As I understand it (and I am open to correction), there are 2 main issues with ethanol in gasoline. First, there
was an issue with rubber and plastic degrading in the presence of ethanol. I have dealt with my fair share of older, mostly small engines that would develop mushy rubber fuel lines and flake off bits to clog jets, and on the other hand, the clear or translucent fuel lines with get brittle faster, crack and break.
However, once ethanol became very common, the fuel lines were made out of materials that resisted these issues. I know there is a lot of "legacy" equipment out there, but most anything made in the last 20 years (maybe longer) was made to be able to use ethanol laced gas. This goes for recently manufactured fuel lines for sale as replacement parts as well. On-road vehicles have been designed to handle ethanol/gas since the '80s, at least.
The second issue was that the ethanol would absorb moisture and if a machine sat unused for a long time, the water absorbed could settle out to the bottom of the tank and rust (want to see the bottom of my B's tank?). Again, however, in modern vehicles, coatings combat this and it will never be an issue at all unless the machine sits for at least many, many months, possibly years (like my B).
I say all that to say this- in a Zenith carb as used on something like a B, C, etc., there are no internal rubber or plastic parts. Heck, there is no rubber or plastic on my B anywhere between the tank and carb (steel and a little brass). I will use the 10% stuff and make sure that if she is going to sit (with the newly de-rusted tank) I drain the gas. This was the best practice before there was any ethanol in the gas (the drain plug was designed into the carb a long time before ethanol). I did this with my motorcycle too.
Edited by HoughMade - 29 Sep 2017 at 3:04pm
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