"The largest concern to bio-ethanol is water. Ethanol and water are simply not compatible. It takes a small amount of water to cause what is known as “phase separation”.
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When water does contaminate ethanol blended fuel, the water dissolves into the ethanol and disperses throughout the tank. Once it exceeds its maximum tolerance, the alcohol/water mixture will separate from the fuel. As little as 50mm of water in a 38,000 litre tank can start phase separation."
Ethanol is bad stuff and should not be allowed in our tanks.
It is the Ethanol. But it is the other way 'round. Ethanol and Water are very compatible ... more so than Gas and Ethanol are, so water dissolves the alky and pulls it out of the gas. In the old days when gasohol was new and you were having issues one of the tests is to add a set amount of water to a certain level of gas, and then shake well. After sitting for a few minutes you note the water level is now higher than it was before and how much higher is a tell for how much alcohol is in the fuel. Heet deicer is simply Isopropyl that mixes with the water in your gas (it gets in there pretty much everywhere from humidity) to prevent it from freezing and so it "burns" better.
At work , we do burn testing on the fire fireghting foam we make and we have had to start buying Racing Gas (100 unleaded) so we can be certain it has no ethanol in it. Food as fuel is a stupid thing to be doing and we need to stop (and more and more bipartisan support for repeal is building) so it can be used as food again (or its best use as whiskey and beer)
I would go get either the afore mentioned EvapoRust or Metal Rescue (I have the Rescue stuff ... Got it from Home Depot iirc) and soak the tanks and let it work. Needs to be warm (above 65 degrees) but I have used it a couple of times and it works great. I have a tank on the CB400T that I should do it on, but I need a different style as the forks interfere with my mods so I haven't done it. I have gotten non-alkied gas in Wisconsin (Premium from Kwik-Trip) and Oklahoma (various places, Phillips 66 especially) and I get 50 mpg vs the 44 I get otherwise.
For treatment get something that treats the ethanol (I use Stabil's version, not the red stuff, the blue and Lucas Oil has a version as well.) looks near the Marine stuff especially as they sit more so are more affected by the horrid gas corn fuel is.
