shelf life?

[Duke W.]

Re: shelf life?

Buddies had similar problems, but I never did. Coming home from a ride I would fill the tank of my CB1100F at a nearby gas station, turn the fuel valve off and ride home on the fuel in the bowls.

In the driveway I would hold the revs at 4000 until the engine stalled, then opened the bowl drain valves and let the final few ccs drain out.

If you don't do this the fuel in the bowls will evaporate and leave deposits. Do this enough times and your carbs are gunked up.

Too bad car carbs don't have bowl drain valves, but you can rig up a syringe to extract remaining fuel through the bowl vents, then add fuel the same way the next time you drive it.

Duke

[Lyndon S.]

[Chuck R.]

Re: Have to agree with you Kelly

East Coast fuel formulations are junk!

If I didn't run up my equipment at least a couple times during their off season, I'd be rebuilding carbs and flushing out fuel tanks every spring and fall even WITH Stabil.

Pretty soon the "gas desperados" will be visiting all stored vehicles and gas cans in unprotected garages eliminating the worrys about evaporation and gumming anyway so what's the big deal?

A week ago it was 2.989 now it's 3.169 and ready to jump again.

Time to wire the ten gauge up to the back door of the garage again.

Chuck

[Duke W.]

Re: shelf life?

When our fuel had MTBE it had a very pungent odor. Now, with ethanol it has very little odor, and both are less pleasant than sixties vintage gasoline "aroma", which was due to the aromatic hydrocarbon content. Modern gasoline regulations severely limit the aromatic content.

In some parts of the country gasoline may be fairly "old" before it arrives at the retailer - as much as six months. In Southern California, our gasoline is refined locally, and it's usually less than 30-60 days old when it arrives at the retailer.

"Tight supply" is actually good, since it means gasoline spends less time in refiners' inventory before it's delivered to retailers.

Duke

[Clem Z.]

Re: shelf life?

i have had no trouble here in Pa with stored motor vehicles. i have 2 quads,2 mowers,1 weedwacker and here in the north east you need a snow blower i put sta bil in them all. i do nothing to my vette which sets from nov. till april except charge the battery every 3 weeks.

[Terry M.]

Re: Rodent Damage?

Do be careful what smelly stuff you put into your car. Parts of the car absorb the smell, and it never goes away. If you ever want to sell the car you will have to find someone who likes Irish Spring or Bounce. My Cadillac Club publication reported an owner who replaced the entire interior of his car and still couldn't get rid of the smell. He found the smell objectionable, and sold the car at a loss just because of the smell.

Terry McManmon

[David D.]

A good cat!!! *NM*

[Dale S.]

Re: Rodent Damage?

My aunt used little dishes of cloves in her cottage. No mice. Dale

[Christopher R.]

Re: Rodent Damage?

Moth balls; Irish Spring; Bounce, fox piss; Fresh Cab; those jobbies you plug in and make a noise you can't hear, but drives the critters away; cayenne pepper; and, peppermint oil spray. If they sell it at Home Depot, Lowes, or my local hardware store, I buy it.

Fresh Cab smells nice. I use it in the interior. The other stuff goes outside the car, but inside the garage.

Best would be a cat and traps.

Next year, I'm going to put the car in one of those big bags.

[John D.]

Re: shelf life?

Kelly, Thanks for the correct answer. I've been reading most of this posts and disagreeing but kept quiet for a change. Yes the reforumlated crap goes to pot quite quickly. Nov. to Spring and it's history or well on the way. And it's getting worse. We are in deep trouble my friend.
Solution for the collector cars is to just put 100LL aviation fuel in it. Just pure plane gas as I call it. Gives you piece of mind. Especially you FI guys. Now if your Corvette has a cat. convertor then that's another issue. If you hear guys saying negative stuff about putting the av gas in do like I do. Let it go in one ear and out the other. I let them talk all they want but have been using the stuff religiously since 1989 when my friend Joe from NY with all the FI cars insisted I use it to test his FI. John D.

[Clem Z.]

here is what i use at our cabin over the winter

BUCKET MOUSE TRAP

To build the mouse trap, you will need the following things:
1 wire coat hanger.
1 can of tomato soup.
Some fine wire to hold the bait (raw bacon)
A three foot board, 2" or 3" wide (ramp)
A five gallon plastic bucket.
Two gallons of soapy water. ( in the winter use car window washer solution )

To make the trap, drill a 1/8" hole in the center of the top and bottom of the tomato soup can. Put the can in some hot water to get the soup out through the holes. Put the wire hanger through the can and bend the ends so the can will hang three or four inches down in the bucket. Wrap the bacon around the can and hold in place with the wire. Put water in the bucket and set up the ramp.

The mice will run up the ramp, see the bacon and jump on the can, the can will spin over and drop the mouse in the water. Try it, it works great!

If the trap is to set for any length of time you can keep the smell down by pouring a cup of cooking oil on top of the water in the bucket when you set the trap out. "i use a empty plastic soda bottle in place of the soup can and i smear the soda bottle with peanut butter. i have 5 of these at the cabin and and i use RV antifreeze which preserves the little bastards till spring."

[Lyndon S.]

Re: here is what i use at our cabin over the winte

You should patent that or has Rube Goldberg already beaten you to it? I was laughing off of my chair when I read that post!

Kelly

[Clem Z.]

Re: here is what i use at our cabin over the winte

it works as i had over 50 mice in the buckets when we opened up this spring. the only thing that worked better was the time we found 28 fat snakes in the cabin and no mice. mrs clem likes the bucket idea better than the snakes.

[Lyndon S.]

Re: here is what i use at our cabin over the winte

Me and her both! lol I can not stand snakes.

Kelly

[Verne Frantz]

Re: here is what i use at our cabin over the winte

Clem, I've heard of this kind of trap before but the guy actually glued peanuts to the can. I can't imagine how raw bacon could still be appealing after months and turning moldy and rotten. But your success with it seems to be proof.
I think I'll rig one up this winter and see how I do. But I'll still scatter Bounce sheets inside and on the intake manifold, as well as sandwich bags over the ends of the tailpipes. I remember one spring outting with the car when I suddenly spotted a huge plume of material coming out of the rear of the car. Then it seemed to run like I remembered it!