Now THIS should be popular-dump the ethanol!!!

[bjork]

Evening all, I picked up a magazine today on the strength of a promised article on extracting the ethanol from your petrol. I fully expected a list of dangerous chemicals and some sort of Blue Peter refinery, but no! It looks perfectly feasible and reasonably safe too.
The magazine is 'Practical Sportsbikes' and the process is full explained with pictures (handy for me) and a firm is selling a kit to do the job. Reading to the end of the feature it dawned on me you don't need the blooming kit, just an understanding of the process. I won't list the firms name so as not to upset Clive again but the procedure is basically;

Take a 20 ltr plastic container (transparent enough to see fuel thru) with a tap that you can position an inch or two above the bottom when can is on its side.
Get hold of a 4/5 ltr plastic container.
Add 2 ltrs of water to the big container.
Add about 6 ltrs of your petrol to the big container.
Shake that mix for about 30 seconds.
Add another 6 ltrs.
Shake it about again.
Then the last 6 ltrs.
Shake anothe 30 seconds.
Wait around half an hour and the water along with the ethanol is now at the bottom of the container.
Adjust the tilt of the big can so that the tap is as low as possible and drain off the offensive liquid.
DON'T be tempted to drink the ethanol mix-even when you find out it is basically vodka Apparently it burns quite well and surely it must be more environmentally friendly than a lot of the stuff that gets into the drains

Now I'm not kidding and April is a long time away, even for magazine publishers and the purveyor of the kit has a website should you wish to search for it. (I'm not advertising it unless Clive clears it )

I'll be trying this very soon. Maybe you will visit me in Leicester Royal Infirmary?

P.S. Don't tell any green lobbyists or revenue men, ok? I offer you this internet rumour/magazine article as a seasonal gift and you act upon it entirely at your own risk etc.

[clive]

sounds a potentially explosive activity to me!

[bjork]

Only now have I done a proper search for this (been out all day) and it will be in Classic Bike this month, out now. So no need to put dark glasses and overcoats on when asking for 'Practical Sportsbikes' - Phew! And they were at the NEC classic show just gone as well.

[Bogwheel]

sounds a potentially explosive activity to me!

And me. I'm going to have a go at it..

[JimFitz]

I read about this a while back and as far as I can see it should work fine - I think it was in the Federation of Historic British Vehicle Clubs (FHBVC) newsletter. One of the problems with ethanol in fuel is the hygroscopic action of the ethanol. This causes water to be attracted to the mix and settles in the bottom of fuel tanks etc and rusts them out. In the article I read, this exploits this action by adding water to the ethanol/petrol mix and agitating, causing the mix to settle in three layers. If my memory serves me correctly the water is at the bottom, the ethanol in the middle and the petrol at the top.
This allows the various fluids to be decanted off.
A lot of the additives available today prevent this separation and keep any water in suspension.
Removing the ethanol content will make the final petrol more expensive but I suppose the ethanol could be mixed in with the lawnmower fuel!

Jim

PS Cannot see that the Revenue man would be interested as we are not adding anything - merely removing something and not using any potentially illegal distilling techniques to do it. I can see that the greenies may be upset though.......

[39speedtwin]

This will definitely work, in my youth I trained as an industrial chemist, this was the method used to remove alcohol and other water soluble chemicals from non water soluble liquids. Just be careful that lights etc are not turned on if doing it in the garage, the best place would be in the garden!

[LynP]

Interesting, are there any disadvantages to doing this other than increasing the cost per litre by removing the volume of the ethanol, does it for example alter the octane rating?

[bjork]

Reply to Jim, I was a bit tongue in cheek about the revenue man-if this firm has openly put its kit on sale they must be confident too. I do think it might mildly annoy a stereotypical revenue person though, they always think the rest of us are out to deprive them!

To LynP, my guess that if anything the petrol may even have a lower octane rating after the ethanol has gone, it would be interesting to test the fuel in a high comp sports engine maybe? Even if so, I'd still prefer to store a bike with this cleaner fuel in it.

I'm certainly going to give it a go.

[zwarts]

I am always intrigued by discussions of this topic. Leaving out problems with dissolving fibre-glass fuel tanks and the early 'Petseal' linings, does anyone here have problems using the currently available fuels which are definitely attributable to ethanol content? Please note I mean only first hand experience, not third person accounts from magazines or other hearsay evidence!

[clive]

I tend to agree with what I believe is the reasoning behind your question Bob. I think the risk of blowing myself and the garage up whilst doing this far outweighs any risk to a pertrol tank. If I was leaving one for any great length of time I would simply empty the tank into a petrol can. I have bought special "ethanol resistant taps" for one of my bikes, but had no problems with the rest of them.