Re: (ReacTor) Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech

Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:

On 5/15/24 13:22, Scott Lurndal wrote:

BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:

On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
 

 
[stuff deleted]
 

 
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_
(1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
 

 
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas
goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has
not been treated, it will not start the saw.
 
I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.

 
Well, I can vouch for 4 year old gas - we just started the
'74 450SL in the barn which hadn't been started since
March 2020 - all it took was a new battery and it purred
like a 70's kitten.

 
Interesting. Was this a gasoline or diesel Mercedes? I think diesel
lasts longer.

 
Gasoline.  The tank was close to full.

Every year, I have to mothball my lawn tractor and my snowblower (at
opposite times,
obviously). Current practice is to add some gas preserver (isopropyl
alcohol), and fill
up the tank.

Filling reduces the headspace, and so the amount of humid air to condense
water
out of, and the preserver allows what water does get in to dissolve into
the gas,
rather than sink to the bottom .

Pt