Sciencemadness Discussion Board - New synthesis of Ethanol

New synthesis of Ethanol

Picric-A - 2-5-2008 at 11:32

I have just thought of a way to make pure (anhydrous) ethanol from nail polish remover.
THis ethanol is not to drink, it is just a usefull solvent in all aspects of chemistry.
First Ethyl Acetate (acetone free nail polish remover) is reacted with Sodium Hydroxide to produce ethanol and Sodium Acetate. Use Sodium hydroxide in exess so you make shure all the ethyl acetate is used up.
CH3CO2C2H5 + NaOH → C2H5OH + CH3CO2Na
Then simply add water to remove esters that may be produced (i thknk...) and distill to get rid off sodium acetate and other gunk that could be in the nail polish remover.

Does this look feasable? i guess it would be cheaper than buying vodka and distilling it which is what i do at the moment.

any imput welcome,

DJF90 - 2-5-2008 at 11:51

There are problems with that method. First off you need to introduce the sodium hydroxide as a solution, and so water becomes part of the mixture, meaning that the alcohol is not anyhdrous, and a fractionation column would be needed to seperate out most of the water from the formed ethanol.

A large aount of sodium hydroxide solution is needed in comparison to the amount of ester you're going to hydrolyse as the hydroxide should be fairly dilute (about 1-2M) to reduce the amount of damage that could occur to the glassware (sodium hydroxide doesnt like glass much when its hot or concentrated). This means that to hydrolise the EtOAc you need a big flask, at least if you're doing it in meaningful amounts.

Even if you can get lab grade EtOAC (I've seen it priced at about £15 for 2.5ltrs) after the energy bill to heat the reaction mixture its cheaper to just buy the cheapest vodka you can (£7 a liter is about as good as it gets here) and distill that.

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 13:01

Not to mention that most nail polish removers (all that I have seen) contain a whole bunch of other shit besides ethyl acetate. Methyl/butyl acetate, propylene glycol and various other esters and solvents. So, at best it would be contaminated with MeOH and BuOH and MeOH cannot be removed with conventional lab equipment and techniques.

I also don't understand why anyone would distill EtOH from vodka when grain alcohol is already 95%, decently pure and much cheaper (per unit of EtOH) than any other liquor.

Why vodka? Why?

EDIT
Not to mention EtOAc seems to be cheap and readily available in my area. Certainly it must be almost as easy to obtain in other areas. Well, at least if you look well.

[Edited on 5-2-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

Polverone - 2-5-2008 at 13:22

Some locales don't permit the sale of azeotropic grain alcohol (Everclear, etc.). If it's not available nearby, distilling from the next-strongest source of unadulterated ethanol may be the best option.

DJF90 - 2-5-2008 at 13:35

Thanks polverone. We don't have grain alcohol over here in the UK, and if we do I've never seen it. I think the strongest alcoholic beverage I have seen in the supermarkets is vodka, which would be the most economic thing to distil the ethanol out of right?

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 13:43

Supermarkets?? Wow, just 5 years ago my state got the balls to start allowing wine sales at grocery stores. Gas stations: beer/flavored drinks only grocery stores: beers and wine only. The ONLY place allowed to sell liquor (except restaurants and bars) is liquor stores here.

What's the rationale for not selling Everclear (I buy Gem Clear which is much cheaper at less than $15 a liter. Still expensive, though, because of the liquor tax)?

I just don't understand why not.

I wonder how illegal it would be to ship liquor from the US to the UK or vice versa?

DJF90 - 2-5-2008 at 14:22

Thats an interesting thought. It might not be illegal, so long as the correct tax is paid on it... I think the main problem is that we dont have liquor stores or an equivalent

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 14:28

I know Absinthe can be shipped legally from the UK to the US.

The US (or my state at least) just recently started allowing a drink with wormwood (sort of like alcoholic Red Bull is what it tasted like to me) to be sold.

DJF90 - 2-5-2008 at 14:35

Yeah absinthe could be purchased here, havent seen it in the shop but I know its available online

Thing is that its more expensive than just buying the cheapest vodka available and distilling it. Methylated spirits is a much better bet, as it its cheap and readily available in the hardware stores, but a good fractionation column is needed to provide adequate separation. Still purchasing glassware in portions off of ebay, just need a condensor and a receiver bend and I shall be sorted, already got a 45cm vigreux (fairly cheap too

)

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 18:11

I don't think even a "good" column would acheive decent separation of EtOH and MeOH with just one distillation. You'd probably need several even with an extremely efficient setup.

