Ethanol E10 info from Lee Dana

CB35 · Post by **CB35** » Tue May 12, 2009 11:50 am

Here is the link read it and weep. http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/200610/?pg=8 Sorry, I am just the messenger.

Aussie Syd · Post by **Aussie Syd** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:09 am

Interesting Article from Lee Dana .... Well I think I am going to add more fuel to this fiberglass fuel tank debate. For those who are regular readers of this forum would have read various articles from me over the concerns and problems I have had with my fuel. This week I have had marine engineers remove the fuel pick up out of my tank and it was coated in a thick tar like substance brown/ black in colour about 3mm thick, the engineer was surprised the engines were still running due to the heavy coating around mesh area of the pick up.This was the same substance I was getting in my racor filters only not so thickly coated. We then shone a light down into the tank thru the pick hole and found that while the sides of the tank were in reasonable condition the bottom of the tank was coated in this thick tar like substance about 5mm thick. After removing some of this substance and sticking to a plastic bucket with some diesel fuel the substance began to slide down the side of the bucket into the fuel, this I assume would be why the fuel tank did not have much of it clinging to the sides with most being on the bottom of the tank. The engineer took the fuel pick up away to be cleaned and have the substance analysed from people within the marine industry. While many had reported having never seeing this substance before , most agreed it appeared to be resin from the fiberglass leaching out and into the tank. Since it will be impossiable to remove this substance from the tank and if the analyses is correct the only option will be to replace the tank. However it does leave a lot of questions unanswered ered ? My Bertram is an 1988 model ,and was told the previous owner never used E10 fuel so was the tank not constructed correctly or the right materials used or has some product been placed inside my tank or like most things as they get older (including me) they require to be serviced and replaced . This whole fuel thing has left me thinking ? Regards Syd

Post by **dougl33** » Thu May 14, 2009 3:29 pm

I'd be shocked if it were resin from the tank. I ran 1500 gallons of ethanol before I repowered back in 2007. Frank Price ran ethanol for 2 years before he repowered his 87 with diesels last year. I do know that you're boat sat in a yard without moving for a couple of years. I remember seeing it on the hard in RI when we brought Bill Dunlop's first boat back from Maryland in 2004. How much fuel was in the boat when you bought it? BTW, I don't necessarily buy everything that Lee says. He basically told me the same thing on the phone back in 2006. Frank Price did several tests on pieces of Rick Shaefer's tank starting back in 2006/2007. Straight ethanol did no damage. It wasn't until he added 25% water by volume that he started to see issues. Like I've said all along, keep the water out and phase separation can't happen.

franklyprice · Post by **franklyprice** » Thu May 14, 2009 7:21 pm

Doug is correct but I will say that in any chemical layup there is always a certain percent of failures. That could be what we're seeing here or it could be some kind of interaction between bio fuel and regular diesel, left to sit too long. The fact is, all these fuel tanks will fail at some time. Ethanol will speed the process, water will speed the process and sometimes any type of fuel will speed the process, if the layup is defective. Some boat hulls get blisters and people still argue as to the reasons. My guess is that fiberglass tanks fail for the same reasons by and large as boat bottoms get blisters. Crappy layup/ bad resin. That's why you have to keep an eye on it, you just never know. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get goo in your tank.

CB35 · Post by **CB35** » Fri May 15, 2009 5:13 am

As Frank said lots of things affect these fiberglass tanks. The process of corrosion is always at work. Doug I need to let you know that I am a Chemical Engineer by degree. Having said that I have spoken to the chemists who make the resin that has UL approval for Ethanol gasoline mixtures. We discussed many aspects of the current iso, vinyl esters and epoxies. First a resin that will do fine with 100 Ethanol will be attacked by gasoline containing as little as 5% ethanol. So testing with straight ethanol is fools work. Some iso resins may do well with E10 until you add fire retardant chemicals. They they fail UL testing. The very resin that is UL approved for E10 is not fire retardant. No epoxy is UL approved for gasohol. No vinyl ester has UL approved. They are very few resins approved by UL. Most companies say they have resins that are resistant; but don't have the UL approval. Doug it is just time to get over it. None of the resins Bertram used have a UL approval for E10. E10 will attack and destroy your motor and Bertram tank it is just a matter of time. I believe it is disingenuous to suggest Bertram tanks made after a certain date will hold up to ethanol. Bertram never used resin that had a UL approval. The resins that have UL approval did not exist 20 years ago. One would have thought Bertram may have considered the gasohol problem when it first arose out of the oil embargo of the 1970's. Bertram did not. I was of the school of thought that believed Bertram tanks should hold up to E10 because of the oil embargo. For a short period of time lots of gasoline had ethanol added. I guess the key was the fact it was for a short period of time. Therefore little damage was done. I believe it is safe to say Bertram never considered ethanol resistant tanks then and are only interested if their fiberglass tanks hold up with diesel now.

captgene · Post by **captgene** » Fri May 15, 2009 7:32 am

I totally agree Charlie. Sooner or later we will have problems. I just keep a eye on the filters. I have the Racors in front of the Crusader filters, so I should see it coming. The good news, (although a bit pricey)I can still get non Ethanol fuel. We can't get 87 octane now, but we can get 89 octane. I got it yesterday @ $3.01 delivered. The new 8.1s call for 87 , but I figure not having Ethanol is the lesser of any problem of having higher octane. I'm sure it will reduce % in a few days of sitting anyway. Gene Dugan Boca Raton, Fl. "Nauti Marie" 1989 33 FBC 2007 8.1 Crusaders

