Thread: Fuel storage in plastic drums....

My P38A fuel tank is HDPE.

Originally Posted by p38arover

My P38A fuel tank is HDPE.

A lot of cars use HDPE tanks Ron.
IIRC Ford here first used an HDPE tank in the XD Falcon, all those years ago....

I have been told that you can use the 20 litre plastic Bundy Rum containers as jerry cans as they are rated for flammable liquids .

OK, for the sake of simplicity, let's say we have a 1000L HDPE petrol storage tank that is 1x1x1m with 3mm walls.

So 6m2 surface area.

What is the reccommended shelf life of petrol? 3 months? 6 Months?

After 3 months you will have lost ~1.1% of your 1000L - or about 10.8L. After 6 months 2.2% (22L) and so on.

Probably less than the losses due to evaporation when filling from said tank...


But thanks for posting the info Rick!

Actually, my original tank is HDPE. My present long range tank is steel.

One problem I have is that it has a 155 litre capacity but I mainly run on LPG so I'm not sure what to do as far as filling the tank goes.

If I fill it, it takes months to use up and I wonder if the fuel will go stale - it's PULP, too, because my engine has high compression pistons and shaved heads..

Originally Posted by p38arover

Aso I'm not sure what to do as far as filling the tank goes.

If I fill it, it takes months to use up and I wonder if the fuel will go stale - it's PULP, too, because my engine has high compression pistons and shaved heads..

Hi,

I run my 74 RRC with Chev virtually all the time on gas and keep about 20l of PULP in the petrol tank for those rare times when I run out of LPG.

The petrol tank only gets an additional 30-40 l when I go away, and even then not always. I've used fuel that was all 2 years old and not noticed any difference in mileage, which is not great in any case.

I took a big tinny with an old 60hp Johnson up the Glenelg River a year or so ago. First plastic tank of year old ULP got us 39km by the map. Next tank of fresh PULP lasted over 70km. Big difference, especially as the prop was wearing a couple of nicks by the second tank.

cheers, DL

Originally Posted by isuzurover

OK, for the sake of simplicity, let's say we have a 1000L HDPE petrol storage tank that is 1x1x1m with 3mm walls.

So 6m2 surface area.

What is the reccommended shelf life of petrol? 3 months? 6 Months?

After 3 months you will have lost ~1.1% of your 1000L - or about 10.8L. After 6 months 2.2% (22L) and so on.

Probably less than the losses due to evaporation when filling from said tank...


But thanks for posting the info Rick!

What got me interested was that years ago an engineer (who actually writes tech articles for Racecar Engineering or Racetech these days, can't remember now) advised we not store race fuel in our Rheem HDPE drums, or use it pretty quickly if we did, but I'd never seen any actual figures for permeability until I found those #'s yesterday and i couldn't help but share

It's why I use a 20l steel drum for storing my BP Ultimate/Shell Vortex for the saw. Spare diesel for the tractor goes in my Rheem drums.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

OK, for the sake of simplicity, let's say we have a 1000L HDPE petrol storage tank that is 1x1x1m with 3mm walls.

So 6m2 surface area.

What is the reccommended shelf life of petrol? 3 months? 6 Months?

After 3 months you will have lost ~1.1% of your 1000L - or about 10.8L. After 6 months 2.2% (22L) and so on.

Probably less than the losses due to evaporation when filling from said tank...


But thanks for posting the info Rick!

Redo the calculations for a ten litre (or 20l) container. and the rate of loss will increase pretty dramatically as the surface/volume ratio increases. In fact, unless I made a mathematical error, for a 10l cube (10.2cm an edge) it will be 166 times as rapid.

John
John