New gas on old parts

[Ed Landstrom]

There's a quick, easy way to tell whether gasoline contains ethanol. I know pilots who do this every time they buy fuel.

Take a graduated cylinder or any other container that's marked so you can measure volume. Add 80 ml of gasoline and 20 ml water (the volumes aren't critical as long as you know what they are. Shake. If there's no ethanol, the volumes won't change. If there is, the water will extract the ethanol from the gasoline and the volume of the gasoline will decrease, while the volume of the water increases.