Gas Shutoff's

[ultrarunner]

I do the parking cone funnel at work for the diesel generators… can’t spill a drop because spills trigger reporting and mitigation.

 

[MossRoad]

I do the parking cone funnel at work for the diesel generators… can’t spill a drop because spills trigger reporting and mitigation.

Geeze. I recall back in the early 80's sitting at the airport fuel farm at night watching a semi unload jet fuel into the ground tanks. The driver did not stick the tank for volume and just let it flow. He got back into his truck to wait (another no-no). All of a sudden, fuel came shooting out of the vent pipes. Huge spewing fountains. By the time he jumped out and closed the valve on the truck, it took another minute or so to stop spewing out the vents. I'd guess several hundred gallons on the ground.

I reported it to airport security and safety as required. They pretty much came over, looked around, shrugged their shoulders, told him to be more careful, and left! It just soaked into the rocks.

I often wondered how many times stuff like that happened over the decades.

I found an article from 1995 that said they estimated between 20,00 and 40,000 gallons of fuel had been spilled at that tank farm over the years, when they replaced underground tanks with above ground tanks.

 

[Tinhack]

Once a fuel tank is gummed up from ethanol, how can you clean it out?

That's a common misconception. Ethanol itself does not gum up anything. In fact, it's a cleaner for fuel systems. Most all fuel system "cleaners in a bottle" are alcohol of some kind--Read the SDS. The stronger the alcohol, the stronger the cleaning. Gumming comes from the gasoline by degradation. Varnish, tar and gum are produced by the gasoline, not the ethanol.

Ethanol is bad for old gas systems because it attacks rubber and some gasket materials. It also absorbs water that can rust and corrode old fuel systems with unprotected metal.

Best way to clean a gummed up gas tank is to wash it out with fresh gas or strong solvent. Don't store gas in a machine's gas tank because most are vented and cause the gasoline to degrade.

 

[Jaygyver]

Yeah, StaBil or the like will only extend the time, it's not a cure all. That's mainly the reason I went with the smaller tanks, in theory I will rotate tanks before it gets there.
Another thing to look at is how busy is the gas station, a busy one will be better as it will be refueled way more often than a smaller mom and pop one on the lesser traveled roads.