gas prices and e85

well i got a wise idea today and went to the station and bought some e85 poured it in the big tank on my 1941 john deere B and guess what i may have created the first green tractor she fired right up and pulled just as if it were running on gas.

Several guys have done that on IH tractors and seem to have good luck, but be aware, if you let it sit for long, the E85 can be corrosive, and will attract and absorb water.
Jim

JT,
One third of a true staement; Have used E85 in old equipment a long time and it will absorb water, none of the others so far. These are my haying tractors so they set between mowing and raking sessions with 1/2,1/4 tanks of fuel until next go around.

Remember there is 1/3 less energy in ethanol than gasoline.

How long would be too long? I'm considering trying it. Will gas stabilizer help it keep longer?

The water will be dissolved in the alcohol, rather than settling to the bottom (and creating the obvious problems in gas tractors). How much water does it take to interfere with the combustion of the alcohol?

Gary,
I am stating my comments from what we find in lawn equipemnt with E10. We find a lot of water in lawn mower tanks that test positive for alchohal and it is very hard on rubber parts and such. I have never used E85, but I am real tempted to try it do to the price of gas compared to E85.
Jim

E85 uses ethanol, right? Should be compatible with Buna-n gaskets, o-rings, etc. I believe you're referring to the incompatiblity of methanol with some rubber parts. The problem with E85 is that the carb needs to be re-jetted to provide the best mixture.

E85 is not corrosive, and absorbing water is a good thing- that's why we who have used it for years don't need any anti-icing product in our fuel in northern climates. Same with E10- been using it for 20 or more years in all vehicles. E85 is not meant for old tractors- too many people here need to get educated about what the product is, and how it should be used. MN people are way ahead of the game- been making it and using it for years. Rest of the country needs to catch up. Would eliminate a lot of stupid, ill-informed arguments and comments around here.

But you can run 14:1 comp. ratio;-)

I've used E-85 in an old D. It runs great, just needed to open the load jet 1/2 turn.

I run e85 in my Farmall M since last summer and now have in my JD620. Farmall I had to open up the main jet. The 620 runs it as is. Takes about twice as long to come off the choke but then runs good,exhaust is cleaner.

Amongst the current controversy over ethanol, the July, 2008 issue of Automotive Body Repair News published an absorbing and disturbing article about an aspect of ethanol that hasn’t been publicized to any degree, namely the problems involved in fighting ethanol fires. The article was concerned with automobiles burning E-85 fuel, with or without being certified to use E-85, but applies equally to any fire where ethanol is involved.

The problem is, ethanol fires do not respond to normal firefighting techniques and chemicals. Why? Because ethanol is water soluble. In other words, ethanol mixes with water whereas gasoline does not. Tests have shown that E-85 ethanol mixed in a ratio of up to 5 to 1 with water still maintains its flammability. If you pour five gallons of water onto one gallon of ethanol, you create six gallons of flammable liquid.

Imagine, if you will, a car running on E-85 ethanol being involved in an accident and catching fire. In an effort to put the fire out quickly, the responding firefighters aren’t fully aware that they’re dealing with E-85 rather than gasoline and attack the fire with the same tactics and chemicals as are used on gasoline fires. resulting in the fire being accelerated rather than retarded. After all, even if there is a tag on the car labeling it as E-85 certified, the firefighters have no way of knowing exactly what fuel the vehicle is carrying, unless they converse with the last person to fuel the vehicle. And that person may be trapped in the vehicle in a now accelerating fire.

Exacerbating the problem is people who try to save money by burning E-85 ethanol in a vehicle not designed for E-85. They think, “What’s the big deal? The car runs fine.” What they don’t realize is that even though the car runs OK, the various gaskets and o-rings in the fuel system are not compatible with ethanol, and ethanol attacking the various gaskets and o-rings eventually leads to leaks. And leaks lead to the propensity for fire. A contributor to the article in ABRN stated he once sat across the street from a station with an E-85 pump and saw vehicle after vehicle that could not possibly have been certified for E-85 being fueled with E-85.

The article in ABRN was concerned with vehicles brought into a body shop that have developed leaks from ethanol attacking gaskets in the fuel system with fumes from the ethanol propagating throughout the shop. All it would take would be a spark from a welder to turn the shop into an inferno.

Ethanol also does not respond to foam normally used in petroleum fires, in fact it attacks the bubbles in the foam and renders them useless. This was discovered when a couple of tank trucks hauling ethanol “crashed and burned”. All the firefighters could do was let the ethanol burn out. There has been a foam developed that will extinguish ethanol, but like anything new it’s high priced and in short supply, possibly beyond the means of the typical small town volunteer fire department.

The rest of ya’ll can do as you please. I’m taking this situation seriously.

Well there great news in all that jumble! Mix 5 gallons of water with 1 gallon of E-85, pour it in your gas tank and go! Since it is still flamable at that ratio that makes for some really cheap fuel!

If you can buy e85 for 25% less than unleaded regular, you will break even with the cost per mile. I have found that my mileage drops at least 25% when using e85 in my flex fuel vehicle.

Mileage will drop by as much as 10% using e10.

The bottom line is---unfortunately it is difficult to save money using ethanol based on the price of it in our area which is around $3.00

I have run both E-30 and E 10 in two of my vehicles. The running around, short trips on E-30 is 1 mile per gal. less than E-10. On a long trip burning a full tank, I get 2 mpg better with E-30. E-30 tonight was $3.17. E-10 was $3.39 and straight regular was $3.49. With a 1 mpg drop in mileage, it comes out just aboout even between E-30 and E-10. Between E-30 and straight regular I would be ahead with the E-30. Both vehicles run good on either mix. I have used E-85 in my BO Lindeman. It started harder but once it got going it ran fine without any adjustments. I ran some in my 40 JD and it started and ran just fine. I'll send the extra money back to the local community instead of to the Arabs. Poet, the largest ethanol producer is headquartered here in Sioux Falls and just gave a rather large donation to a local hospital. Nothing like that ever happens from the Arabs.

If you dig enough you will probably find that the oil industry funded this study.

The vapors burn in gasoline and E-85 and not the liquid itself. So how can that assumption be true that adding water to e-85 increases the burning and flammability?

There is a very informative article in October 2006 Consumer Reports titled "The Ethanol Myth." The marketing people and engineers are certainly in separate camps.