Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

This weekend is the first time in about 8 months that i drove my 29 packard. It ran fine when parked. Before start up the fuel bowl on the vaccume fuel tank was clear fuel. I opened the valve started the car let it run for about 10 minutes and drove about a mile car shut off. The bowl was filled with a gray powdery substance. I cleaned it hoping to get back home but within 1 minute the car shut off again. The complete fuel system was cleaned and coated about 8 years ago,from gas tank to carb. The vaccume tank was restored from a guy in Texas. This is the second car i have had this problem with. Has anyone else had this problem? The picture is after 1 minute of running you can see the junk in the bottom.

Attach file:

---

  IMG_8782.JPG (95.23 KB)

My suspicion is the coating used a few years ago is degrading. Try siphoning some gas out of the tank and see if you have junk floating around in it.

Ethanol in the gas ? That might have reacted to the coating.

There is a law that in the countys around me that all gas must have 10 percent ethanal. I have tried to find stations without ethanal but have not found any. Here are some pics of the the vaccume tank i also looked in the gas tank it dose not look much better. I read that someone was making stainless steel fuel tanks for 29s. I have 2 questions will ethanal eat stainless steel and does anyone know who is making those tanks? Its very frustrating to keep fixing the same thing. The fuel tank and the vaccum tank were professionally restored.

Attach file:

---

  IMG_8785.JPG (87.94 KB)


  IMG_8788.JPG (353.72 KB)


  IMG_8790.JPG (138.64 KB)

Good afternoon...I see that you had not driven your Packard for eight months. I'm wondering if you were going for a drive with eight month old gas? If so, was the gas treated with anything like Stable or another treatment to help it go stale more slowly. My experience with gas that is more than a couple of months old is that cars and tanks don't like the stuff and run very poorly on it, as it can turn to scum (technical term). Others many jump in here, but I'm wondering if your problem is simply with the age of the gas and not the tank or fuel lines. If I'm going to lay up a car for a while, I tend to do it with an empty tank...Ernie in Arizona

Stale gas is definitely an issue that can do damage. Even new rebuilds that started and seemingly ran well and then were put aside for a few days were, in several instances, found to have seized valves the next time an engine start was attempted. Apparently the old gas could build a coat of varnish on the stems which worked as well as glue. Doing a search on the forum should pull up some of those tales of woe. Maybe I have been lucky but cannot remember running into any old gas that I would call very cloudy or had any kind of film -- it was just sort of yellowish and stank the place up.

Not sure how you would go about identifying the powder short of lab analysis but it would be good to know for sure what the substance might be. A dissolving coating is one thing and a good cleaning then treatment with a different ethanol safe product might alleviate the issue if ethanol is causing it. While it is probably unlikely, another and worse thought is it could be mold or some other bacterial growth.

Mold growth in stored diesel fuel is an issue in some places or in cases of less than ideal storage conditions to the point of it being a real problem at times. Clogged filters are the least serious but even damaged injectors have been reported.

I don't know if there is a mold that will grow in gasoline but there are some bacteria that do thrive and eat petroleum to the point of some are even being used as something to cleanup oil spills and long term remediation of contaminated ground that was caused by leaking storage tanks. If there is a different species the gasoline didn't kill, Ethanol might have provided a medium for its growth.

There is a possibility that the fuel that was in the tank had seasonal cleaning agents in it as well as the alcohol in it.

This same problem caused by 1940 carb on my Super 8 to have the same gray matter that made it thru my fuel filter and into the fine brass mesh of the carburetor. (Yes, it eventually caused my motor to run very rough.)

regarding reworking your tank: I cleaned and resealed my 1928 vacuum fuel pump about 4 years ago and have not have any issues with that junk getting into my fuel system. (takes just a few hours)


Best of luck.
Gar

I had that problem on a model 48. There was a 1/2 inch of this mud stuff in the gas tank. I assume it was from 10% ethanol sitting in there and feeding some kind of bacteria. I let the tank dry out and blew all the now dry dirt cake out with compressed air.

The car had a filter on it that would clog.

After that it would run okay.

That's just weird.

It seems to me that it all comes down to the fact that our cars were designed to be driven. I drive Miss Prudence, our 49 288 every week, some times twice a week in the cool months here in the desert. In the summer, on Sunday Morning, just as there is enough light to see. The temperature is in the mid to high 80's and we go for about 30 minutes and back into the garage. If I do this, the old girl runs great...If I don't she is like any other woman on earth...the only other thing I do is to keep Marvel Mystery Oil in the fuel...With this driving, I add about three gallons every couple of weeks so the fuel does not become stale. Ernie in Arizona