What Irked You Today?

[mike 51]

^^^

They are not looking for drugs when they swabbed  your hands/handles...they are looking for (traces of)explosives  or  for weapons.

Edited May 23, 2018 by mike 51

[crazyjim]

Went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have a hernia.  looks like surgery coming up.

[cobraman]

Sorry to hear that Jim.

[cobraman]

Today I spent almost 3 hours in a book store. My wife is a big fan of a show called " Little People, Big World". Matt Rollof who wrote the book was having a reading and a book signing in Surprise. Wife wanted to go so with the promise of a nice lunch off we went. So many people showed up they ran out of books. Wife scored a book so we had to wait through the entire thing. She  got a couple pics and a book for our grandchild ( we dont have one yet ). She is happy so as bored as I was I guess it was worth it. He is a pretty nice guy.

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, cobraman said:

... She is happy so as bored as I was I guess it was worth it. He is a pretty nice guy.

Sounds like you're a pretty nice guy too.  

[oldnslow]

Kitchen sink backed up last night , just before bed , down this morning but real slow , time to drag out the snake . 

[cobraman]

Gas prices !  They have been climbing a bunch lately. Went to gas up my truck this morning and it was up to 305.9.  Probably more in other parts of the country. What are you paying ? Luckily for me I had fuel points from where we get our groceries and saved 80 cents per gallon.

[Tom Geiger]

5 minutes ago, cobraman said:

Gas prices !  They have been climbing a bunch lately. Went to gas up my truck this morning and it was up to 305.9.  

Here in Pennsylvania  regular was $309.9 yesterday.  

Funny thing is that the news was reporting that gas prices were up so Memorial Day Weekend could be a disaster for shore businesses!  Imagine that, people who would give up a weekend at the beach because gas jumped ten cents a gallon!    I think not.

[crazyjim]

Citrus County, FL is about $2.83 and a couple more miles puts you in Marion County with prices of $2.75.  AAA has predicted that Memorial Day weekend travel will be down by millions of drivers because gas prices are going up.  Something about having to switch over to summer blend gasoline.  We use Wal-Mart cards for gas and get a $0.05 discount for every gallon.

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, Tom Geiger said:

Here in Pennsylvania  regular was $309.9 yesterday.  

Funny thing is that the news was reporting that gas prices were up so Memorial Day Weekend could be a disaster for shore businesses!  Imagine that, people who would give up a weekend at the beach because gas jumped ten cents a gallon!    I think not.

HOLY CRAMOLEY !!!   Three hundred bucks a gallon? Yeah, THAT would put a little crimp in my travel plans.  

[High octane]

Gas is up here also as my better half was complaining that it was $51.10 to fill up the tank in her car. I didn't tell her that I had spent $40 the day before for just a half a tank of premium for my ride.

[peteski]

19 hours ago, crazyjim said:

Something about having to switch over to summer blend gasoline. 

You brought up something that really irks me!  In the Spring gas prices are going up because of the switch to the Summer Blend. In the Fall gas prices go up because they are switching to the Winter Blend!  WTF!

What exactly are they blending into gas (other than the 10% ethanol which is ruining gas already)?  Do we really need all those custom blends?  40 years ago nobody ever heard of seasonal blends. Even if they were doing that already, the price fluctuations were not blamed on the blends. It is all just a bunch of malarkey if you ask me.

Ethanol (alcohol) started getting added to gas I think in the '90s or early 2000s (when the oil prices went through the roof.  But now with th eoil prices back to reasonable, they should stop adding ethanol to gas - make it pure gasoline again for better gas mileage.

Yet another silly think is that with 10% of alcohol in gas nowadays why would anybody buy and add "gas dry" or "gasoline anrifreeze" additives, which are just alcohol too?  The 10% ethanol gasoline is already pretty immune to freezing up due to water int he gas.

Edited May 28, 2018 by peteski

[crazyjim]

Don't shoot the messenger, Peter.  I only reported from an article in our local paper about rising gas prices.

[peteski]

17 hours ago, crazyjim said:

Don't shoot the messenger, Peter.  I only reported from an article in our local paper about rising gas prices.

