I am draining the gas tank on a car that has been sitting for over three years. The gas has that turpentine smell that indicates that it has broken down and could clog up and wreak havoc on the pump, carb, etc. if I tried to start the motor and run the car until the gas is gone.
So, what do I do with it? I can take oil to be recycled, but I have no clue as to what to do with gas. I’m sure it will still be flammable, but I don’t want to burn it. I also don’t want to dump it somewhere. That’s bad for the environment.
You could call your city and ask if they accept it at their dump/recycling center. You could try calling an auto store and ask if they’ll take it. I know they have to take back used motor oil so they might not have a problem taking back a few gallons of gas.
Talk to the local service station that changes oil. Around here many burn the old oil to heat the garage and a little gas will not be a problem for wast oil burners.
I would also purge out the pump and lines. there is a schrader style valve for fuel pressure testing that can be used to purge most of the old gas from your system.
For the record, I do not know how one would get all the old fuel out of the tank short of removing the tank, or maybe evaporate the rest off.
I would also use sea foam with the first fuel added after drain. I have put old fuel into my truck years back and found that it was a big mistake. I was able to correct my mistake by adding 10 gal of high test and an octane booster and sea foam. The problem presented when I was very low on fuel 6 months after I added the old gas.:smack:
I’ve always just diluted it and run it. A few years back I bought an old car that had a full tank of four-year old gas in it. I just put a gallon of the old stuff in my (also old) pickup truck every time I filled it up and had no problems whatsoever. It was slow going, but I eventually got rid of it all. I also ran some of it 50-50 in an old Briggs & Straton lawnmower and it was an SOB to start, but ran just fine once it was going.
Definitely do call the county, but they might not take it. If you call the county here, dilute it and use it is what they’ll tell you. Although they will take it if it’s contaminated which raises some ethical questions.
I won’t be reusing the tank. Too much work… A brand new tank will be about $120, so I’ll just get rid of the tank after draining it. I’m also planning on replacing the lines, but I’d like to keep the fuel pump and carb if possible.
The last thing I want to do is gum up the carb, fuel pump, lines, or engine. So I’ll replace everything I can before turning over the key.
Seriously? That sounds risky, but if it worked, I can’t argue with you. Did the gas have that kerosene smell? so what did you do, drain the tank, use the old gas in your truck from time to time, and put new gas in your old car?
So did you have any problems with your car, trying to start it with that crappy gasoline in the lines?
No problems whatsoever. I’ve heard 1:3 is the rule of thumb for running old gas in lawn equipment type stuff, so I thought running 1:18-ish in my truck was playing it safe. In the interest of full disclosure I should say this was a '76 model year truck, so I’m not so sure I’d want to do it on a modern pollution-controlled car. Well, maybe a rental car.
I just used one of those squeeze bulb siphon pumps* to siphon out five gallons at a time into a 5 gallon can. After I’d used 10 gallons (out of 14-ish), I put 5 gallons of fresh gas in the car. Just to be sure I wouldn’t have to drain out the rest, I coaxed the car to life running on the (as near as I could figure) 60-40 ish mixture. It started and ran (poorly, though it had been sitting for about 5 years at that point!), so I put 5 more fresh gallons in and it ran well enough to drive around. I did change the fuel filter before trying to start it, and it was a mechanical fuel pump, so maybe an electric one wouldn’t have responded as well.
The gas didn’t smell like normal gas, although I’m not sure kerosene is quite the right description. My understanding (which may or may not be actually correct) is that over the scale of years, what happens to gas is that the most volatile parts evaporate off. But this process starts the day it’s refined, so by blending 4 year old gas with 0 year old gas, you end up with gas that acts like it’s 2 years old. Or by blending a lot of fresh gas with a little bit of old gas you end up with gas that acts like it’s only a few weeks older than it is. (Though again, this is just my own kooky shadetree theory).
I’ve mostly heard of the really nasty varnish problems in the context of barn-find type cars that have been sitting for more like decades. I’ve resurrected quite a few cars that have sat more on the 5-10 year scale and never seen any old gas problems after draining out the old stuff. But, hey, maybe I’ve just been lucky.
(*Although I’ve since made a home-made electric siphon pump out of a '79 El Dorado fuel pump that works much faster!)
Our local solid waste management department has a list of things they DON’T want in the landfill. They accept some of these things for recycling (batteries, motor oil, tires, etc.) at a special building near the landfill, but things deemed “household toxics” or " “household hazardous waste” go to a totall seperate facility. This includes things like used brake fluid, solvents, pesticides, paints - and gasoline that you don’t want.
definitely check with your local solid-waste management folks. They’ve probably got a website telling you what you want to know.
Well, for a gallon of funky old lawnmower gas or even old 2-cycle mix, I’ve just put it in the pickup and then filled up- I figure 1:22 ratio of old to new gas is unlikely to cause problems.
