“Notes from the field: Ethanol, Vapor Lock and other Gas Woes”
 

Notes from the field: Ethanol, Vapor Lock and other Gas Woes - Military Trader/Vehicles

https://www.militarytrader.com/mv-10...other-gas-woes

Good Read - lots of common sense
 

Hi Hanno

Thanks for pointing out the article, lots of common sense points raised, the type of thing where you say to yourself "I would have thought of that , eventually".

The key points of course are:

• Fresh fuel
• Summer blend fuel

Unfortunately we can't make ethanol fuel go away, and in defense of the gas companies I think it actually has gotten better over the last 15 years. For a while when it was introduced it was killing small engines and older engine right and left. Less so now, or may be it was a Darwinian thing and it just killed off all those engines that could not learn to burn it.

On thing I have noticed with ethanol gas is that it de-rates the out put of my gas generators by 20 to as much as 30 percent this is seen in power out put. The older the gas the worse it gets.

In engines the power loss in CMPs is not as noticeable as the loss in fuel mileage.

Now to the topic of vapor lock particularly with FORD flat heads, vapor lock in high heat when stopping engine was a significant problem. I can remember one fix that was pretty ingenious, add electric fuel pump at the gas tank, then put a pressure regulating valve at the carburetor with a return line to fuel tank. In this way if the fuel was going to boil because the engine compartment was to hot the excess fuel or vapor was taken back to the gas tank and fresh fuel was filling the line.

Cheers Phil

At least we still have the option of non-ethanol fuel here in Canada. For how long I don't know and we pay pretty dearly for it: up to 30 cents a liter more.

Pretty bad when you have to find workarounds in order to use gasoline.

One common thing I see is the use of copper fuel lines. This transfers heat faster than steel. Most of our vehicles started life with steel lines.

Splashing some cool water on the ford fuel pump works a charm when the engine starts to sputter from vapour lock. Did this while at speed in a Universal Carrier driving across Holland in 2019.

One trick that some tractor pullers and drag racers use is to pass the fuel through a coil of tubing immersed in a bucket of ice water. Of course, their events only last a few seconds. For all-day use, adding ice gets to be tedious.

Over 30 years ago when I got my Bedford QL on the road, I wound asbestos cord around the petrol pipe from pump to carb and never suffered any annoyance from vapour locks. The route of the pipe goes from one side of the engine to the other, rising past the top water outlet on the head, so gets a lot of heat.

M151a2
 

When I had a vapour lock on my '74 Pattern Jeep the tow truck driver asked if it was fuel injected or carb. Pull the air cleaner off, jam something into the carburetor mouth and force more air in. It worked, and I was able to return to the activity with a birthday cake.