Mystery Fuel Contamination

Saturday my new Turf Tiger II died suddenly as if it ran out of fuel. The previous week it sputtered briefly then mowed fine. After it died, it restarted, ran 10 mins and died again. I took it into the dealer today to look into it. It has 14.8 hours on it. They called and said the gas tank was full of something that looked like sand but it was not as gritty as sand. And it was kind of pink! #*!? WTF? I have very nice 5 gallon metal gas cans with strainers that I've used for about two years with no trouble. I thought maybe it was rust, so I took the empty can I used last and poured the dregs into a jar and the gas was so cloudy it looked like a frozen margarita and was full of a very fine, whitish grit. It's not rust, but I can't figure out what happened. So bizarre. They have to remove the fuel tank to clean it out and I'm wondering if the warranty will cover bad gas. By the way, I bought this gas last week, so it's not old, just bad. Really really bad.

I have seen exactly what you are talking about. It resembles a fungus/algae/yeast that grows in the water/dirt contamination that phase separates from the fuel. Works real well for plugging up carbs, filters, etc.

That sounds like E-10 (P4 Gas)

P= piss, 4= for Gas

Seen this in Harley carbs on a rare occasion.

Hope your warranty covers it. They should.

Buying it last week is not a guarantee of fresh gas. If the station is not a busy one the gas could be underground for long time. I'd suggest using a very busy station.

Me, I only use 100% gas, but have easy access here.

Since MTBE and then ethanol in gasoline, steel fuel storage containers have been some of the culprits with this problem particularly when left empty or partially empty.
In the 70s as a marine mech, a US Coast Guard Research and Development team was allowed to consult with the company and one area of concern was steel turn plate fuel tanks. The CG folks were primarily concerned with fuel storage tanks rusting thru and leaking into the bilge of a boat. As they researched this, it was discovered that the interiors of steel fuel storage tanks were also rusting thru from the inside. In some of their fuel samples from gasoline tanks, the fine pinkish silt was noticed.
The CG outlawed onboard steel fuel tanks in the mid 70s and aluminum tanks were fabricated as replacements. When MTBE was introduced, the aluminum fuel tanks started to corrode internally along with fuel hose deterioration. The CG outlawed aluminum fuel tanks and alcohol resistant fuel hose, the brown colored hose, showed up on fuel systems.
With ethanol, the fuel hoses have been upgraded again several times and plastic/kevlar fuel tanks have become the norm in boats and most if not all other gasoline fueled machines.
I have noticed a return of steel fuel tanks on generators and some other power equipment however. I don't know what this is all about, but I do know enough to keep the steel fuel tanks filled but not overfilled so as to not mess up the fuel evaporative systems.
My new generator has a steel fuel tank, the design of which will not allow me to overfill it. I use storage additive, but I also drain and refill it at about 3 month cycles.

Thats interesting as TERNE plate is good for around 150 years unpainted in the enviroment and around 50 years in salt spray.
All those gas tanks you see in the trunks of cars in farmers fields with the trunk lid missing that are barely rusting were made from TERNE plate.
TERNE plate is basically lead with just enough tin to make it stick to the steel usually around 5 to 10 % tin.
Problem with military applications is people without sound metallurgical knowledge decided that the fuel tanks with rolled & folded seams are not strong enough and specify fully welded seams which of course oxidizes the coating so the tanks rust
They definately did not rust due to anything that was put in them, The only way to remove TERNE plate is to boil in aqua rega or burn above 400 deg C .
The other problem with military contracts is companies with Senators in their pockets supplying out of specification products .

Then the idiot moron bastards who did no chemistry since they failed it in 4th grade who can not understand the difference between a processed metal and it's oxide decided to "save the planet" by banning lead from Terne plate so you ended up with a product that was good for about 5 years in the enviroment, reacts with thousands of common household chemicals and is less than useless, much like lead free solder

Why did I know this would "light bertsmobile's fire"???? LOL a lot!!!!:laughing::biggrin::smile:

Mad Mackie said:

Why did I know this would "light bertsmobile's fire"???? LOL a lot!!!!:laughing::biggrin::smile:

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Hope it was hot enough to char a few nice juicy steaks.
About 15 years ago they dug up some tinned beef from Napoleans army they found in a field.
If you remember history, the Russians defeated him the first time by using scorched earth and his army literally starved to death.
He got his wise men around to work out how to feed his troops if the Russians tried it again.
The result was the tin can .
Now the stuff they found was 200 years old and still in sound condition and in fact they did open a few cans and after testing ate the contents.
From that we got the tin plate can, a wonderious invention that had the potential to end famine.
Fast foreward 200 years and idiots with the technical literacy of a 5 year old decided that lead had to be removed from the solder used to seal said same tin cans, without a single shred of evidence that the solder created any heath problems.
There was lead in there , lead is Satins metal and all our souls will go to hell if we get within a mile of it.
However the new lead free solder reacts with the tin plate and hundreds of people became critically ill from being protected from the dangers of lead which do not exist. Many of these people died but they were mainly Asians so they don't count.
Thus we then had to find a new glue for the cans that can withstand being cooked and the answer was to change the plating material to a zinc - aluminium alloy.
However acids in the food will attack this material so we either have to further coat it with plastic as is done with pop cans or limit the shelf life of canned foods.
So something that was good for 200 years now has an effective life of 2 years.
Further more, the old tin cans could be economically recycled.
The tin gets removed by boiling in caustic soda then the resulting cans get baled and go to make malleable iron castings because the residual tin is needed to change the graphite flakes into graphite balls which is why malleable iron is malleable.

The zinc - aluminium cans can not be recycled so they all go to the dump because the aluminium kills the melt and the zinc boils off clogging up the flue filters .
So by "saving humanity" these idiot moron bastards have destroyed a perfectly good product, killed many people ( and more will die ) and cause thousands of tons of economically recyclable steel to be dumped that creating million of tons of carbon pollution from making extra steel for cans.

