Found 100 Low Lead no alcohol gasoline source

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2013: Found 100 Low Lead no alcohol gasoline source
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By David Kriegel on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:05 am:

I discovered our local flying club sells the fresh 100 Low Lead 100 octant fuel at 5 gallons for $ 24

If you have a local flying club or a friend who is a pilot, may be a source for your older cars that hate alcohol fuels

I am not sure if 100 low lead deteriorates at a slower rate than 87 octane car fuel with 10 percent water absorbing alcohol added.

As a side note 'does anyone know a gas supplier for 87 octane that does NOT add alcohol?"


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:08 am:

Check the laws in your state, it may not be legal to use it on the road due to differences in the way it is taxed compared to automobile gasoline.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Baudoux on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:22 am:

There is no dye in avgas. How would anyone know what is in the tank? We have been using it in all of our small engines for years. They start much easier, and run cooler.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce in Dallas TX on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:46 am:

Avgas 100LL has blue dye in it. I bought ten gallons at the self serve pump last month. It's always had blue dye in it, since the 1970's when it was introduced. Back then you could get red, blue, green or purple Avgas, with the color denoting the octane.

If you have compression in excess of 9:1 you need more octane than typical 92 octane premium unleaded provides. Totally unnecessary for Model T's though.

Leaded gas is not needed for the typical Model T with 4.5:1 stock compression ratio. The cheapest 87 octane you can buy works great.

Gasoline octane was largely uncontrolled and varied widely prior to about 1930. For much of the T era 1909 - 27 gasoline was perhaps 50 - 60 octane.

Also, evaporative rates were all over the map. That's why early carburetor systems needed a preheat tube during cold weather - the fuel was hard to vaporize. Ford introduced the Vaporizer carburetor on late Model T's due to poor vapor rates of available gas. As gas became better quality these preheat systems were discarded on cars like the Model A for example.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill Gall on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:55 am:

Actually, per ASTM-D-91, Avgas 100LL is dyed blue. If it's not blue, then it's not aviation-grade fuel.

Avgas 100 (high lead) is dyed green and Avgas 82UL (unleaded) is purple.

(I'm an FAA-licensed mechanic so I have to know the various fuel grades.)

And Mark's right, Avgas does not include a road tax. Technically, the use of leaded fuel in a vehicle on public roads is prohibited by the EPA, but not sure how you'd get caught....


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill Gall on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:55 am:

Royce, you type faster than me....


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Keith Townsend ; ^ ) Gresham, Orygun on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 09:58 am:

There is a local "Space Age" station here in the Land of Milk and Honey that sells "Clear Premium" for about $4 and change for a gallon.

I don't but it for the Model T, but do get it for the chainsaw.

: ^ )


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Dufault on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:05 am:

What is the difference (in layman's terms - (I did a search and get detailed chemical responses that I don't comprehend) - between
methanol - the main ingredient (I think) in Drygas - used to absorb water, and

ethanol - that "dreaded" stuff mixed with gas today - that also absorbs water?

So what's the difference? Does methanol keep the water chemically "in suspension" , and does the dreaded ethanol allow the water to precipitate out or settle to the bottom?

Today's question for my thick skull.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Baudoux on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:06 am:

If there is dye in it at the Grayling FOB, it is pretty darn faint. :-) I "dye" all of ours with Amsoil 2- stroke. Maybe I just never looked at it close enough.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:06 am:

It has been awhile since the below site was posted. If it is current and up to date, you should be able to find all of the stations in your area that sell regular, ethanol-free gasoline. www.pure-gas.org. Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:11 am:

PS. www.pure-gas.org appears to be up to date. Here in the tiny town of Mulberry, Florida, there is a small engine repair shop that just recently started selling ethanol-free gas and it is listed on the site. Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steve Tomaso - Milton,WA on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:12 am:

We have a "Farm" store close by that sells premium & regular NON-ethanol fuel - costs a bit more.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:18 am:

Regarding the difference between methanol and ethanol, they are chemically different, methanol's chemical formula is CH3OH, meaning it is composed of one carbon, one oxygen, and 4 hydrogen atoms.

