If you are a reader of Legendary Cougar Magazine you might have seen the picture of the green gas that I drained form one of my Cougars that had been in storage. Yes, you read that right, green gas.
I spoke with an engineer at Chevron about this and he told me that the green color came from copper, that was being disolved (chemically disassociated for Breaking Bad fans) by acid formed by the combination of water absorbed by the ethanol added to the gas combined with the sulfur contained in the real gasoline. Initially I found a few remnants of the brass float (brass is an alloy of copper and zinc). It looked like lace.
During a discussion with Mr. Vacuum Man he suggested that the float might have just come free and was still floating around in the tank, and maybe what I found was something else. Since I was trying to trouble shoot a particularly odd fuel starvation problem I decided to pull the sender and see if I could find something in the tank.
Ordinarily, the sender looks like this:
I bent some wire into a hook shape and started the process of seeing what I could drag to the opening. It wasn’t long until I found the rest of the float. It looked like this (notice the green color):
I think this puts to rest any question of just how bad things can get with modern gas. The moral of the story is to get that Cougar out of the garage and run the gas through it.
I try to run the highest octane gas in my Cougars (many of the high test gas brands do not have ethanol). Alternately, there are some additives that can be added to your tank to help.
Bill a picture is worth a thousand words. Your pictures put everything in perspective. I started up my ‘67 the other day and I had gas pouring out of the carburetor. It looks like a rebuild is in order. I had not drove it since winter so I’m sure that my gas had something to do with it as well.
Steven
This gas was at least 14 months old, or I should say that the last time I added gas was 14 months before it was drained. Arizona is very warm so chemical reactions occur here a bit faster than in cold climates. Premium here gets its octane boost by addition of more methanol. This was premium gas (still only 91 octane).
While I was at it… I decided to rebuild the fuel sending unit including replacement of the low fuel thermistor. I have had a test unit running for the past few years with no problems so I decided to do this car as well. Works great now. I also calibrated the sending unit to the gas gauge so it will show empty when the tank is empty and full when it is full. Anything in between is kind of theoretical, and at least as accurate as it was when new.
An ‘empty’ tank can cause problems as well. I drained the e10 gas out of mine when I replaced the melted o-ring. At the same time I installed a rebuilt XR7 sender/pickup assembly.
It sat for about 18 months with ‘no’ gas until I got around to finishing everything and putting her back on the road. Filled the tank with e-free gas and hit the road. About 100 miles in she died - clogged filter. Here’s what I pulled out of the tank:
I had put ‘Stabil’ in the tank before the weepy o-ring, nothing after I drained it.
I wish I took pictures of my Mach1 when i pulled the intake off. All the push rods looked like spaghetti strings and the cam/lifters was wiped out, All from running bad gas
Scott, luckily here in Western Canada we can get 94 octane gas at Chevron with no ethanol. Many of the high octane gas sold at the other retailers is also ethanol free, but only 91 or 92 octane. Because of the availability of the 94 octane I don’t really need additives.
I was at the auto parts store today and noticed a couple of products that are supposed to help with the effects of ethanol in fuel. I didn’t pay much attention to it but I did notice that Lucas had a bottle in that section.
