Old Petrol Cans - Empty for 4 Years, Safe?

[Housey]

The jerry cans I have are 20L cans and I put about 19 in each one. I then put 1 into the car, but have a funnel with filter, which was good as there were 4 or 5 bits of 'stuff' in there, but all looked clean and good outside of those.

I wanted to run the car up and down a private road, hence why I wanted it. I could tank it up on the trailer but that would go quickly so still need spare and the car was virtually empty so it made sense to top it as it makes putting it on and off the trailer easier.

 

[Housey]

Did you get the MX5 engine rebuilt at Blink Motorsport in the end Housey? Happy with the work?

I emailed you.

 

[Housey]

Give the rubber seals on the caps a quick visual check to make sure they're not perished

They were in good shape surprisingly

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

Maybe slightly OT as the OP has not said he wishes to store this fuel... but, is it not the case that petrol goes off quite quickly when stored?... even for short periods, like a couple of months or so?

Well, many moons ago I dad to phone up my dad because it was midnight and I'd run out of fuel. I was expecting to leave the car and sort it out in the morning, but he turned up with a 5 litre plastic petrol container.

It turns out the fuel had been in our shed for 5 years. Now if there was any performance loss this was more then offset by the face the fuel was proper 4 star because the only issue I noticed was a lot of exhaust smoke. This might have been because of the age of the fuel but I think it's more likely it had something to do with the 2 stroke oil!

EDIT: Disclaimer, using old fuel with 2 stoke oil in might damage the complex sensors, fuel injection, catalytic converter and all the other crap that wasn't fitted to my 1987 Polo, who knows it might even [expletive denoting intercourse] up the electric windows.