Bad gas!! Ethanol problem

[Paul in MN]

Due to mechanical problems caused by too much rust, I have not driven the 86 W250 since May of 2010, and it may have not had fresh gas in it at that time.

I have been driving my son's F350 4X4 Powerstroke with Hiniker 8' blade for snowplowing and have let the Dodge sit for lack of desire to crawl under it in these cold winter conditions of Minnesota. But I did move it into the unheated barn and laid carpet scraps under it to make life somewhat more bearable. The F350 is a fine truck, but I can't see for crap out of the crew cab when I back up, so all the backing is done by watching the mirrors and hoping I didn't miss something. Thus I have been plowing our ~30 accounts in approx twice the time I could do them with my 25 year old Dodge. So the Dodge has to come back to life!!

So during this past week, I have been working on the rusty broken tranny cooler lines, the rusted through P.S. lines, dropping the tranny pan for a filter and band adjustment, and raising up the 30+ gallon plastic gas tank that had fallen due to the steel straps rusting through. Son and I replaced the vacuum type fuel pump yesterday. By pouring some new gas down the carb throat and giving it a sniff of ether, we got it to run and it might run nicely (including idle) for about 5 minutes, or maybe only 1 minute. The 360 4bbl engine sounded good, with no lifter clicking or any other bad sounds. But it seemed to pull a slug of water from the tank and send it up to the carb, and it would just die. More gas from the pour can and a few more sniffs of ether and it would run again. I determined that the gas had the water content (drawn in by the ethanol) by putting a vacuum directly to the fuel line feeding the fuel pump and pulling a sample of watery clear stuff into a can. My son did not believe it was water, so I took the can out onto the gravel drive and put a paper towel into the liquid and lit it with a Burnz torch. It did not poof, but finally caught fire and burned with a lazy smoky fire like the kerosene road lanterns of the 1940's. Proof of bad gas!!

So now I want to put a drain plug into the bottom of the plastic gas tank so I can drain it when this problem happens. My old IH trucks of the 60's had drain plugs in the steel gas tanks. I am picturing something like a brass fitting that has very tall OD threads that can be threaded directly into the plastic and has a ID thread for a brass plug. I do not want to drop the tank to install this, and the tank may have between 5 and 10 gallons of crappy gas in it now.

I can't run the truck the way it is now, it would be totally unreliable, and probably never even get to the first plowing job.

Any suggestions short of a quarter stick of TNT? I would siphon the tank through the fill tube, but I can not believe I could get all the water out of the bottom of the long tank. Has anyone put a drain plug into one of these plastic tanks?

Thanks for your thoughts!!

Paul in MN

[plymsatellite66]

The only thing I can think of off hand would be a reducing bushing as the threaded insert for the tank, but I would have doubts about being able to thread it into the underside of the tank without leaks. Maybe you could seal it with some of the fuel tank repair epoxy, but if it doesn't work you could end up ruining the tank.

As an alternative, you could always mount a steel tank in the back of the box which may already have a drain in it. If it doesn't, it would atleast be easy to remove and pour out any bad fuel in the future.

[n1265]

I would not drill a hole in the bottom of the tank, hoping that I could thread a valve in the plastic. IMO the tank is not thick enough to get enough threads to suffencently tighten the valve.


If you can't pull the tank, I would suggest getting a transfer pump or syfen the majority of the gas out of the tank threw the fill tube, if the truck is level you should be able to get it down to less than 1 gal. in the tank. Then I would simply add a bottle of dry gas to what is left in there and run it dry, Then refill with good gas.

You will still have some bad stuff in there, but it should be such a small amount that when you refill the tank it will run ok,.

[KRB64]

The fill tube is threaded into the tank but I think it has a backing plate. I would do it near the fill opening so I could reach down in there and tighten down a thru fitting but you said you didn't want to drop the tank or pull the bed.

I can't see drilling a hole into a gas tank with gas and vapors in it even though it is plastic. The drill will spark and then there's always static electricity from the tank.

I'd do what n1265 said to get me through the winter. Maybe look for another tank in the mean time to modify and they hang once plow season is over.

plymsat had a good idea too to add a steel transfer tank in the bed. You could even plumb it straight to the lines. Not sure if that eats up too much room for salt bags or not but the weight should help.

Don't forget to replace those rubber fuel lines from the tank forward too. They can crack and suck air.

Hoped you thanked the well paid corn lobby for your troubles...

[Paul in MN]

Thanks to all for the help.

I think all of the suggestions have been good and reasonable, and I will try to get it going again today. It is not so brutal cold out in the barn/shop and the sun is shinning so maybe I can see what I am doing. By whatever method, it will run today.

And yes to KRB64, I have thanked the corn lobby so many times it is beyond counting. About 10 years ago I visited the first and biggest ethanol plant in MN along with a group of University kids, but they dang near threw me out for asking the questions I did. As Shakespear is often quoted, "me thinks they protesth too much". They provided their own dimnation with their refusal to answer questions, and their very irritated verbal and nonverbal responses. What a dang govt waste that we continue to support. Oh, how I could go on! My oldest son and I jointly run a farm together, and the only corn we have ever grown is sweet corn for family use and sale at a road side stand. We'll never get rich (as evidenced by still trying to get some more life out of a 25 year old truck), but we know we are honestly providing good product to our customers without any govt $$.

Thanks for your responses.

Paul in MN