That wasn't directed at you personally - you are not responsible for the Summer-blend gasoline production. It was a generic rant towards the big-oil companies.

[Jim N]

The reason for the seasonal blends of gasoline can be placed at the feet of the good old federal government (EPA) and their pollution requirements.  The oil companies would not do this unless they had to.  Beyond this, the oil markets are rigged.  When I used to read articles about the price of oil, one day supplies are plentiful and prices are trending down.  Then a few days later supplies are restricted and prices are now trending up.  No one seems to know, but they have no problems making things up.  Or worse, they know what is occurring but will not tell the truth.  Then of course there will always be a crown prince from an oil producing country who will wake up with a spastic colon and oil prices will shoot up 30%.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I remember the seasonal price spikes being blamed on "changing blends" mumbo-jumbo from at least 50 years back, with my old man carping about the same thing. Remarkably, prices always seemed to go up just prior to a lotsa-driving holiday. The seasonal blending then had to do with tinkering with evaporation temperatures so engines would start easier in cold weather, and so fuel would be more resistant to vapor-lock in hot weather. Cold starting with high percentages of alcohol can also be an issue.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[High octane]

Choke, choke as I got my credit card bill today, and I guess the last month was an expensive one. And I have to pay my property taxes also real soon. Seems like at times the money trickles in and just "flows" out.

[Tom Geiger]

5 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I remember the seasonal price spikes being blamed on "changing blends" mumbo-jumbo from at least 50 years back, with my old man carping about the same thing. 

The way it should work...  (from foggy old memory) in a refinery, there is a refractionary tower with trays that catch the different products as they rise in the tower after being exposed to heat and catalyst.  That gives us the "heavy ends" and "light ends" of oil products.  At the bottom is  asphalt and other solid muck, followed by diesel fuel and home heating oil.  Up the column are lighter products like gasoline and near the top is aviation fuel.   A barrel of oil will give the same mix of products.  

So in the winter, the demand is for heavy ends like home heating oil.  So the light ends, gasoline is sold cheaper to get rid of it.

In the summer, gasoline is more desirable, so home heating oil is sold at a discount.

 

 

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

58 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

The way it should work...  (from foggy old memory) in a refinery, there is a refractionary tower with trays that catch the different products as they rise in the tower after being exposed to heat and catalyst.  That gives us the "heavy ends" and "light ends" of oil products.  At the bottom is  asphalt and other solid muck, followed by diesel fuel and home heating oil.  Up the column are lighter products like gasoline and near the top is aviation fuel.   A barrel of oil will give the same mix of products.  

So in the winter, the demand is for heavy ends like home heating oil.  So the light ends, gasoline is sold cheaper to get rid of it.

In the summer, gasoline is more desirable, so home heating oil is sold at a discount.

 

 

 

You're exactly correct as far as you go, but "gasoline" is actually a blend of several "-anes"...like octane, alkane, heptane, isobutane etc., as well as some "-enes". "Aviation" fuel is simply a very high percentage of octane. A small percentage of tetraethyl lead USED to be added to lower-grade fuels to mimic the higher-octane-content of more expensive grades, but this has been eliminated for the most part.

These products of the distillation of crude stocks are blended to get specific combustion characteristics in engines, including anti-knocking, easy starting in cold weather, and resistance to vapor lock in hot weather. https://newsroom.aaa.com/2013/06/what-is-the-difference-between-summer-and-winter-blend-gasoline/

Also see:    https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-consumption/summer-fuel.htm

And ONE reason motor fuel is more expensive than it used to be is because lead can no longer be used to boost octane ratings, so a smaller percentage of a barrel of crude is available to produce high-grade fuel.

Different grades of crude will also yield their fractionated components in varying proportions. 

"Light sweet crude" with a low sulfur content is the most in-demand of the crude oils, as it contains a disproportionately large fraction that is directly processed into motor fuels.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[peteski]

5 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

You're exactly correct as far as you go, but "gasoline" is actually a blend of several "-anes"...like octane, alkane, heptane, isobutane etc., as well as some "-enes". "Aviation" fuel is simply a very high percentage of octane. A small percentage of tetraethyl lead USED to be added to lower-grade fuels to mimic the higher-octane-content of more expensive grades, but this has been eliminated for the most part.