Ethanol's chemical formula is CH3CH2OH, meaning it has two carbon, one oxygen, and six hydrogen atoms.

Methanol is poisonous when ingested, breathed, or absorbed through the skin, whereas ethanol is the familiar "alcholol" in beverages.

Check Wikipedia for more detailed info if you're interested.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:42 am:

Is there any procedure by which ethanol can be extracted or distilled from gasoline? For instance, since ethanol absorbs water, if one were to pour water into the ethanol gas, would the ethanol bond with the water, thereby separating the ethanol from the gas allowing it to be drained from the bottom? How about chemically? Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Hjortnaes, Men Falls, WI on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 10:57 am:

Gas does not like water and water does not like gas. A simple explanation is that gas is right handed and water is left handed. Alcohol has a left and a right hand, so it holds the gas tightly with it's right hand and the water tightly with it's left hand. If you put alcohol in the gas, then you are able to mix the two. Sort of like a mediator that helps both sides get along. (So we need more alcohol in Congress :-) ).

Heet, which is alcohol, helps to keep the water mixed in with the gas instead of separating and sitting on the bottom of the tank. This way the bottom of your tank will not rust, and you get rid of the excess water when the gas and alcohol burn together. The more alcohol you add to the gas the more water it will hold. But then you dilute the power of the gas.

Sorry Jim. No way to separate them without a huge distilling apparatus.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:04 am:

Thanks Dave. That's sort of what I figured, or more would be making their own ethanol free gas. Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roger Karlsson, southern Sweden on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:05 am:

I don't know what would be the problem with ethanol in the gas?
I've mixed 20-30% of E85 in the tanks of my daily drivers for years to save a few bucks - with no problems whatsoever. I can understand it may cause problems in a small engine you don't use over the winter - but that's a general problem with today's gasoline, it can deteriorate in just months.

Maybe it's a regional problem in hot/humid areas?

We usually have rather dry air in wintertime - and used to have to pay for small bottles of ethanol to pour in the gas tank in wintertime so water wouldn't settle in the bottom of the tank. Later years with 5-10% ethanol in the gas from the pump, we haven't had to do that anymore :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Robert in Georgia on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:11 am:

I use this in small engines


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Baudoux on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:15 am:

Ethanol does not make nearly as much power per gallon as gasoline. I found this firsthand, the first time I had a vehicle in my shop with a failed "ethanol detector". It was a Chrysler Town and Country that was running so rich that it would not stay running. Turned out that the detector was indicating 100% ethanol content in the fuel. The injector pulse width was way too wide. On this vehicle, it was the upstream 02 sensor, available only from the dealer.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:17 am:

I have (2) 55 gallon drums I keep filled with ethanol free fuel for my F-150 truck, my Model T, my riding mower and my yard tools, so I don't worry about ethanol gas. Each gallon is treated with 2 ozs of Stabil so it won't go bad. Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Les Schubert on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:24 am:

Jim Patrick
Thank you for the info on www.pure-gas.org . It seems that where I have been buying is ethanol free!!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Les Schubert on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:28 am:

Perhaps the absence of ethanol explains why I can let cars sit for a couple of years and the gas is still OK in them. I sure don't recommend it to anyone to do, but I had one car sit for 5 years and it fired right up!!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:33 am:

Ed, for the situation you mentioned, that is true.

However, the air/fuel ratio for maximum power is much richer for pure ethanol (9.0/1)than for gasoline (14.6/1).

If two otherwise identical engines are optimally tuned, one for ethanol and one for gasoline, the ethanol engine will theoretically put out 67% more power than the one with gasoline.

This is why the alcohol classes in drag racing are the second fastest classes (second only to the nitromethane classes).