Post by **dougl33** » Fri May 15, 2009 8:09 am

Frank can correct me if I'm wrong, but the chemist at Ashland that he spoke with claimed that they would test the resins by immersing it for 6 months. If at that time they saw no degredation they would pronounce it ethanol resistant. I understand what you're saying Charlie, but the results in the field do not back up you're claims. Nearly all of the tanks that failed were on older models (60's and 70's). Also, most of the tanks failed in a very short amount of time (sometimes after only one load of fuel). There are far more 1985 and later gas boats that have been running ethanol for 4+ years and have had no issues than there are 1985 and later boats that have had issues. At what point do we stop blaming ethanol and start saying the tank's life expectancy was up. Al never had a drop of E10 in his 1978 and his tank was starting to delam. I don't think that these tanks are as forever as we thought they were. I don't understand why Frank's testing was fools work. He took several strips of Rick's tank and immersed them in the same E10 that is coming from the pumps. He had several different tests. One with E10 only and several others with different amounts of water. As I said above, it wasn't until he added 25% water to the E10 that he saw any softening of the resin. How does that not prove that its a combo of the E10 and water that's causing the issue?

franklyprice · Post by **franklyprice** » Fri May 15, 2009 10:42 am

I agree with Doug, and also will say that we are all in agreement that the tanks are going to fail and the fact is, we just don;t know when. I also want to point out that the chemist at Ashland oil who was familiar with what we're talking about and the resin Lee Dana referred to, claims that it may be resistant to E-10 , but has never been tested for it. Then he described the testing method, similar to what Doug mentions and said he would do the testing for that resin, since I asked him nicely. Since then I haven't been able to contact him and honestly don't think it's real important to do so since we all have tanks that may or may not be ready to fail , REGARDLESS. So I'll make my opinion real simple... Lee Dana is trying to sell tanks, our tanks might fail, maybe because of E-10, maybe because of whatever. If one isn;t comfortable with that, one should buy a new tank from whomever one pleases and I respect Lee Dana alot, so would recommend his tanks. Then you should get another 20 plus years out of it.Then you might just get 20 plus years out of it any way... E-10 ISN'T HELPING ANYTHING, FOOD, THE ECONOMY, GAS TANKS, ENGINES, OIL DEPENDENCE, ETC. But you can't just say that our tanks would last forever if they never had E-10 in them. It's merely one of the contributing factors tp their failure.

Post by **dougl33** » Fri May 15, 2009 1:38 pm

Ethanol sucks and is a detriment to society. Period!

franklyprice · Post by **franklyprice** » Fri May 15, 2009 4:31 pm

In general , yes but I'm going over to the boat tonight and having a little ethanol...

buzzk · Post by **buzzk** » Sat May 16, 2009 6:16 am

You say it looks like tar. Are you sure it isn't tar? A friend's boat did get tar in his diesel fuel tank along with others at the marina he was staying at. It turned out that the supplier pumped out some old under ground tanks and didn't clean their tanker out before delivering fuel to the marina. I know this sounds strange but it happened. Maybe somewhere along the line you got some bad fuel. Buzz

rnanaples · Post by **rnanaples** » Sat May 16, 2009 3:30 pm

2000 gallons of ethanol and not one issue

Aussie Syd · Post by **Aussie Syd** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:01 am

Well it certainly looks like I stirred up a bit of a hornets nest here with this one !! Doug, if you read my first post correctly I never said the tar like substance in my tank was due to ethanol in fact I was told by Johnstons Boat Yard E10 fuel was not available in RI prior to me buying the boat in April 2006. But yes you are quite right about the boat sitting around on the hard for a long period of time with only some 400 hundred hours on the motors over a 18 year period tells us it would have been sitting under a tree some where for quite some time in its life. When I first inspected the boat I was soon aware the previous owner was not into doing maintenaince, as it took me about 7 days + to re-negotiate the price considering the condition of the boat, in fact if I remember correctly I made mention of it in one of my earlier posts just after I bought her. While the boat had never been abused it just never had been used or maintained properly but I did see the potential, I did want the last of the Sport Fish model with the up dated fly bridge which Bertram commeced in 88 and there were only 2 of these for sale at the time while I was in the U.S,and as I was repowering with diesel I was'nt too concern in the condition of the engines. Since then the there has been a great deal of discussion regarding Ethanol fuel but I never thought much about it since it seam to me that if you had a post 85 boat it was unlikely there would be any issues with the fuel tank etc...., What I do know is that the diesel fuel I have put into the boat here in Aus has been good regular diesel without any contamination, but like what Buzz has said I have no idea what Johnstons Boat Yard may have put into the boat after doing the re power, and I did not inspect the fuel or fuel tank prior to buying the boat as I never considered it necessary, however I do believe if the the maintenaince had been kept up from when the boat was new the chances of this happening may have been far less. Sure I don't know if this tar goo is resin or some other by product from fuel or some other contaminate, I have relayed to what has happened to my fuel tank and what other have said it might be in the the hope that others will be aware of what can happen what ever the cause. A lot of boat manufacturers in Aus are putting in polyproperlene tanks for diesel engines and I think that is the way we will go, they work out around the same price as aluminium tanks. I would like to thank every one for contributing to this this particular article. Regards Syd

buzzk · Post by **buzzk** » Sun May 17, 2009 10:11 am

Please keep us informed when you finally find out what the tar like stuff is. Thanks Buzz