I found a 300mm Vigreux for 23USD. Is that good?

DJF90 - 2-5-2008 at 18:14

Yeh I would think so... Over here a brand new 300mm vigreux with 24/29 joints is in excess of £60 ($90?)

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 18:26

That's more like $118 USD. $23 USD is about 11.66 pounds.

[Edited on 5-2-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

chemrox - 2-5-2008 at 21:45

EtOH is routinely mixed with MeOH here to make "denatured alcohol." The reason is its very difficult to separate the two. Distilling nail polish, ethylacetate, liquor, all seem extremely costly compared with brewing the stuff from grain, sugar, and/or dried fruit. If its that hard to get where you are, can you get E85 fuel? With that you can separate the alcohol (I think).

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 21:58

E85 still has 15% gasoline which is all kinds of crap.

Fermentation requires some knowhow and an initial investment. Distilling liquor would be simpler for small amounts, IMO. Even if you can't get PGA (pure grain alcohol).

I remember back when I was a teenager I used to drink PGA straight, occasionally. We used it as a dare sometimes. Or something you had to do if you lost a bet. As in, "when we drink tonight, you have to drink PGA straight if you ..."

Some people are dumb and don't realize that a shot of PGA contains the same amount of alcohol as 3 shots of normal liquor. Then they proceed to drink the same volume of PGA that they would normal liquor. A friend of mine did that and almost died. He turned gray. How can people be so ignorant?

EDIT
Chemrox, I think that is the way most EtOH is denatured. EtOH denatured with MeOH is very common.

[Edited on 5-2-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

evil_lurker - 2-5-2008 at 22:15

Speaking from experience, you need at least a 300mm packed hempel to get even halfway decent seperation from 40% alcohol.. even then you'd do good to average 85-88% over the course of a second run.

A 300mm vigreux would do good to hit 80% IMO.

MagicJigPipe - 2-5-2008 at 22:27

Well, then why can't someone just supply pure grain alcohol? If I thought it would be perfectly legal I would do it. But the alcohol laws in this country are so complex and convoluted one would almost need a lawyer to do it right.

Damn congress and the ATF (BATFE? BATF? What the hell are they now, anyway? I think Sauron mentioned ATFE.)

It no longer includes "bureau" in the name? Is that some sort of lame attempt to distance itself from "bureaucracy"?

not_important - 2-5-2008 at 22:53

It's not just the US Federal government, although they do come into play for alcohol entering the USA and distillation (oops - and exporting http://www.ttb.gov/ ).

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_the_United_Stat... there are a number of state and local level laws.

Quote:

Florida
Sale, processing, or consumption of any liquor or spirit of greater than 153 proof is illegal.

West Virginia
6% ABV Cap on Beer. No Sunday liquor sales. No sale of 95% ABV spirits allowed in Morgantown or Huntington (and soon statewide).

MagicJigPipe - 3-5-2008 at 07:22

Oh, it's worse here. No Sunday alcohol sales, period. No liquor sales past 11 o'clock on weekdays and no beer sales past 1am on any day.

Only bars are allowed to sell alcohol on Sunday or past 1am. And even those places have some kind of Sunday limit I think. People actually make decent money here by buying alcohol and selling it to alcoholics and rich drinkers on Sunday for double to price.

The alcoholics usually don't think ahead and are out of alcohol on Sunday. The Sunday sellers take advantage of this fact.

I wonder how long until PGA is illegal here. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to buy a few gallons when I get the chance. It's basically the only source of 95% non-denatured EtOH available to the average citizen.

I did some reading and apparently very few exceptions are given for companies to avoid the liquor tax on pure EtOH. Apparently, even pharmaceutical companies must use denatured EtOH (to avoid the tax) for synthesis as long as it doesn't appear in the final product.

[Edited on 5-3-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

ShadowWarrior4444 - 3-5-2008 at 14:19

Quote:

Originally posted by MagicJigPipe
Supermarkets?? Wow, just 5 years ago my state got the balls to start allowing wine sales at grocery stores. Gas stations: beer/flavored drinks only grocery stores: beers and wine only. The ONLY place allowed to sell liquor (except restaurants and bars) is liquor stores here.

What's the rationale for not selling Everclear (I buy Gem Clear which is much cheaper at less than $15 a liter. Still expensive, though, because of the liquor tax)?

I just don't understand why not.

I wonder how illegal it would be to ship liquor from the US to the UK or vice versa?