These are the type of clowns who make EPA regulations.
They see the results of a controlled laboratory experiment , inappropriately apply it to everything than make laws that do nothing and in most cases actually make things worse.
Only problem is their heads are so far up their own backside that can not see what is happening out side their windows,

Now I am not redneck.
I recycle, run retreaded tyres on all my vehicles ( don't use recycled oil ) buy fresh food, avoid excess packaging , grow food in a garden fertilized with compost & vermipost into which goes all of the lawn clippings oily or clean that I remove from customers mowers, my workshop rags & sawdust I use to sop up spilled liquids.
We put out 1 bin a month at home and I do 1 bin in 3 months from the workshop.
I sort out the parts I remove because blades are made from born steel and I deliver these to an old unit friends family foundry to get made into competition axes.
My around the house mower is a 40 year old Victa 2 stroke and I have another 2 for around the workshop, one is 35 years old & the other is 22 , both running modern 2 stroke oil ( Stens ) at 1/2 the recommended ratios .
There is genuine enviorometnal concern and there is self-richious lunacy and 99% of what I see coming out of California in the latter.
The big worry is the idiot down here follow on in lock ste cause all you Americians are so much smarter than us stupid Aussies.

Calm down my brother from down under, your BP might get too high!
In the 70s as a marine mech at a local salt water boat and power equipment dealer, we replaced about 200 steel fuel tanks in boats. The replacement tanks were supplied by the boat manufacturers who also paid a flat rate of reimbursement for labor.
As I was one of the crew that performed this removal, disposal and installation of the new fuel tanks, I am here to tell you that many of the tanks were is poor condition primarily externally but some internally also. The CG Research and Development folks observed most of what we did and the documented our findings. Some tanks were cut open to inspect internal conditions.
The boats had to be defueled and this fuel was some nasty stuff and had to be disposed of. The company leased a tanker truck to contain and transport this nasty old gasoline to a proper disposal site. In the middle of all this, the oil embargo happened and gasoline was in short supply for several years which complicated matters.
Most of these boats had been built in the 60s and early 70s. As I also did power equipment servicing, it was a regular thing to remove problematic fuel tanks, dry them out, put about 6 small but sharp stones in them and shake them until they were clean internally. Clean and wash them, dry them out and reinstall them back onto the machine. I still do this periodically as I deal with problematic metal fuel tanks on power equipment.

Quite calm Mack.

As mentioned earlier I would put my hard earned on the tanks being defective in manufacture.
Prior to the adoption of the fiberglass tanks, lead linned tanks were the norm for transporting all highly corrosive liquids, there is very little that would touch it and anything that did you have dezinkified any brass fittings it passed through, like float needles for example.
We used to recycle them after melting out the lead lining, very few had any breaches in the lining and a lot of these were very old tanks.
Oddly enough it is one of the mildest acids that created most problems, carbonic acid.
From memory the windows in most ships were set in their frames with lead.

I used to do the biological monitioring of our lead workers at both the smelter and the 4 battery factories so I got to know the truth.
There was never ever any problem with lead in petrol, except in refineries where you could breathe in reasonable quantities.
The lead that has adverse effects on people is lead oxide which is you were a Navy man , you would be very familiar with.
Our navy used to carry the raw lead powder and mix oxide paints in different concentrations as required.
It was the Europeans who wanted to use low grade oil in order to overcome the practices of the newly formed OPEC who started the whole thing.
Clean the oil to a state that it could be safely used in cars would have been too expensive for the refinery so they made you clean it in your car by fitting an afterburner, cunningly called a Catalytic Converter so people would not twig to the fact they were paying for fuel in which 10% or more could not be burned in their engines and of course the tetra ethyl lead precipitated onto the mesh and effectliely killed it .
Lead in your body locks onto heamaglobens and prevents them taking up oxygen effectively making you anemic whichs why it is a problem in children & pregnant women but not adult males.
You body can process it and you piss it out so we did heamoglobens and urinary lead as a screeing and full blood leads for those who wee getting poisioned.
The cure was to move them away from the furnace for a week or two.

Zinc OTOH is 1000 times more problematic than lead, but no one cares about it because it is not in petrol.
Zinc over & above what you need on a daily basis bioaccumulates in your liver and kidneys eventually killing both.
The problem is called Metal Fume feaver and was first noticed in fitters working in galvanising plants and latter in welders electric welding galvanised iron.
Oddly enough it was not a problem when oxy welding as the zinc burns and the body can handle zinc oxide quite well but not zinc metal which is the exact opposite to lead.

I shall now step off my soap box , have a nice big glass of 20 year old port we found under the house ( how he hell did I forget about that ) and go to bed.
Bore the pants off you all tomorrow.

7394 said:

That sounds like E-10 (P4 Gas)

P= piss, 4= for Gas

Seen this in Harley carbs on a rare occasion.

Hope your warranty covers it. They should.

Buying it last week is not a guarantee of fresh gas. If the station is not a busy one the gas could be underground for long time. I'd suggest using a very busy station.

Me, I only use 100% gas, but have easy access here.

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I'm doubtful warranty will cover it since there was no defect in Scag material or workmanship. But, we can hope.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll go buy plastic cans....but the metal cans are made for gas. Holding gas is their sole purpose....hard to believe they are the problem. I also find it hard to believe gas from the gas station was that full of crap. 13 years of filling gas cans and mowers and this has never happened....only now with a brand new mower and premium metal cans with spring lids and tight seals.

But the issues with ethanol or other types of gas I know nothing about. I'm going to check my other cans to see if they are contaminated. I'm not sure what to do with 20 gallons of gas I can't use.