Ethanol and your brass floats

[Michael H.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

Does anyone remember when ethanol changed from 5% to 10%? I thought it was around 2007?

I think that's when all the problems started.

[George J.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

I've been using E10 for 20+ years. My Qjet has a brass float and operates perfectly.

I also just looked outside, the sky has not fallen.

.....and I rebuilt my fuel injection unit using John's parts about ten years ago and haven't had any problems with using 10% ethanol. I am not saying it wouldn't run better with no-ethanol gas, but I certainly haven't had to replace, or re-do anything because of the fuel, and it starts even when hot, idles, and runs strong to redline. I'm beginning to think that there has to be a difference between gas in different states. Both sides of this debate can't be wrong, but if there was a difference in the gas, both sides would be right.

[Philip P.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

I knew it was my imagination.
Phil

[Paul J.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

Dick-----


"Fusel oil" actually consists of a range of alcohols like amyl alcohol, butyl alcohol, etc.. These alcohols are toxic and that's why folks that get a shot of "fusel oil" usually get real sick. "Fusel oil" is not really an "oil", at all. It's just that these other alcohols are only slightly soluble so they rise to the top of a container of liquor and appear like an oil.

Of all the various alcohols (of which there are many), only ethyl alcohol is not toxic to humans (and some folks might argue that even it's toxic)

I don't know why copper would have any effect on "fusel oil" but there may be something I'm not aware of.

This is part of the reason why you dump the first gallon.

[Paul J.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

Back in the day, 1 1 1 trichloroethane (or methyl chloroform as we used to call it, it was banned by the Montreal protocol) was used on electronics. I don't remember ever using it as a carb cleaner, but it worked well on my old circuit boards and tube TVs....

111 trichloroethane, and 111 trichloroethylene are awesome solvents. They were used as degreasers by industry primarily to clean metal parts before plating and coating. Both are chlorinated solvents and as such are listed hazardous wastes when no longer useable. They are also listed air toxic polutants so the EPA also gets you from that side when you are using them.

[Dick W.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

111 trichloroethane, and 111 trichloroethylene are awesome solvents. They were used as degreasers by industry primarily to clean metal parts before plating and coating. Both are chlorinated solvents and as such are listed hazardous wastes when no longer useable. They are also listed air toxic polutants so the EPA also gets you from that side when you are using them.

And known carcinogens. Had a part washer that I used trichlor in, talk about clean...... Was used at asphalt plants to clean tanks, the vapors would remove any residue from tanks, just dump the residue on the ground. And it does not go away.

[Patrick B.]

Re: Ethanol and your brass floats

I liked John's idea of testing brass floats by submerging them in gasoline so much that I tried it on a Holley R-3660 center carb float. First, I cleaned the float in a caustic carb cleaning dip. The float just out of the dip is shown in the two pictures with the Holley kit instruction page as background. I tie-wrapped it to a steel weight and submerged it in gasoline for 5 days. About 4 days after I removed it from the gas I took the second set of pics with the napkin as a background.


I was happy that the float did not let any gas in. The gas I used was Shell 93 octane with 10% ethenol purchased in the DC suburbs of the People's Republic of Maryland. While the after soaking photos show a little darkening of the float, I think most of that was just the handling and air exposure of a chemically cleaned surface. I think I can see my fingerprint on the surface. However, the gas does not seem to have had the drastic effect that John experienced on his FI floats in PA gas.

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