2G Wonder if 3,843 day old gasoline is still good...

[JS4G63]

On June 21, 2009 my 4G63T blew up spectacularly, leaving rods and oil along the side of the road, and the car has been sitting on jackstands in the dark garage ever since. Last night I felt like messing with the car a little, so I pulled the rear seat and fuel senders, and siphoned out about 4 gallons of fuel that I SHOULD have siphoned out 10 years ago. IIRC, this fuel was approx 30/70 mixture of E85/E10 that I had intended to use to pass an upcoming emissions test.

It is no secret that improperly stored hydrocarbon fuels can have a very short shelf life, so to my amazement, this fuel smells and looks perfectly normal to me. I was terrified that I was going to find an inch of goo/varnish at the bottom of the tank, but the tank still appears to be perfectly clean and normal inside just like the last time I closed it up more than 10 years ago.

So far, the only unusual thing I noticed when pulling the fuel sending unit was some mild corrosion and pitting of the metal fuel pump body (a Denso MKIV Supra pump that is older than my Talon itself!) around/at the fuel level line where it had been sitting there motionless for a decade and change.

I don't understand how this gas still looks and smells normal/fresh... it even evaporates at the rate you'd expect. I am half (actually more like 60%) tempted to try running it in my 1984 Honda snowblower now Any theories on how usable this gas will be in a low-compression 4-stroke snowblower engine? Have the Langoliers made this fuel totally flat or might it still contain enough "fizz" to clear 5" of snow from a 3-car driveway?

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Pour some on the ground and see if it will light....BE CAREFUL. If it will light, you could TRY it. On the farm, thats how we would test old fuel.
I've had gas that SMELLS and looks good not even light with a match. Try that before you use the poor snow blower as a test subject .

 

[JS4G63]

Pour some on the ground and see if it will light....BE CAREFUL. If it will light, you could TRY it. On the farm, thats how we would test old fuel.
I've had gas that SMELLS and looks good not even light with a match. Try that before you use the poor snow blower as a test subject .

Yea, I do love that my old Honda HS35 still starts on the first 2-3 pulls in below-freezing weather after sitting for a year. Maybe I won't risk breaking that winning streak for no reason

This fuel evaporates like you would expect fresh fuel to do. I will draw a spoonful or two and see if it burns in open air.

What really amazes me is the complete lack of varnish. Before I started siphoning last night, I really was expecting to find a gummy and crusty/corroded disaster inside that tank, and was already looking on eBay to see if there were any good stock tanks and sending units up for grabs. But lo and behold, it sure seemed clean as a whistle in there - other than a tiny pinch of sediment that formed directly under the fuel pump as a result of the surface pitting/corrosion mentioned in the OP. With a fairly high ethanol content in that fuel (was approx 30/70 mixture of E85/E10), I was expecting some real damage.

Actual tech content:
Ethanol and gasoline have very similar specific gravity, with Ethanol being slightly denser than summer highway gas.
Any theories as to what kind of chemistry and physics went on in my Talon fuel tank for the last 10 years?
Did a layer of ethanol vapor (heavier than air) manage to accumulate on the surface of the fuel and effectively purge the tank of oxygen (which would help preserve the fuel)?
Did the ethanol separate from the gasoline and settle to the bottom of the tank, preventing varnish from forming?

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Its alcohol, so it CLEANS. My tanks have looked super clean inside when doing a fuel pump job/upgrade. Now don't let that stuff sit in injectors as it will draw moisture and rust them up, but E isnt "gasoline" and we never had it on the farm so I would bet it is ok but has lost some, if not ALOT, of its octane.

 

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

Its like whiskey right! Gets better with age!!! Lol, try some and see haha

It might work yes, i watch these resto shows and they seem to fire up on old fuel but its not great but it might do a little start

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

I was thinking back to my moms flat bead farm truck. It had sat for probably 5+ yrs when my dad passed away and last year she wanted to get it started and maybe sell it. I drained all the gas out, it smelled FUNKY, wouldn't even light the grass on fire where it drained by the catch pan. It DID kill the weeds but that stuff was soooo old, it would not burn. It also plugged up the intake tube in the tank that feeds the carb. It had some yellowish stuff that I had to DRILL out. Weird stuff. Hard telling how many years it had sat but that stuff had lost all of its properties, glad I didn't try it in any other machine in that instance, but if it had lit, I would have put it in her lawnmower.