Re: Bad Gas in Tank

Posted by su8overdrive On 2016/3/30 15:50:43

HH56 is about as savvy a soul as you'll find here, along with Owen Dyneto, a retired chemist. What little i know is from a Chevron engineer who told us gasoline, any major brand, it being akin to aspirin, will easily last for a year sans stabilizers so long as kept below 80 degrees.

A late friend, collector of high end Gallic and other luxe road cars of the '30s, 40s, early '50s, had fully two-year-old gasoline in one of his several Delahayes which nonetheless started right up and ran as well as ever.

I add Stabil to play safe, and have heard the marine version of Stabil even better, but can't comment on that, should any here gathered have vetted tech insight.

It does seem that so often, car guys like to blame the oil, gas, brake fluid, coolant for otherwise lax or deferred maintenance, shoddy repair.

Other than Stabil, the only other additives i employ are Redline Lead Substitute, which uses benign sodium to protect from the nanosecond welding of valve and seat. Potassium was tried in Europe but occasionally caused valve sticking.
When all other gasoline companies went to lead in the mid and late '20s, Amoco stuck with unleaded until this was Federally mandated in the '70s, and tens of millions of cars in the Eastern US ran fine with Amoco, tho' in fairness, Ford, Chrysler, Hudson, Reo had what machinists call hard blocks, GM, Nash, Studebaker, Willys, Packard soft.

Also never saw any harm in tossing in four ounces of Marvel Mystery Oil per ten gallons gas, which the nation's leading Merlin rebuilder tells me he's always done in his late model shop truck and wife's car.

Studies by the Royal Society of Engineers, the Brit equivalent of our SAE, checking the wear zone of a fleet of London cars and lorries in the '50s, showed half the wear in those engines fitted with top cylinder oilers, which fell out of fashion here as cars became ever more disposable. They certainly do no harm, i so equipping my '47 Super Clipper, as i did my earlier '40 One-Twenty, ampcolubes.com able to supply you a NOS unit, easily installed, at nominal cost. Tell George Folchi a '47 Packard Super Clipper in Walnut Creek, CA referred you.

When i find anyone purveying a product that helps keep our "real" cars purring, I like to spread the word in this otherwise increasingly retrorod, muscle car, 350 Chevy V-8 world, in which we're quietly becoming brushed aside as Apperson Jack Rabbits, Loziers, Chadwicks were in the late '60s, early '70s.

Though my Packard interest is prewar, my car just a warmed over '42 One-Sixty Clipper, your car's 288 is one of Packard's most woefully unsung but tough, reliable, refined engines. Had one decades ago, always started in any weather cold or hot, never missed a beat.