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Steve
I have had auto gas in my Long Ez tanks, made from
EZ poxy, for over 4 years. I never had any problem with my tanks until
Florida went to the 10% ethanol gas last
summer. My problem has not been the tanks but the clear sight gauges I
added several years ago. The clear outer plastic did turn yellow over
time. However, once I started using the ethanol base fuel the white plastic
backing to the clear sight gauge just melted within a month or two. These
gauges were an after market replacement for the original Rutan design. I
have had EZ poxy strips in a jar of ethanol gas for over nine months now with no
sign of problems.
Mike Perry
Long EZ Mazda 13B
N981MP
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 9:24
PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Using
Ethanol-laced Gasoline
Steve;
What’s the chance
you could add some samples of EZpoxy
layups? I’d be happy to send some.
And I agree with
Jarrett; plan on 6 months to a year. You probably don’t need to check
them more than every couple of weeks, or a month.
Al
G
-----Original
Message-----
From: Rotary
motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Steve Thomas
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:57
AM
To: Rotary motors in
aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary]
Using Ethanol-laced Gasoline
I am in the process of
testing the effect of ethanol-laced gasoline on my fiberglass tanks. My
airplane is made from vinyl-ester resin, not the epoxy resins used by many
other aircraft. Vinyl-ester is touted to be immune to the effects that
ethanol has on other products. Someone on the Glasair list had some
problems with ethanol, so I decided to run some tests. What follows is
the analysis I posted on the Glasair list. It has implications for all
of us rotary guys as well. When I speak of Jose Cuervo, I started a test
of very high concentrations of ethanol using Jose Cuervo as my medium.
It is 40% alcohol.
I thought that I would update
everyone on the Ethanol
"research" that
I have been doing. I now have three test
jars set up. One jar has the infamous Jose Cuervo in
it.
The second jar has pure 91
octane gasoline with 5.7%
ehtanol
and the third jar has 91 octane gasohol (same as
above) but laced with water.
The Jose Cuervo jar has two samples in it; one is a
sample
of precure that is
something I made up several years ago,
and the other one is from the original kit. Both
samples
have been in the jar for
a week. So far, there is no
noticeable effect on either
sample.
The gasoline-only jar
has three samples in it. One sample
is from the original factory lay-up. One is a brand
new
layup that I did a little
over a week ago that was allowed
to cure for 48 hours. The third sample is from the
same
layup just completed, but
was cured in an oven at 200
degrees for 3 hours. Again, no noticeable effect on any
of
the three samples after one
week. This test will go on for
a
while longer just out of my own curiosity.
The third jar has the water in it. it also has just
one
sample in it, one of the
original factory layups. The water
at the bottom of the jar has turned a light brown
color. It
has clearly leached the
alcohol and some other products
out of the gas as the water level has grown. There is
no
effect on the sample layup,
either in the gas or the water
(I
have it standing up in the jar so that part of the
sample
is in the water and part
in the gas.)
But the final coup de
grace comes from a conversation I
had with a BP/Arco technical products engineer. He
told
me that first, California
currently has a ethanol ratio of
5.7% but will soon be changing to 10%. He also said
that
the fiberglass tank problem
is nearly irrelevant because,
as
ethanol laced gasoline gets colder, the ethanol will
come out of solution and unless your engine is capable
of
burning pure ethanol, you
should avoid using any
ethanol-laced gasoline at altitude. If you were to
ever
find yourself at very cold
temperatures (he didn't specify
how cold), the likelihood of ethanol coming out
of
solution is very
high.
Now, it also possible
(but not probable) that one could
obtain an exemption from the Air Resources Board to
get
ethanol-free gas for
experimental purposes, the
likelihood of finding someone to sell that small volume
is
nil.
The engineer also told me that it is possible to leach
the
ethanol out of the fuel. I do
not recommend this
procedure
(legal disclaimer). one can leach the ethanol by
adding water to a tank of fuel, agitating it, then
cooling it
down as far as
practicable to ensure that all of the water
falls out. Then, remove the water layer. If you don't
cool
it down, micro-bubbles will
remain in the gasoline that
will
fall out over time. Any takers?
So,
at least for now, it seems that the effect of ethanol on
fiberglass is somewhat moot, despite my inability to
see
any effect on the samples I
have in process.
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