Gas turned brown??

iggyw1

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Oct 24, 2011
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I had something really wierd happen out on the lake yesterday. My large motor ran perfect all day, but I had trouble starting my little trolling motor. I looked at the bowl on my new water separator that I put in and the gas in the bowl looked like pepsi or cke! It was brown. I drained some gas into a cup and it smelled ok yet was brown. Could not see thru it looking at the sun.

Again, the motor ran great, and after a while, I got the little one going too. Ran great once it started (I think I flooded it trying to start it earlier). Ran the motors for a for a few hours, rotating between the motors for moving about or trolling differant areas. The gas remained to be brown. When we got back to the dock, the gas it the bowl was the normal see thru greenish blue (from the oil in it) and was not brown any longer. ???????

What the heck would or could make it turn brown like it did, temporarily? Few notes here: I put in new gas lines from the tank to the motors They are rubber with no liners. I also put in one pint of HEET, and additive that removes water. One pint treats 20 gallons of gas. I have a 22 gallon tank.Again, the gas was brown (very brown), but cannot figure out for the life of me what would cause that? Another thing: I used the separator for a few fishing trips while only mounted with a "c" clamp. I now mounted it onto a plate permanantly in the bpoat, but had filter upside down while doing the mounting for a little bit. Gas probably came out of tilter and went into the bowl at the bottom when I tipped it upright again. Still cannot figure out why the fuel was brown. Any thoughts on this?
 

GA_Boater

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From experience - Get rid of the new gas line. The brown is from the hose deterioration while gas was not being pumped through the hose. After fresh gas flowed, greenish gas again.

I bet if you use the bulb to squirt some gas out of the hose, it's brown again after sitting overnight.

I wouldn't use HEET either.
 

iggyw1

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Oct 24, 2011
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From experience - Get rid of the new gas line. The brown is from the hose deterioration while gas was not being pumped through the hose. After fresh gas flowed, greenish gas again.

I bet if you use the bulb to squirt some gas out of the hose, it's brown again after sitting overnight.

I wouldn't use HEET either.

Thank you. I was thinking it could possibly be from the hose as well, that is why I even mentioned it. And I will not use Heet any more. I really should not need it now that I have the water separator installed. I had bought the Heet to use before I had the separator, so I threw it in the tank just because I already had it and thought it can not hurt anything.

I will remove the hose from my motor and squirt some gas into a bottle again before I start the motor the next tim I go out on the lake which is normally every other day, however, my tow vehicle is going for some warranty work so I cannot tow the boat until next Saturday, so if it is the hose getting eaten up, it shoud show up by then, I would think. Do I need a hose with the plastic lining inside of it? That is what my old hose was and it was old and real brittle inside, , so I replaced it with what they said to buy where I bought my water separator (from SeaSense on line). Thanks for your input!
 

iggyw1

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Update to GA_Boater: I let the gas sit in the hoses to my motor now for a few days. Took the hose off of my 6 H.P. kicker motor, and drained some gas into a jar, and you are 100% correct. The gas is brown like coca cola again. I have new hoses ordered with a liner in them like the old one was. Now I am wondering why they even sell the rubber hose that they sold me with the water seperator????
 

ondarvr

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Just because it has a liner doesn't mean it's good hose, there's some grey stuff out there that has a liner that deteriorates rather quickly and will plug everything up
 

iggyw1

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Just because it has a liner doesn't mean it's good hose, there's some grey stuff out there that has a liner that deteriorates rather quickly and will plug everything up

Thanks. The hose that I ordered states it is compatible with E-85 gasoline that is low permeation (i dont know what permeation is). Since it stated it's good with the E-85 gasoline, I ordered it. Was this a mistake that I made? I am thinking that the rubber hose I put on it is deteriorating because of the ethonal in the gas, correct? Thanks for you input.
 
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ondarvr

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If it holds up to E-85 you should be fine, although there are coast guard approved fuel lines too.
 

GA_Boater

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Update to GA_Boater: I let the gas sit in the hoses to my motor now for a few days. Took the hose off of my 6 H.P. kicker motor, and drained some gas into a jar, and you are 100% correct. The gas is brown like coca cola again. I have new hoses ordered with a liner in them like the old one was. Now I am wondering why they even sell the rubber hose that they sold me with the water seperator????

I don't know. I found out about brown gas when I used "good" hose from the auto parts store. Not lined, but it had all markings for ethanol. Cars using the same stuff probably have brown gas, but we don't look at our car gas as often as in our boats.
 

iggyw1

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Well guys, I ordered some of the "good" expensive gas hose for my boat. It has layers of different materials on it including rubber on the outside, a liner of some type inside and re-enforced with some stainless steel fabric of some sort, and it was like $70 for the amount I need (15 feet). i won't be receiving it until about the 20th of September, and I will write a report to indicate my findings when I get that better hose installed. probably will be the same thing with my luck! LOL Actually the brown gas did not seem to effect the running of the motors once the small one started, so it may be o.k. to just keep using it like that. I read the reviews yesterday real good on Amazon.com where I bought the hose, and there were a lot of complaints from guys that said the hose was at fault for turning their gas brown. Few of them said the brown gas then gummed up the carbs on their boats. Once I read those reviews, I did not want to take any chances with the cheaper hose. Costed less than $1 per foot. Will write when I get her done in another 10 days or so.
 

82rude

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Maybe they changed the formula but i doubt it ,i bought a bottle of heet once but before i used it i read the instructions first and it states not for 2 stroke motors!
 

iggyw1

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Final report on my gas hose problem: Some guys want to know how others made out with the advise that they gave, so here it is. I replaced the new "cheap" rubber hose that I put in my boat with the gas separator and what a difference a good "expensive" hose makes! The hose I put in now has differant layers of materials, and the inside of the hose is like a pvc material of sorts ( I dont know exactly what it is, but it is a hard plastic/nylon or pvc inside the hose where the gas is). No more brown gas at all. I disconnected the hose after it sat with gas in it for a few days since I put it in, and there was ZERO signs of the brown gas at all. Makes me believe that my brown gas was coming from the cheap rubber hose deteriorating very quickly from the gas. The brown was actually rubber, and all that was going into my engine and being burnt (I hope) with the gas!

Anyway, all is very well now. I will never go cheap on a fuel hose again guys. And by the way, the water separator that I installed is great! It has the clear bowl at the bottom so you can see any water that is present, and drain it out from the bottom with a small built in valve. A great product by SeaSense.
 

iggyw1

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Maybe they changed the formula but i doubt it ,i bought a bottle of heet once but before i used it i read the instructions first and it states not for 2 stroke motors!


Thanks for the heads up, however, I did not read that on the labeling warnings at all. I did notice that there is one Heet product for gasoline and a second one for Diesel fuel though. Thanks!
 
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