At what point is gasoline too old to attempt a start without screwing something up?

 

About a year, if inside.
If you have a vented cap =shorter.
If you use Regular gas with E15....shorter...(the alcohol is TERRIBLE, the 'debil' I say!)

It's probably okay to put it in your old pickup! And burn it up 50% at a time.

Cheers Unkahal

 

I had about 8 gallons 2 years old. removed 3.5 galls 1.5 years ago and at that time dumped in 5 gals of premium. Each time I planed to start the motor but something happened and I didn’t get back to it until this week.

 

Wow! I'd be sucking that tank dry and blowing out the lines. also pull float bowls.

 

I have never experienced this thing you all call old gas and I'm old.

 

I had my engine out of my 1978 from 1982 -1992 . Reinstalled the engine after converting it, poured gas down the carb. and fired right up. I did add more gas the next day. My spark plugs started to foul over the next month as everything loosened up, but nothing too serious.

 

It isn't so much about if it will start. It's running it at anything but idle. Old gas = low octane = detonation.

 

I’m still helping a neighbor that has a Corvette behind his house move it. He doesn’t want any tow truck, or any truck for that matter going back there. It’s about 300 ft and nobody has a cable that long to pull it out. It was in good condition when it was parked there. Their delinquent son (his words, not mine) hid it from the repo man 3.5 years ago. The kid’s gone, he knocked up a woman from Haiti and he’s living with her on some Patriot compound in Texas somewhere. The finance co gave up the title to the father so the car can be disposed of.

 

either gang some chains together to get the cable long enough or convince him to lay some plywood down and have the tow truck back onto the plywood

 

It doesn't hurt anything to TRY to start the car with 'old' gas. It's just very likely to not start or to not run well IF it does. Go ahead and try it. If it starts and runs, just put a few gallons of premium fuel in with what fuel you already have in the tank and drive it. On the other hand, if your tank is almost full of old fuel, you might have to siphon most of it out (use it in the lawn mower??) and refill with fresh.

 

Remove the air filter, pour about a table spoon of gas down the carb and see if it will start.
If it does, put it in gear and drive it out.
You may find the brakes have some rust between the rotors and pads or some rust on the parking brake that may make it a little hard to get going.
Make sure the brakes are functioning before you drive it more than a couple of feet.
Driving it 300 feet won’t hurt anything with bad gas, but you need to make sure you can stop it once it gets rolling.
Another thing to consider is that the battery will be dead and if it has a dead cell, jumping it may not work so swap out that old battery with one you know is good and has a full charge.

 

Only adventures with bad gas I have had were with lawn mowers and weedwackers. After sitting any time over a year they would not start. Never had a car sit that long....few months at the most. Any car that sits outside more than that around here becomes a high priced condo for the vermin and there are much bigger problems. Good luck!

 

Someone put one of those anti siphon springs down the fill neck auto stores sold during the oil embargo days in the ‘70s, there is a receipt in the dash pocket with package label. Tried unsuccessfully to get a hose into the tank to siphon - those things really work.
Plans to hump a battery to the car after dinner.

 

Good luck!
If you can’t easily get it started, find a friend with a 4x4 and just pull it out to the street, load it on a flatbed and get it home.

 

I used to have one of those springs installed in my 1965 Impala SS , my dad put them in all of our family cars . I have 2 of them hanging , in original package , in my garage .

 

A funny thing, our town put one of them in a Time Capsule in the cornerstone of the New Library. Our high school threw in a letter explaining the time we live in, of an oil embargo that crippled The US essentially shutting down the country - in many ways worse than War time rationing.

That metal spring was to be remembered as a time when neighbors were siphoning each other’s tanks, gave rise to record sales of small economy cars and made us all aware of the new Asian car market. I’m paraphrasing but I remember one comment in the letter that stated “How can we survive paying over a dollar a gallon? The Time Capsule is scheduled to be viewed in April, 2025 for a 50 year celebration.

 

The Corvette i just bought ran like a bag ov **** when i saw it. Felt like 7 cylinders at best, and wouldn't rev past 4000rpm. He said it had 7-8 year old gas in it (with a 1/2 mix ov new gas). I've never had old gas give me a problem like that, but i'm in the minority. My 68 Cadillac ran fine on ancient gas more than once.

Was talking to a friend ov mine today that does a LOT more car stuff than i do... he said that old gas today is far worse than say, old gas 15--20 years ago. Seems everything is shittier these days...

 

This is not correct. Raw Gasoline never loses its "pop" or potential energy...it just evaporates.....what you see after a year or two of pump gas sitting around is the additive package that is added to raw gasoline to stretch it further and for various other reasons (volatility, burn characteristics, octane, etc....). Gas that sits around and smells bad loses its potential energy or pop......making less of a "bang" or explosion. Gas that is too old isn't really "gas" anymore and flatout won't start, even in an EFI application......gas that is slightly old has less energy and the engine will start hard, idle like **** and be low on power. But nothing about it sitting causes it to be able to light off easier.....it is in fact the opposite. Old gas that does light off will not "hurt" the engine......cut it with some fresh and burn it out.
10% Ethanol fuel is worse in a float bowl than Non-Ethanol when stored because Ethanol is endoscopic....it pulls water from the air....and this water mixed with the additive package can create some cool science projects in your float bowl.
I was once a crazy Vintage Honda freak (I own a six carb, six cylinder 79' CBX)....and I have done more sets of Vintage bike carbs than I can remember.....doing these for people made me research very closely to exactly what was going on with modern fuels. Ethanol has been an additive in gasoline for over 50 years......(Ethyl).....but the additives packages have changed radically.....it isn't the gas or the alcohol that is killing carbs, it is the additives that are left after the fuel evaporates.

Jebby

 

Dont forget what the ethanlol will do to old formula rubber hose. I had picked up some vintage Stihl an Husqvarna chain saws and in the process of using them they became hard to start and eventually wouldnt run at all. Pulling fuel tank off and seeing the rubber pickup line stretch and melt as I tried to get it apart was a treat......

 

If the gas stinks then it will also likely have left a lot of varnish crud in the tank. If it still "sort of smells like gas", you should be fine, but if there is a lot of varnish, you will find that fresh gas won't thin it or remove it. I've had good luck cleaning tanks with E85 / flex fuel / ethanol. It cuts through that varnish.