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opened the filter... a lot of dirt but i think the main weight was the trapped oil and sludge... pretty nasty.
a lot of it must be steel/iron cause i had a magnetic tray on the work bench and a lot of it stuck.

going to stick a scope in the tank as soon as i can borrow one cause this doesn't inspire confidence in the condition of the inside of the tank.

 

I bet once ethanol mixed fuel started being mandated, it broke up a lot of the crap in the bottom of people's fuel tanks and clogged up their filters pretty quickly. I briefly looked at what it takes to convert a vehicle to e85 and a lot of folks ended up having to clean out their fuel tanks so that it wouldn't send a lot of the loosened gunk downstream. Apparently ethanol really cleans out the internals.

 

Yea i believe thats true about some have more additives then another. I'm just curious why my engine light comes on everytime when i buy gas on base. And I put in 93 or so i think haha

 

I talked to a guy working at a Thomas Petroleum fuel center about ethanol. He said when they first started getting it in it caused all kinds of problems. They found out that if they left 55 gallon drums of ethanol laced fuel on the ground it would actually absorb water through the bottom of the barrels so they had to start setting sll the 55's on pallets. He laso said that with reaal gas any dirt, water or sediment just lays on the bottom of the fuel tank where with ethanol laced gas it all mixes with the gas. He had numerous customers with clogged fuel filters and other fuel system related problems when ethanol laced gas came into the market.
It's really bad stuff and it's no good for your engine but we are stuck with it. The best thing to do is keep your tank as full as possible because ethanol absorbs moisture right out of the air. Those 55 gallon drums he told me about weren't damaged. They were tight and if there was a puddle under one of them the ethanol still managed to suck moisture into the gas. Ethanol should be illegal for a number of reasons.

 

How exactly is water absorbed through a sealed metal barrel ?

 

The previous owner put a UNIChip on my truck and told me that premium needs to be run, when its activated. Any truth in that? The mods are TRD intake and exhaust

 

I have no idea but it's not like this guy was on crack. He was the manager of a very sizable petroleum distributor and a reputable one at that. You'd think water couldn't get soaked up into a sealed 55 gallon drum but it did somehow. That's what he said. Believe it or not. He didn't understand it either but he said that is what happened before they started putting all 55's on wood pallets to keep them off the ground. I hate ethanol. It does no good for anything whether it be our fuel systems in these expensive modern engines ore the environment which the lovers of ethanol claim they love. It reduces fuel mileage as well. It is a known fact that ethanol laced gas attracts moisture in a big way.

 

I'm going on the record as " don't believe it "

 

Just telling you what he said and it is a fact that ethanol laced fuels absorb moisture. It really makes no difference because we are forced to use the crap and there is nothing we can do about it unless we have real gas handy nearby.

I might add that this particular Thomas fuel center was in Utah. With the temperature extremes there at certain times of the year that could have easily created a massive amount of condensation in those drums which would really add to the water absorption.

I know from experience since I left a couple of guns in the trunk of my car one time for two weeks when I lived in UT. I came back and it as well as the case was so wet it was like I dunked it in a river. That happened right towards the end of winter when it was still real cold at night and then the sun came out the next day. I even had a stainless steel auto in the trunk and it had rust on it. The car was outside in the elements though.

 

Well , I don't dispute that ethanol does absorb water , just not through a sealed steel drum , thats what I have a hard time believing

 

I know. I do to and so did that manager. That's what he said to me. He said, "You wouldn't think it could happen but it did". They had a bunch of 55's that they couldn't sell it was so bad. He said putting them up on wood solved the problem. Go figure.

 

Where does the space for the excess liquid come from in a sealed , full container though ?

 

Since I'm a truck driver and have hauled propane tankers which expands big time as temp increases and because I have friends that have hauled gas tankers for years I just happen to know the answer to that question.

There are laws regarding how much fuel you can put into any container. There has to be enough space left for fumes and the expansion of the product (in the case of something like propane for example) depending on the temperature so a little water can still fit in there. Definitely enough to ruin a 55 gallon drum of gas.

You can load a propane tanker to 90% in Casper,WY and by the time you get to Las Vegas with it the gauge is reading over 100% and the pressure on the tank has risen dramatically. The pressure relief valves on a propane tanker go off at 240 psi. I've seen 200 many times but I don't haul propane any longer. Temperature has everything to do with what you can load when it comes to fuels.

 

Well sure , of course the liquids or gas can expand and contract but you think water passes through a sealed steel drum ?

 

No. I don't think it passes through a sealed metal drum. Neither did the manager at Thomas. All he knows is that putting the drums up on wood solved the problem. I do know one thing though. Water and water vapor can get past really tight clearances you never would have thought it could penetrate. I have no explanation for it and neither did that manager. I would bet that condensation was the most likely culprit since if water could get in the gas would have leaked out. Cold steal drums with air space inside sitting on cold concrete then the sun comes out and ethanol laced gas just waiting to absorb the moisture. The same scenario I mentioned with my guns in the earlier post. I have recently started keeping the gas tank in my truck as full as possible. When it gets to a half tank I fill it up when I can. Since the Yota tanks are plastic they won't be as bad when it comes to condensation as a steal tank would though. I wouldn't be surprised if they used plastic for that reason alone. Plastic won't react to temperature fluctuations near as quickly as steal and it doesn't rust either which would be a big problem with the crappy ethanol inviting moisture in.