Old Petrol

[NickJ]

My van has been sitting since the end of september last year while I've been working on it, I tried to start it today and it wouldn't, pumped away at the throttle and not even a cough, had a look in the engine compartment and couldn't even smell petrol even though it should have been flooded !
I thought perhaps the pump had packed up, but disconected fuel pipe from carb, turned over the engine and petrol was coming through. Next wondered if float was stuck , had carb off and float chamber was full but bottom was full of cr@p, sprayed some carb cleaner and cleaned it out, the petrol almost seemed watery with very little smell, does this happen when its old ?? Is the best thing to drain the tank completely (it's just under quarter full) or could I get away with just putting some fresh petrol in ??
Put the carb back on and it still wouldn't catch.
Any advice greatfully received, Thanks, Nick.

 

[BJ1]

If it looks like water and doesn't smell like fuel - it's water! Drain the tank asap because it will rust very quickly. Take the carb off and clean all jets and passageways - water corrodes carbs very badly.

Brian

 

[ozziedog]

As said above ^^^ clean it out asap. If you caught some when you was testing the fuel pump,, if it`s in a clear bottle / container, it will seperate in an hour or so if you leave it to stand still, and you`ll see the petrol sitting on top of the water in the bottle. As a little test to make sure you is on the right track,, try popping a capfull of known fresh juice in the carb/s and see if it fires up briefly :mrgreen: Might be a good idea to find where the water is getting in as well as you don`t want a repeat performance.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,, Sneaky stuff that water :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

P.S. See you at the castle ??

 

[NickJ]

Thanks for the replies fellas , looks like this will be my job for this morning, just hope there's not too much in the tank :roll:

Don't think I'll make it to the castle Ozziedog , work always seems to get in the way :lol:

 

[NickJ]

Got it all drained today, had to flush quite a bit of fresh petrol through the fuel pump to clean it though but at least once i put some fresh petrol in the tank it started almost straight away.
once again thanks very much for your advice fellas.
Cheers, Nick.