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How Do I Dispose Of Old Fuel?


longtomsilver

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HOLA441

I have a ten litre metal fuel can with ~4litres of unleaded for my lawn mower that is more than a year old. Where do I put it.

Long and short is that I have sold my motorcycle which is being collected tomorrow evening and it has a full tank of fuel... not being tight but I'd quite like to siphon 10litres.

Thank you.

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HOLA442

I have a ten litre metal fuel can with ~4litres of unleaded for my lawn mower that is more than a year old. Where do I put it.

Long and short is that I have sold my motorcycle which is being collected tomorrow evening and it has a full tank of fuel... not being tight but I'd quite like to siphon 10litres.

Thank you.

You need a jerrycan.....(as recommended by th Rt Hon Francis Maude). They hold 20 litres. The year old petrol should be fine, just mix the 14 litres in the jerry.

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HOLA4410

Anyone know the shelf life of diesel?

Longer than petrol since it is less volatile. Every time the temperature rises the vapour must escape to avoid blowing up the can. When it cools it sucks in air and with it water. It's total garbage that petrol has a shelf life less than a year. I mowed the lawn the other day using fuel in a can I filled two years ago.

As for disposal, I know you ain't supposed to but I would just bung it down the loo. You could pour it on the garden, killing the grass, but it would eventually break down. Last year there was a wasps nest in a hole in my garden. Poured paraffin down it to gas them, worked a treat and the plants around didn't die. That paraffin is probably converted to fertiliser by now.

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HOLA4411

I have a ten litre metal fuel can with ~4litres of unleaded for my lawn mower that is more than a year old. Where do I put it.

Long and short is that I have sold my motorcycle which is being collected tomorrow evening and it has a full tank of fuel... not being tight but I'd quite like to siphon 10litres.

Thank you.

Chuck it on a bonfire. You know you want to.

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HOLA4412

Chuck it on a bonfire. You know you want to.

Joking aside, please don't do this. Petrol fumes are highly flammable and you could easily experience a fireball in your face. My father, a retired fireman, regularly attended homes where the victim used petrol to start the bbq.

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HOLA4413

Anyone know the shelf life of diesel?

You should be fine for a good long while.. the only problem you get with diesel (as far as I'm aware) is diesel bug, which in itself isn't a problem.. but when it dies it creates gunk that sinks to the bottom of your tank and can block filters if it gets sucked up.

If you're going to leave it a long time perhaps stick some diesel-bug additive in and you should be fine.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert

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HOLA4414

Old unleaded just gets harder to light or start the engine with. A lawnmower will probably work just fine as it isn't a high performance engine.

If you are storing diesel make sure that the can isn't likely to go rusty from the outside and make sure it is full so that there isn't an air space of any size. The reason for this is at night the tank cools and suck in air laden with moisture. This condenses on the inside and drips into the diesel, sinking to the bottom. Over time it builds up water inside the tank and rusts out the bottom. This is why old metal heating fuel tanks fail and start leaking out the bottom.

My favourite example of this was a half can of creosote in the shed. Condensation formed inside and out for several years until I lifted the can up. The bottom fell out and I ended up creosoting the landlord's shed floor - the biggest maintenance it ever received!

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HOLA4415

Thank you all. Really useful (and some silly) advice. My neighbour was happy to accept the fuel for his lawn mower. I managed to off the fuel straight from the bike to my car and only stopped when I saw tiny black specks of who knows what hit the funnel.

I sold the bike well below private sale valuation so on balance I'm not a tightfisted git, guy travelling all the way from york to east midlands so obviously worth the effort sans fuel.

I put the jerry can to good use and filled with fresh (for my lawn mower) and a van driver gave me a whole load of what for telling me the strikes not until next week :D:D

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HOLA4419

Can't be bothered to find a picture but please just imagine a huge facepalm.

Spoil sport.. I was looking forward to a news report with rolling footage covering the involuntary removal of an entire residential block from their toilet seats by explosive force :D

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HOLA4420

Unleaded will last a year, more in a properly sealed can (i.e. a proper jerry can). When i say "last", it will do fine in pretty much any normal 4 stroke, it might suffer a bit in something very high performance. Lawn mower would be perfect. 2 strokes - different matter. They are very high performance engines, and you should only use pretty fresh fuel in them. Once you have mixed it with oil, 2 stroke fuel is good for 2 or three months, tops.

Diesel? Pretty much lasts forever. I dragged a tractor out of a field - it hadn't moved for 30 years. 3/4 full tank of diesel, so we made sure the filter was good, and just ran it. Worked fine.

On bonfires - diesel is good, petrol is only fun if you like losing your eyebrows.

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HOLA4421

I have a ten litre metal fuel can with ~4litres of unleaded for my lawn mower that is more than a year old. Where do I put it.

Long and short is that I have sold my motorcycle which is being collected tomorrow evening and it has a full tank of fuel... not being tight but I'd quite like to siphon 10litres.

Thank you.

Just don't copy this woman....

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4228514/Total-petrol-panic-as-cops-shut-garages-after-new-Government-bungle.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Politics

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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423

2 strokes - different matter. They are very high performance engines, and you should only use pretty fresh fuel in them. Once you have mixed it with oil, 2 stroke fuel is good for 2 or three months, tops.

.

Well my Mariner 2hp two stroke outboard has run on 5 year old mixture just the same as normal.

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HOLA4424

I'm not sure if it would work (Think it used special fuel) but I had a little model engine from an old aeroplane. We had to spin the propellor to start. The fun was getting the thing started, and then getting it to chug away on fumes. I tihnk may dad may have had the wrong prop' for it.

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