Fuel for Mid-year cars.

[Eric J.]

Re: Fuel for Mid-year cars.

I run ethanol fuels in my 1957 Chevy 210. A few years back I swapped the tired 283 for a rebuilt 283 with hardened valve seats. I ran into the same heat soak hard warm start issues. It also ate the rubber gas tank sending unit seal dumping gas into my warehouse. Replaced the sending unit seal and added a spacer and thick gasket under the carb. Now its OK.
Be careful on a mid year, the sending units are on the bottom of the tank so if it eats the seal it will leak out.




Also pay attention to your older fuel pumps. If it doesn't have a "weep hole" it may leak fuel into the crank case.

[Gary C.]

Re: Fuel for Mid-year cars.

FWIW, after updating all the rubber items, a new carb and rebuilding the engine with hardened seats, etc., in my '64 roadster, I drove it for over 20 years on Texas Chapter and National Road Tours burning ethanol gas without any problems. Hard to find anything but ethanol gas in Texas thanks to the EPA and the wind blowing crap in from Mexico.

Gary
....

[Duke W.]

Re: Fuel for Mid-year cars.

I stored my SWC in my parents Seattle garage from the fall of '71 to the spring of '75 while the USAF had me at Grand Forks, ND. I moved to California in the summer of '74, and after moving into my new Redondo Beach house in January '75 I flew up to Seattle in March to retrieve the SWC and drive it back to California. It had about 110K miles at that time. One of my storage procedures was to completely drain the fuel system.

After various checks and inspections, I added about three gallons of fuel and noticed a leak up front. It turned out to be a cracked hose, which was original that connects the frame pipe to the fuel pump inlet nipple. As most of you likely know, if this hose breaks on a C2/3 the complete contents of the fuel tank will drain out.

So I removed the hose and played Little Dutch Boy plugging the dyke with my finger while my dad took the hose down to a local gas station about a mile away that was then owned by a high school classmate of mine. It took maybe ten or fifteen minutes for dad to return with the new length of hose, and shortly after installing it the engine fired up.

That front hose deteriorates more rapidly than the rear hose that connects the tank outlet nipple to the frame pipe because it runs hotter, so the front hose should be changed periodically. Fuel pumps usually won't make it to 100K miles, so every time you change the fuel pump REPLACE that hose. I replaced the fuel pump circa 1970, but did not replace the hose. Live and learn!

Modern elastomers are formulated to resist deterioration from ethanol and are generally much more durable than sixties vintage hose, but even in typical low annual mileage accumulation vintage car service that hose should be changed at least every 10-15 years, and it would be a good idea to change the rear hose at that time, too.

Duke

[Elliott P.]

Re: Fuel for Mid-year cars.

At the risk of pouring alcohol on the dying embers here; but, since ethanol always brings out the fight in us, I thought it would be appropriate to call attention to Haggerty's latest article on the coming of E15, here at: https://www.hagerty.com/articles-vid...8_Weekend_News. And, if you really get off on this stuff, be sure and read all the comments to the article. I'm just sayin.