There is no way "engine vibration" will cause a rubber o-ring to tear or break down. There is no way of this happening because the o-ring in it's correctly assembled state (and correctly sized for the application), is held tightly in place within a groove and then mashed together with the corresponding portion of the connection, therefore, it doesn't vibrate, shake or move. They are designed to be mashed to make a seal, this friction fit, if you will, makes the o-ring not moveable.

 

Leaking at the fuel disconnect because of a bad O-ring is a known issue and has been discussed on a number of occasions here on the Forum. I had the same issue on a 2011 FXDWG with only 1500 miles on it-one morning I went out to the garage and smelled gas, located the leak, and found this:



I was able to replace the O-ring with a flashlight and dental pick (BTW, it's the same O-ring used on the oil drain plug), with the tank in place and full of gasoline, no problem then or since. The MoCo recommends draining the tank, replacing the internal fuel line, yadda yadda for liability reasons.

I can't explain an early failure of something as basic as that O-ring, but I'm sure it's not related to the 10% ethanol found in "modern" gasoline.

 

Racerkvn, yes, that material you have found photos of is from old gas left to stand. Not directly associated with ethanol in the gas, but likely not helpful to have oxygen compounds such as ethanol in the gas if you let it set up for a long time.

Sorry, but small chemistry lesson coming..............

What that material is, is a polymer that forms from some of the components now blended into gasoline in the new refining processes. They take waste streams out of several of the chemical producing units in the sideline business attached to refineries and if they do not meet specs of the chemicals they are producing, they many times just send them out to the "blending tanks".

Worked inside Shell for nearly a decade, and have actually installed tankage and piping systems to facilitate this.

The latest and most prevalent problem in our gas is the bottom ends off of the ethylene plants. The pentane or C5 stream, which they have little use for in sales, gets dumped into the gasoline blending tanks. It is ripe and ready to turn itself into polymer, while sitting in our tanks, and the result looks like your photos.

If anyone is interested, the original monomer chemical doing all this is called cyclopentadiene, or its dimer, di-cyclopentadiene. It was years ago produced to make the lacquer that they used to coat the windings on small transformers in tube type TV's and old tube type radios. Obviously a market that has since dried up, and so they dump it into the gasoline blending stream now. This stuff is what you smell when you open a stale tank of OLD gas and it has that really peculiar smell. I think most of us know that smell.

To be fair, the oxygen in Ethanol or any other oxygen containing additive, is the catalyst that starts the liquid chemicals to making the polymer, amber in color. So in a way, yes the ethanol plays a part. But any exposure to air, as in the space above the gas in our tanks, would do the same job whether ethanol was in it or not.

Sorry for the chemistry lesson, skip on to the next post if it is too boring...

 

100% correct! All gasoline road vehicles have had fuel systems designed for E-10 going back at least to 2000. About the only downside is that it has poorer shelf life, if it's stored in a vented container. It can also be a problem in older equipment such as lawn equipment, generators, boats etc. where the manufactures didn't make the switch to ethanol compatibility as soon as the roadgoing manufacturers did.

All "the sky is falling" articles about ethanol? Unfortunately, one doesn't need to know anything to write an article. It's much better to get information from journals which are peer-reviewed, or papers from the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers).... people that actually know what they're talking about.

 

Just wait until these guys find out how many items we commonly use contain dihydrogen monoxide. This is why we can't have anything nice. Hahahahahaha

 

What post 20 said. I have had 25 H-D's from a 2000 on which include every engine H-D offers from the 883 through several 110's and two 120's/

I have put over 400K on them collectively and have only used E10 gas. Not one single issue ever.

Yes alcohol is corrosive to metal and swells rubber. However the various gasket and O rings have been modified for decades to be impervious to alcohol.

At the 10% level they do not wash the oil off of the cylinders like the larger mixes do. So the wear factor and corrosion factors do not incur.

MotoAmerica uses Sunoco race fuels which are spec'ed with alcohol. Why? Here is a quote from Kevin Cameron in the MotoAmerica 2016 official season guide on page 45 regarding alcohol in the fuel. "These compounds (alcohol)act as refrigerants having great ability to cool the fuel/air charge as they evaporate, thereby increasing it's density."

So much for wasting time and money to find "pure" gas. E10 will improve the the power output and assist in a cooler running engine. A cooler engine runs stronger and lasts longer.

Another fact. The so called "pure" gas at stations are priced about $0.30 more than E10. The wholesale price of E10 is higher as the alcohol is more costly. You are being ripped of by marketing geniuses.

I do two things however. First I only buy gas at high volume stations and install iridium plugs which ignite alcohol faster and easyier with a sharp concentrated spark from its tiny wire.

By the way as some have posted the picture of the O ring shows a mechanically torn O ring not one that was softened or dissolved.

 

There could be some issues, because the extra fuel required may exceed the range in which the ECM can self-adjust. If so, it should be fixable with a tune, or maybe Harley will come up with a downloadable tune that can be flashed into the ECM, like the ones they offer for their various engine upgrades. In other words, it shouldn't be a big deal.

The automotive engineering world already has tons of experience with Ethanol, partly because extremely high alcohol blends have been used for ages in Brazil. And even in the US.

Did you know that the original model T Ford was designed to run on both alcohol and gasoline? It was one of our early flex-fuel vehicles.

 

There's a lot of things that I can comment on regarding "ethanol" the EPA and the goddamned **** Government, but who really gives a flyin ****, right?
But in short, I will if not by the very least would like to point out that in 2012, a study by Auto Alliance showed that some cars (model years 2001 to 2009) showed internal engine damage as the result of using an ethanol fuel blend.
Damage to the valves and valve seats was evident in some of the cars tested. One of the 16 cars in the Auto Alliance study failed emissions compliance standards, which means it emitted more pollution than allowed by the EPA.
And the best part's that E10 and E15 gets worse mileage than traditional fuel which counteracts the benefits of diluting it in the first place.
So why are we payin more for this crap? Ha ha!

 

Unfortunately it is more for the corn farmers than efficiency or benefit to the environment. There are chemicals, cheaper, and more readily produced that far exceed Ethanol to do what they tell us they want Ethanol in our gas to do. But there are not a million or two farmers (who vote) standing in congressmen's office wanting them to push using those chemicals.

Actually, it is not really harmful in the metallic parts of our engines, as it is just another fuel component. It does work on the plastic (rubber and all of the variants of rubber) parts if they are not made out of the right kinds of plastic.

 

agreed.
Using a quality fuel stabilizer will keep the alcohol from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, which will allow for proper combustion and maintain better performance and engine longevity.