<VV> Old gas

[Gary Swiatowy]

4 years ago, went to look at a 77 Continental Mark V which had been parked
and sitting for 8 years. After checking all fluid levels, put in a good
battery and a splash of gas. Car fired right up, and stayed running. Ran
very weakly, smelled real bad, but ran enough to drive it onto my trailer to
drive it home. There was a quarter tank in it. When home, I ran it for over
an hour, then added 5 gallons to it. Finally ran good enough to start
without a splash of fresh gas. Amazingly, no problems.

In 1992, Bought a 67 Dodge Coronet which had been sitting for at least 10
years. This one had 3/4 a tank of very weak gas. I ran it a few hours a day,
on and off for almost a week to burn the smelly gas out. Then ran fine.

I've done the same with Corvairs, maybe it's the carbs, but always had to
rebuild the Corvair carbs when the bad gas was run through.

Gas loses its volatility. Today's gas is even worse.

Gary Swiatowy

   
From: kenpepke at juno.com
Subject: Re: <VV> Old gas

After more than 50 years of associating with my best friend and junkyard
owner I can say we have pulled countless cars out of old garages, fields,
and wherever.  Longest parked was a 41 Ford Delivery that had been left for
a documented 38 years.  Added a battery, primed the carb and away it went ?
exhaust smell was so bad it sent us running upwind :-)  If they are still
holding gas they will probably run!  

Gas is gas and it always burns ? Ah well, mostly, anyway.  There was a short
time in, the earliest days of the current kind of unleaded gas, that we
noticed a very large number of cars were getting junked for seemingly no
reason except that they would not start.  Quite by accident we came to
realize that gas drained out of these cars looked like gas, smelled like
gas, and tasted like gas :-( and cleaned up grease and oil just like gas ?
BUT ? even when boiled by the flame of the propane cutting torch ? would NOT
burn.  Somehow, almost overnight, it had just plain gone bad.  

Once that was realized, his supply of quality used cars went way up.

Ken P
Wyandotte, MI