These products of the distillation of crude stocks are blended to get specific combustion characteristics in engines, including anti-knocking, easy starting in cold weather, and resistance to vapor lock in hot weather. https://newsroom.aaa.com/2013/06/what-is-the-difference-between-summer-and-winter-blend-gasoline/

Also see:    https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-consumption/summer-fuel.htm

And ONE reason motor fuel is more expensive than it used to be is because lead can no longer be used to boost octane ratings, so a smaller percentage of a barrel of crude is available to produce high-grade fuel.

Different grades of crude will also yield their fractionated components in varying proportions. 

"Light sweet crude" with a low sulfur content is the most in-demand of the crude oils, as it contains a disproportionately large fraction that is directly processed into motor fuels.

Thanks Bill. So there is really something to this Summer Blend stuff. I don't recall price of gas dropping when going back to the Winter Blend.  Also, info from those websites seems to confuse things even more.  One of the sites states:  The difference between summer- and winter-blend gasoline involves the Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) of the fuel. RVP is a measure of how easily the fuel evaporates at a given temperature. The more volatile a gasoline (higher RVP), the easier it evaporates.

The other one states: In order to reduce pollution, summer-blend fuels use different oxygenates, or fuel additives. These blends, the EPA claims, burn cleaner and also help compensate for a limited oil supply.

Which is it? Oxygenates or RVP?

My car uses the lowest (87) octane gas with up to 10% Ethanol (alcohol) in it. That should be super-cheap!

I also thought that the lead in gasoline (which was called "regular gas" after unleaded gas was introduced) was not to increase the octane rating but to lubricate engine's valve seals.  That is why cars with older engines should run on today's unleaded gas with lead additive added.

[Mark]

4 hours ago, peteski said:

I also thought that the lead in gasoline (which was called "regular gas" after unleaded gas was introduced) was not to increase the octane rating but to lubricate engine's valve seals.  That is why cars with older engines should run on today's unleaded gas with lead additive added.

No, the lead was added to increase the octane rating, to allow higher compression ratios.  One article I read awhile back stated that this could have been accomplished by adding alcohol to the gasoline (as is done now).  But the lead was chosen because it could be patented as an additive, while the alcohol blend could not...

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, peteski said:

 

...I also thought that the lead in gasoline (which was called "regular gas" after unleaded gas was introduced) was not to increase the octane rating but to lubricate engine's valve seals.  That is why cars with older engines should run on today's unleaded gas with lead additive added.

 

While the intended purpose of adding lead was not to lubricate valve seats, it was a beneficial side-effect.

When lead was first removed from motor fuels, some engines that were built with non-hardened valve seats experienced severe erosion of the seats, with the valves literally machining themselves into recesses.

Depending on the head material, several means of seat hardening can be used to prevent this, from local induction hardening of the seat areas in cast iron, to machining and installation of hard seat inserts in ferrous as well as non-ferrous heads. Non-ferrous heads, of course, have always required seat inserts made from a harder material.

Lead additives, as you mention, can also be beneficial for protecting older engines from valve seat erosion.

This is a good illustration of valve seat erosion, or "recession", where the exhaust valve has worn itself into a recess in the seat: 

   

Here are some vale-seat inserts for various applications. The head is machined slightly undersized, and the inserts are "shrunk" in by being chilled, with the head warmed. They are final-machined after the temperature stabilizes.

                                                             

As far as the "vapor-pressure" question goes, this was the reason fuel manufacturers themselves began changing fuel blends seasonally, prior to any government intervention.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[crazyjim]

AAA announced today in our local paper that gas prices would be going down because Russia and Saudi Arabia will be raising their reserve capacity.

[High octane]

1 hour ago, crazyjim said:

AAA announced today in our local paper that gas prices would be going down because Russia and Saudi Arabia will be raising their reserve capacity.

I don't believe everything I hear or read, and I wouldn't hold my breath that the gas prices will go down anytime soon.

[Rob Hall]

Gas prices always seem to go up in the summer, just the way it is, been that way as long as I've been driving.