100LL Avgas smells AWESOME. You can really tell when it’s being used, once you’ve seveloped a memory of it…especially on a cold start, with a certain amount of raw gas escaping the exhaust.
Every so often, at a “classic” car show, I get a whiff…and think, “I know what YOU’RE up to, bud!”
I spent the spring and part of summer rebuilding the carbs on my motorcycle that sat idle from Dec 2012 to Apr 2014. It had stabilizer in it but not the stuff specifically formulated for ethanol gas. I’ve done this kind of thing before with no ill effects on cars, motorcycles, boats you name it. Anyway, these carbs were completely gummed up. Nothing would budge on them and it took complete disassembly and long soaks in carb cleaner to get them back in shape. The gas absolutely stunk like varnish in the tank.
About the same time, I moved a car that had sat for a year. Floats stuck in carb, gas shooting up out the breather ports like geysers…
I don’t want to burst your bubble about your highs while sniffing gas but…
Because the fumes contain heavier then air properties, that can’t be good.
I have substituted diesel oil. Not quite as bad.
Feeral law required leaded gasolines be colored, hence the old term " white gas " for unleaded back in the day that we used in Coleman stoves and lanterns. Amoco high test was unleaded in the 50s and 60s and also clear.
I was born in the early 70’s but I do remember every time we went to filler up, my brother always hung his head out the window taking in the gasoline scents. I do remember the smell being a bit stronger then. I still love the smell of gasoline. It takes me back to road trips going to south Carolina.
"I If you remember the Esso Tiger and the Sinclair Dinosaur and the “man who wears the big, bright, Texaco star”, you will know what I’m talking about…) "
I vaguely remember seeing those and I wish I remembered more. I think I was too young to pay attention but I’ve heard others say gasoline doesn’t smell as good now as it did then.
Like I said, I still love the smell of it, hence my name!
I love the smell of gasoline, jet fuel, hypoid oil, and assorted other fuels and lubricants also.
One thing you do not want as far as gasoline smells is that it be too heavy. That smell is gasoline vapors which can be easily ignited from a microscopic sized spark discharged from clothing or an electrical device being turned on or triggered.
Quite a few years back a couple of oil field company employees were working on a tanker truck that had been drained. The cause of the explosion was never known but was believed to have been due to a spark from welding.
The roughly 10k square foot building, the truck, and both of the employees were obliterated. Tools and body parts were found several hundred yards away from where the building was located.
Kaboom! I grew up a few blocks from an oil refinery that had a couple of bad accidents. The explosions could be felt in every part of my body. The eeriest was when a ship full of fertilizer blew up in LA Harbor, about fifteen miles away. We couldn’t really hear the explosion very well, but we could very easily feel it as a wave of pressure. We all immediately knew something serious had just happened, though we couldn’t describe what we had felt. Weird.
Oh, and I am glad gas stations capture the fumes so don’t smell like they do. It wasn’t a bad smell, but I can’t think it was great to be breathing the stuff.
I know what you mean, Cam 2 and other off road fuels might smell how you remember. I think it has to do with different additives. When I go visit family in the Appalachians the gas smells different and i get better mileage because it has less or no ethanol. the winter additives in that area are also a factor.