10% Ethanol and water in your gas?

[XRpredator]

I'm not sure if this is just a local phenomenon, or if everyone else is having to deal with this recent issue:

Here where I work, most of our vehicles run on diesel (motor graders, loaders, dump trucks, loaders, etc) but we still have gas pickups for whatever other uses.

Recently, we had to have most of the injectors on a 2004 GMC 2500 4x4 replaced. The alleged problem was that they had rusted(!) due to water in our fuel. Then we had another one of our pickups, same year, make and model, have the fuel pump go out on it. We had it replaced and it went out again in about two weeks. Before they'd put in the second fuel pump, they tested the fuel and said there was water in it. So we decided to do some investigating . . .

After talking to a couple of the fuel distributors, they said we had to have a certain type of filter on our pumps to seperate the water from the gas because the fuel contains ethanol. Now, I seem to recall from basic chemistry (or maybe it was auto shop) that ethanol is hydrophilic (attracts water). So we put these filters on our pumps to see if that will solve our alleged problem. After we get the filter on, we pump out about a pint of gas and lo and behold, we can see water at the bottom of the container. This does not bode well.

My question is twofold: Has anyone else had this problem with 10% ethanol fuel? And, why the hell didn't someone think of this before the feds started mandating a certain percentage of ethanol in our gas?

 

[jsantapau]

I beleive I ran into a similar problem with my home owner yard equipment.little personal history is that I never really took care of the lawnmower and such,sits outside all year not covered or anything. never had a real problem except for draining the water out in the spring and it would be fine all summer.with the gasahol stuff it seemed that I had to drain the water out every couple of tanks and it didnt matter that I tried storing it the garage.I haphazardly assumed it was water alchohol bad fuel situation and would drain leftover fuel(c12) from my bikes tank into the lawnmower to cut the lawn and the problem kinda corrected itself. Not a scientific deduction but it did support my random thought.

do you have underground or above ground tanks.from what limited problems I have seen(deisel fuel tanks that had to be replaced at the trucking company I worked for) from underground storage tanks is that a leaky tank will let more water in than fuel out.

 

[Chili]

Most of our gas up here has been 10% ethanol for a few years now with no noticeable difference to me other than slightly less miles per gallon.

 

[XRpredator]

do you have underground or above ground tanks.from what limited problems I have seen(deisel fuel tanks that had to be replaced at the trucking company I worked for) from underground storage tanks is that a leaky tank will let more water in than fuel out.

Underground, but they are relatively new.

The gas man said there was some kind of fungus or bacteria that they've been dealing with, so we may have to check for that.

It's all a buncha hooey.

 

[jsantapau]

Underground, but they are relatively new.

The gas man said there was some kind of fungus or bacteria that they've been dealing with, so we may have to check for that.

It's all a buncha hooey.

no sir not hooey there is a microbiological thing that grows in that boundary layer between water and fuel if you have ever noticed that slime that collects between the layers of fuel and water you do have a problem with what that guy said.again going back to the limited experience of the tanks was we where told that living slime stuff is very acidic and will etch metal the end results we had to resurface /polish the delivery valves on a lotta injection pumps....with the injectors being the "smart " part of fuel management system nowadays I can easily see the failure there.

There is some type of paste you can smear on a stick to tell if you have water in the tank. if you do the only recourse is to pump it out well below the pickup tube of the tank measure it and keep measuring it comparing the results too see if it goes up after a rain or a fuel delivery or whatever you can nail it down to

 

[SVTMc-G]

would using some HEET in a vehicles tank help out at all?

 

[whenfoxforks-ruled]

They removed all the stickers that warned of 10% ethanol around here, about the time bp stuck their invigorate stickers on. 3 months or so ago?