In article ,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 02:14:15 GMT, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:

The corrosiveness is not due to the alcohol, per se, but due to
alcohol's affinity for water that causes the corrosion. It will soak the
water right out of the air and deposit it in your tank, wher the water
will star the corrosive process.

Perhaps there's more to it Orval. When I was an auto mechanic, I
recall seeing a Chrysler come in to the shop that was running poorly.
The car was pretty new, this was probably around 1979 or '80. We
opened the hood up to look and were all horrified to see that every
single rubber hose was swelled up like it was bursting. We started
asking questions and it was finally decided that the owner had been
using gas that had a higher ratio of Ethanol to gas than it was
supposed to have.

Think about it, every single piece of rubber that the fuel touched,
from the tank to the lines in the belly, to the engine compartment and
inside the carburator, ALL had to be replaced. It took us days. The
hoses were soft and slimy.

Corky Scott



There is even more to the story. Remember when cars were suddenly
catching on fire from fuel lines leaking after MTBE was introduced?

I have a book, put out by Ethyl Corp., about 1953, and sponsored by the
AF and Navy, titled "Aviation Fuels and Their Effects on Engine
Preformance," NAVAER-06-5-501; USAF T.O. No. 06-5-4.

In it it says that you can expose fuel hoses, rubber, etc. to
hydrocarbon-based fuels and be OK, but, if you switch to naptha-based
fuels, you can run into problems. The converse is also true -- you can
run the same type materials with naptha-based fuels and be OK, but will
run into problems if you then switch to hydrocarbon-based fuels.

Apparently, the material takes a "set" with one type of fuel. The cars'
fuel lines leaked when a new formulation was introduced.