Old gasoline - can it be used?

FIFY, and sounds like fun

 

Yes, as opposed to an indoor fire pit for those who may be confused. lol

 

You'd be surprised at how many people around here would read that and put a can of gasoline in their indoor fireplace, and then be completely confused about how some guy on the internet said it'd be fine after their home caught on fire.

 

You'd be surprised at how okay I am with that.

 

I have fuel in my boat (I/O with carb motor from 1993) that's been in there since Aug/Sept and just winterized it. Topped off the tank as I normally do and added stabilizer. Now it sits until May. So anywhere from 6-9 months old gas when I start it up in the spring. Only one year did I have an issue running through the first tank of gas. Hard starts, and had to use the choke until the first tank was burned off.

 

This^^^^^. OP states the fuel is “several” years old,WTF? Several years old, get rid of it. Sorry but it would be dumb as hell to even run that in your lawn mower. In general gas is good for 6 months, sometimes less, sometimes maybe a year, stabilized or not. Over a year get rid of it. Yes I know lots of people have used gas over a year old, but why? It just ain’t worth it. If it’s several years old you may as well just pour water in your tank, same results. I just don’t understand taking a chance on old gas to save a few bucks and then spend thousands to repair the damage.

 

I don't get this one, if the gas can isn't left open how does the water get in? Most of the plastic ones balloon up if left in the sun and hold a fair amount of pressure seeming to indicate they are pretty well sealed up, my waivan cans do the same minus the ballooning.

 

Why risk it? I wouldn’t use that for anything just burn it and be done. You probably only paid a couple bucks a gallon anyway is it really worth taking the chance it could have a bad affect on your engine? Just out of curiosity how did that happen? I keep a couple cans of non ethanol on hand to but every couple months I fill the truck with it and get fresh. How did 3 full cans end up sitting for 3 years?

 

Ethanol can absorb moisture from air, eventually separating from the gas and creating a layer of gas and layer of water. Besides the air inside the container, moisture can still accumulate via condensation with temperature changes.

 

Even if the can isn't totally full, there would only be a tiny amount of humidity in the tank, don't think enough to make a difference. I always understood it needed to be exposed to the open air. If you kept opening and closing it, it could get issues.

 

Condensation can't accumulate when the container is sealed, you need to get more moister to get in it to condensate otherwise you are just condensing the moister already in the vessel not adding or removing it. There would only be a tiny amount if you didn't keep opening and closing it.

 

Condensation CAN accumulate in a sealed container. But it does in fact come from the moisture inside the container already, whether that be water in the gas mixture initially, water separating from gas via ethanol, moisture in actual air.

 

I've done something similar, used water to remove ethanol from gas. Put 20 ounces of fuel with 2 ounces of water in a mason jar, after 20 mins the separated water was 5 ounces, at 15% ethanol the top layer was pure gasoline.

 

My point is if there is an expectable amount of water in the gas when the container is sealed, the same amount of water will be in the container when it is unsealed, regardless of condensation.

 

Had plans for a 5 gallon bucket set up to de-ethanol gas for long term storage, shelved it and instead just cycle my stored gas annually.

 

Not today's fuel, I don't care what it was treated with.
Good luck with that.