I pulled these figures from the book "High Performance Automotive Fuels & Fluids", by Jeff Harman, published by Motorbooks International in 1996.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:35 am:

Oops, I mis-spelled the author's name, it's Jeff Hartman, not Harman.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Patrick on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 11:40 am:

Great Les! I'll bet that is a relief for you. You might want to ask them, though, just to be sure. I understand that some entries on that site are out date while others are up to date. Jim Patrick


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Baudoux on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:09 pm:

Mark Strange. That was my point. It takes a much larger amount of ethanol, to create the power of gasoline.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Constantine in Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:16 pm:

Greetings from Crimea! I can confirm that a T with a milled hi-compression alloy head runs fine with the 76 and 80 octane fuel sold in Russia.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John Aldrich Orting Wa on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:18 pm:

I see a great many ethanol free sources in Washington are at marinas.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Hjortnaes, Men Falls, WI on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:21 pm:

Fuel BTU's

Gasoline 116,000/gal
Ethanol 76,000/gal
Methanol 57,000/gal
Diesel 128,000/gal
Kerosene(Jet) 128,000/gal

So with the correct carburation, we should all be burning kerosene in our cars and not worrying about the amount of water in the gas.

I found this info on 2 sites. I don't guarantee that it is 100% accurate, but it must be close.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Coiro on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:32 pm:

Hold it right there, fellas. Maybe you already know this, but just in case you don't: There's nothing about 100 Low-Lead aviation gasoline that's low-lead. The reason they call it "Low-Lead" is that it contains less lead than 100/130 octane aviation gasoline (which is the stuff they used to burn in military engines like those in P-47s, P-51s and P-38s).

By the way, you can identify the different types of avgas by color. Green dye is added to 100/130-octane (which is unavailable at General Aviation airports). The most popular avgas in use today is 100-octane (100LL), which is tinted blue. This stuff actually contains four times the lead of the Texaco Fire-Chief gasoline we used to buy back in the 1960s for over-chromed, All-American, fin-stabilized behemoths that had V-8 engines of locomotive displacement and cinder block-sized 4-barrel carburetors to feed them.



And brother, there was nothing low-lead about THAT stuff!

Red is for 80-octane avgas. Nowadays, that stuff starts out as a fairly low-octane feedstock which then picks up as much lead as it needs to raise the octane to 80 by simply running it through the same pipes the petroleum companies use to transport 100LL. And, of course, red dye is added. It’s still being made in small quantities, but is unavailable at most General Aviation airports unless there happens to be a large antique aircraft population on the field. Piper Cubs just love 80-octane.

The Continental E-185 engine in my 1947 Navion was built to use red 80-octane, but because that stuff was no longer being sold at most airports by the late 1980s, I had to make modifications to my engine so it would be able to tolerate the higher level of lead in 100LL. Even with that, I had to pour an additive into my fuel tanks to neutralize the adverse effects of the higher lead content of 100LL.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed Baudoux on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:48 pm:

Thanks, Bob. I love 100LL even more now.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Norman T. Kling on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 12:53 pm:

Here in California, the fuel content is regulated by the state, and changes with the season of the year. They don't sell any gas without alcohol or with lead. Maybe for airplanes or boats, but not for cars. The formula also has to be compatible with catalytic convertors which all the modern cars are required to have.

The nearest airport is about 18 miles from here.

Here in Alpine there are 5 places where one can get gasoline. Two Union 76 stations, one Shell, One Chevron, and one Valero. The Chevron and Valero are at freeway exits and the first gas along the freeway for about 90 miles when approaching from the east, so their prices are quite high. The other 3 stations are in town about a mile from the freeway and have lower prices. I alternate between 76 and Shell depending on which is the lower price. I only fill the Model T's at these stations, because we rarely go toward San Diego in the T's. The modern cars are filled in the city about 15 miles from here where the prices are about 10 cents lower for all brands.
Norm


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Richard Wolf on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 01:26 pm:

