Safety Alert

[J.B. Olmstead]

As most of you know , we at Action Karting sell quite a number of consignment karts.
Recently , a gentleman brought in a kart to sell that was equiped with a motor that ran on methenal alcohol , mounted on a fairly new kart with a plastic gas tank.
The tank was half full , the kart was on our sales floor for about 1 month before it got sold.
We decided to install new fuel lines ,when with the slightest pressure removing one of the lines from the tank , the whole side of the tank just shattered !
Upon inspection of the tank that looked for all practicality brand new , we found it to be brittle and could be crushed as easy as a saltine cracker !
I can only immagine what terrible concequences may have occured if that kart had been driven with that tank !
Apparently the alcohol destroyed the polimers in the plastic .
If there is any one out there who is using a plastic tank for your alcohol burning motors , I suggest you change to a metal tank.
Regards J.B.

[Rodney Ebersole]

Thanks for the warning JB. I will take a closer look at my 12 year old plastic tank that I have been using meth in. I don’t dought there could be a problem, yet a few other things could be mentioned. I dought you have any idea of what other than pure meth fuel was in that tank over the years of it’s life. I am sure that plastic tanks are still safe for methenol use yet your point of checking mine and others tanks for brittleness needs to be done. Meth should not be left in either aluminum or plastic tank that is ventelated like our kart tanks are. Yet I am guilty of this bad practice, and do know that my tank hasn’t had just pure meth in it through out it’s life.:)
Maybe there is differant ratings on these plastic tanks that I am not aware of?

[J.B. Olmstead]

Since my post , I’ve gotten feed-back indicating that the cause of the brittleness would most likely be caused by the uv rays from the sun , rather than the methenol !
Perhaps one of you scientists could shed more light on this !
J.B.

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