Remove ethanol from Petrol

[cavalier1990]

Since ethanol is becoming more prevalent in our fuels now and it is well known that it is incompatible with many older cars I thought this would be of interest to many of us here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onCG7mIprfE

By the looks of it you can drain the ethanol out of petrol by filling it with a % of water to bind the ethanol out of the fuel, then drain from a container with a tap at the bottom, once it has had time to settle.

It'd be interesting to do this small scale to see if it makes any difference to the running and performance of car.

What is quite scary is seeing that ethanol binds to the water and sinks to the bottom. Is this a good thing especially for those of us who may have a car lying for longer periods of time? Any water is going to be absorbed will be pulled right to the bottom of the tank where the pick up is, so we are running effectively on water/ethanol to start up!

[James McGrath]

Actually ending up with a pool of water sitting at the bottom of your fuel tank would be an extreme case.
I would imagine that the fuel tank would have to be in pretty dire condition in the first place in order to let in that much water.

The only worry is the effect on old rubber fuel lines. However once they are replaced with new hoses it will be fine.
Apart from that the ethanol will actually help keep the engine cleaner.

[cavalier1990]

Actually ending up with a pool of water sitting at the bottom of your fuel tank would be an extreme case.
I would imagine that the fuel tank would have to be in pretty dire condition in the first place in order to let in that much water.

The only worry is the effect on old rubber fuel lines. However once they are replaced with new hoses it will be fine.
Apart from that the ethanol will actually help keep the engine cleaner.

I think that would probably happen to my granada as it sits in the garage most of the time! Morrisons garage here used to offer E85 for sale and I for some insanely stupid reason tried a couple of gallons of it in the Granada - before I knew how incompatible it was with old motors.

The tank ended up rotten and the sender unit seized up with rust with the amount of moisture it absorbed. I think cavys and stuff are probably not too much affected but imagine older cars would suffer a bit more, especially if they still have original seals and gaskets in the carbs etc.