Check around places that have a lot of boats around. Around here there are 3 places that sell non alcohol gasoline.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Coiro on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 01:27 pm:

Don't love 100LL too much. Brass-Era engines don't generate nearly enough heat to burn off that heavy a concentration of lead. The almost immediate result would likely be lead-fouled spark plugs and valves.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 01:35 pm:

It's been long enough that folks may have forgotten, but the combustion products of leaded gasoline were very corrosive to exhaust systems as well.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Charles W. Little South Paris, Maine on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 02:59 pm:

Are 100LL and non-ethanol regular gas (marine) compatible? That is if you had been using 100LL and had about 5 gal of 100LL in your 10 gal tank could you then add "marine" gas if you found a local source without any problems? I would assume you could, but you know what assume means! Would the mixture cut the lead in the aviation gas and yield a gas similar to what we used to buy?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By oscar was on Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 07:43 pm:

Leaded in a modern car will soon have you buying an expensive catalytic converter and who knows what else. o.g.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Herb Iffrig on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 02:22 pm:

From a friend:

I read on this forum about 3 years ago that to remove a lot of the Ethenol from the gas mix is to add 4 gals of gas to 1 gal of water, shake the heck out of it for maybe 10 times letting it settle each time and watch the clear on the bottom increase. I've done this for 3 years and use it in my boat and all small engines. Have had no problems at all.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Leonard J Evansic on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 04:14 pm:

I use 84 octane gas that I buy at any gas station. Before leave home to pick up gas for my T and A, I pour one cup of water into my red plastic 5 gallon gas container. At the pump I put in 5 gallons of 87 octane regular, pay for it and drive home, no shaking or mixing. The water and ethanol are on the bottom of the container. I pour off 4 good gallons of ethanol-water free gas. The Last gallon+ goes into a 1 gallon jug, and you can see the inch and half of water and ethanol under the ethanol free gas. I pour this into my T and A thru a Mr Coffee filter. I know I lost a couple of octane points, but the regular gas back in the day was 65 octane.
My father told me a story long ago about a con man that drove around to gas stations and put water into the gas tank in front of an audience. He then dropped in a pill, waited a few minutes with the car running, and sold several 25cent bottles of aspirins for $1, that would buy him 4 gallons of gas. The gas line pickup was near the top of the tank, instead of the bottom.
I started making my own ethanol free gas 3 years ago when I was told by the local gas supplier that he would sell me 100 octane aircraft gas in 5 gallon cans for $60. Ethanol free 4-cycle fuel is also available at our farm and garden store for $19.99 a gallon.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Leonard J Evansic on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 04:46 pm:

Sorry---I pour off the gas in that last gallon and put it into the car and put the ethanol and water mixture in a large bucket, fill it full of water and dump it in the driveway.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Walter Higgins on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 09:22 pm:

What dictates whether or not they sell ethanol where you live is largely in what EPA air quality zone you are located. That is why in large cities you cannot find ethanol-free gas. It isn't the station's choice -- they are required by the federal government to carry gasoline blended with ethanol.

In the country you can find either / or depending on availability and jobber.

I live on the edge of the Philadelphia metro area. The stations in my immediate area are required by law to sell E-10, but if you go down the road a ways (out toward low population density farming country), one can find ethanol-free stations again.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Fred McDonald on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 09:35 pm:

David: I was discussing this with a friend who has a small plane and he suggested we go over to the local airport and get some gas for my Model T. Well - he entered his ID number and I put my credit card in the pump and started pumping. The airport Manager came out to see us and informed us they weren't allowed to sell us avaition fuel because of the highway tax in Tennessee. He let me keep what I had pumped (5 gal.) but said not to do it again. Foooey!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gary H. White - Sheridan, MI on Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 09:42 pm:

There's a couple gas stations near me that sell "Racing Fuel" as there is a drag strip and raceway nearby. Will have to find out what it is. They are not on the alky free list.


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