Hey,
I just wanted to know if Methonol and Ethonol alcohol is similar? I looked on a bottle of Methlylated Spirits and contains 96% ethonol. It had on the back of teh label, can be used as Fuel. I also heard that these two chemicals (Methonol and Ethonol) are both very similar.

Could I use ethonol or even add it to my car fuel? I havn't done it yet so dont worry but I wanna know is it safe?

Methanol will cause blindness when imbibed, enthanol will cause you to get blind drunk if used in excess.

What they mean by fuel is as in "burning". Meths is often used for food warmers etc. Meths will mess up the fuel for your car or plane as it has water in it.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

The fuel for your engine is designed to run on Methanol, not Ethanol. Whether or not there is some water present is irrelevant, Ethanol won't work. Although these two alcohols are in the same class of compounds (simple aliphatic alcohols) their chemical behavior is somewhat different. You won't get the appropriate ignition at the glow plug and combustion in the engine will not be sustained.

Ross

Thanks Ross.
What would actually happen if I added Ethonol to normal glow fuel? Will it have any effect or no effect?
I know its stupid questions are all we talked about here, but Im just curious in how our little engines will behave...

Cheers!

I have never tried it but I suspect that the addition of a fairly small quantity of ethanol (5-10%) would have little effect other than making it run a little rich - ethanol requires more air for combustion. At higher concentrations, I suspect that the engine would run very roughly and not run at all once the concentration got too high. I don't know where the limit would be reached - it would vary as a function of engine temperature, glow plug heat range and compression.

Ross

It will not work.