new petcock, told me it looks like a mouse chewed seal. This is pissing me off. I run stabil in every fresh tank of gas and use premium. What can be done? Nobody close to me sells fuel without ethanol.

I am no expert but I dont think rodents care either way about ethanol.

new product!

"Mouse Away Octane Additive and Rodent Poison"

Make your own ethanol free gas
 

You can remove the ethanol from gasoline yourself at home. This is not a joke, research it yourself. Take a 5 gallon gas jug, add 4 parts E10 gas and 1 part water. Vigorously shake the mixture for about 5 minutes. The ethanol molecules bond with the water. Much like magnets, the molecules are polarized, and are drawn to the water molecules more than the gasoline molecules. Anyways, let your mixture settle to separate into layers. The best way I've found is to pour it through a water trap I have from an old boat. Once you get down to the last gallon in the bottom you'll see the water starting to pour out. At this point I stop pouring and there you go. Ideally, you now have 3.6 parts gas as you've removed the 10% ethanol. The octane rating of what you now have will be lower of course than what you started with. This rating depends entirely on the quality of the base fuel used by the manufacturer. So I recommend using name brand premium fuel to start with. ALWAYS USE EXTREME CAUTION HANDLING GASOLINE! Have fun with this little science project, and if you're feeling "Manly" afterwards, have a sip of your ethanol laden by-product, although I don't personally recommend this. I use this in my mower, chainsaw etc. as it doesn't draw moisture or corrode the fuel system. It's a bit much however to do this on a scale large enough for your vehicles IMO.

Tracy

I like your responses, I do have a sense of humor. I was just repeating what the dealer told me . They also said this is becoming a problem on bikes. I just think it is a shame that we have to use a product that can damage our bikes. Just wanted to know your thoughts.

I have a customer who stores his Gallardo, Ford GT, 355 and 360 spider in a basement garage. He had mice chew through hoses and wires on every car but the GT. He had them all sprayed underneath with some ridiculously expensive rodent deterent from Europe and has to re apply it every year, but hasn't had any more problems. I don't remember the name of the product, but maybe there is an affordable version state side.

Dont use peanut butter, it only makes things worse......

I try to use non-ethanol every time I can.
the carb on my riding mower went to crap...guess what? I was using 10% eth in my small engines. DUH!

Now I make special trips to get non-eth for the little things, too.

Such a pain. why cant we go back to Pure Gas??
I get better MPG in my ridgeline with Pure Gas, too.

If you're looking for Pure Gas in your area, try this site...and contribute to help others by submitting stations near you!

They also have a Points of Interest file for you GPS! and an IPhone app.
http://pure-gas.org/

Here is another site that might help
Ethanol-Free Gas Stations


I can tell you that N. Dakota has a bunch of stations that have Pure Gas...just not on the map. Every one there needs pure for the farm equipment.

They also have a Points of Interest file for you GPS! and an IPhone app.
http://pure-gas.org/

Here is another site that might help
Ethanol-Free Gas Stations

Thanks for posting these links! Very helpful.

Ethanol in gas causes plastic fuel tanks to expand/distort...purchased my Ducati in June of '09 and my 4th tank is sitting at the dealership waiting for me to bring the bike in. Ducati has settled a recent class action lawsuit over this issue, ethanol is nasty stuff.

So am I the only one who is starting to think the "war for oil" cry of the liberals was just a little off? Maybe we shoulda stocked up.

The gas gets more expensive and gives less mileage which doubles the added expense. (not to mention the damages).

Reminds me of road warrior a bit.

@smokinjoe - THEN you find out that the makers of ethanol get subsidies from our tax dollars, too.

so...we pay more at the pump - for less efficient fuel - pay more in taxes to 'fund' this venture - cover repair costs of damages - and burn more tanks of gas per year. who does this really benefit? does it really benefit the environment?

Environment? I hope everyone who reads this is aware of that & "global warming" being used to create a new world order. Some BS organization that can police worldwide?

I dont want to get too conspiracy but this is nuts. Cash for clunkers? Crush running vehicles and destoy millions in used parts? Turn cars into cell phones as disposable goods? How does that help the environment?

And dont get me started on the waste of used electric car batteries.

Food for thought. A leaf blower used for a few hours creates way more noxious (illegal) greenhouse gases than a car that commutes for A MONTH.

The real stupidity is that regardless if it's a leafblower, a car or whatever, the largest impact on the environment isn't what's powering it during it's lifetime, it's the process of making it and disposing of the parts afterwards...

Ie "cash for clunkers", was thought up by someone that needs a new ventilating hole between the eyes... They did more damage to the environment by scrapping perfectly good cars, than the cars would do in 3 lifetimes of using them... That "debt" was locked up in the running cars, and shouldn't have been due until the cars was scrap... But someone wanted to bail out the American car manufacturers, and didn't want to admit it... Way to go, brainiacs...

I have worked at a honda & yamaha dealership for around 9 years now. We may have cleaned 5 carbs in the 45 years before ethanol came out. Since ethanol we clean several a week. Before we didn't stock carb parts at all. Now we keep 50+ carb kits in stock and OEM needles and bowl gaskets. Ethanol is a major prob. and the two gas stations in town that carried ethanol-free gas quit carring it this past week so now have no way around it. Yamaha does have a very strong "fuel stabilizer & conditioner" that prevents fuel from attracting water or stopping carbs up. It's a $1.70 tax &all for a bottle that treats 5 gallons or $5.50 for bottle that treats 48 gallons.

An alternative to this mess is get a 55 Gallon drum, fill it with Ethanol Free fuel, and put it in a secure location such as the back of your garage or whatnot, and top off your bike from that.
I've done this before and it is a workable solution... if you have a place to set up your little fuel station. But now with gas prices going up and Ethanol Free becoming harder to find - here too - this solution is probably not doable.
We are in for some trouble.

Thought about that, but lifting that drum to fill the tank would be a bitch...;)

What? You cant just shoulder it? Come on...

We normally put it up on a rack. Filled it with 5 gallon jerry cans. Used a pump to fill ATV's, lawn tractors etc. I don't have a big drum here in Utah, but we've got a couple at our place in Idaho.
I know several guys around here that did this with Diesel when it went Low Sulpher for their personal trucks.