I had asked someone knowledgeable in the topic why Everclear (Grain Alc. 95%) was not allowed to be sold in New York--the reason he stated was that too many people did not understand that it was not to be taken pure, and would get alcohol poisoning quite easily. A direct correlation was found between the sale of Everclear and deaths related to ethanol intoxication, so it was legislated.

He did indicate that while it was not sold in civilian liquor stores, military bases likely still carried it for sale on base, and any quartermaster should be able to requisition it. Though he seemed to think this may change soon as well.

Sauron - 4-5-2008 at 09:39

MJP, what makes you think absinthe can be shipped legally from anywhere into the US?

While absinthe is not illegal to possess in USA it is illegal to manufacture it, or import it. The FDA and ATFE frown on it. It is true that since the EU has legalized absinthe again, a lot of absinthe has been bootlegged into the US and no one has gotten very upset about it. But, that does not mean that it is legal to import.

Furthermore absinthe tends to be expensive.

I recommend 151 proof rum if yu can't get Everclear or Diesel or other 95% potable spirits in your state.

If you can't get that look for 100 proof vodka. Only then try the 80 proof vodka.

MagicJigPipe - 4-5-2008 at 11:07

I just assumed it was legal since it is advertised so blatantly in catalogs and such. I know just recently a friend of mine ordered it from a major catalog (it was a kit that came in a SS box with SS shotglasses and swizzlesticks I think). I hardly drink anymore but I did taste it and I must say it is definitely an aquired taste. Not bad, though, for "hard" liquor.

I could have sworn the "word around town" is that alcohol containing wormwood was "legal" again because of the new wormwood "beer" they started selling in my state. Perhaps it's on a product by product basis? Guess, I'll do some research on the FDA rulings.

ordenblitz - 4-5-2008 at 11:11

Has anyone here tried the proposed reaction: CH3CO2C2H5 + NaOH → C2H5OH + CH3CO2Na ?
I have, several times, in various concentrations with lab grade reagents and it did not work at all.

MagicJigPipe - 4-5-2008 at 13:06

I've often thought about this reaction as a way of getting relatively pure and cheap EtOH, however, the word is it is not practical. Never tried it...

I think you need water for the reaction to proceed.

Has anyone tried it?

shadow - 5-5-2008 at 03:39

After wasting many hours distilling liter after liter of 40 proof(20%) vodka, I finally switched to everclear 151 proof, 200 proof not being legal here, and had much better productivity. But, its $18 for 750 ml, nets around 566ml final product.
So for $32 and a couple of hours watching a thermometer, you might get a liter, if you keep it out of your face.
After reading this thread however, I'm not sure how pure it is, and may do density tests. I plan to purify it anyway, I need it dry.

[Edited on 5-5-2008 by shadow]

Pulverulescent - 5-5-2008 at 06:46

If by dry, you mean anhydrous, shadow, you're in for an uphill battle!

AFAIK, bits of calcium metal are required to remove the last 5% of H20!

Why would you want it dry, anyway?---Just curious?

P

unionised - 5-5-2008 at 06:59

Absinthe is a nice enough drink but a poor place to start if you want pure alcohol. It's got all sorts of stuff in it.

However, back at the topic, another potential pitfall of producing ethanol from ethyl acetate is the condensation of ethyl acetate with itself in strongly alkaline conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claisen_condensation

shadow - 5-5-2008 at 16:54

Pulver:
Well, I thought the first procedure in Vogel's didn't look to rough to get it up to 99.5% which was all I was looking for.
I was going to use it with suphuric acid for the production of ether to clean my glassware, but opted for the starting fluid route. (Thank you Len1)
So now that I'm not doing that, I need dry it up so that I would be afraid to put it in my orange juice which reduces yields.

Pulverulescent - 6-5-2008 at 03:59

My interest in et0H is quite narrow, shadow---blasting-caps and night-caps, in that order.

ScienceGeek's excellent online fulminate synth revived my childhood interest in MF.

Take a bow, SG!

Not having a fume-cupboard I'll end up intoxicated whichever way I use it!

Sho Scheerzz! (hic!)

P

Sauron - 6-5-2008 at 04:37

Woelen, surely you mean 80 proof (40%) vodka?

MagicJigPipe - 6-5-2008 at 07:46

That was shadow, not Woelen, BTW.

But I second Sauron's question. Would it truly be vodka if it was only 40 proof? That would almost be like a one of those girly drinks like Pucker or peppermint shnapps.

shadow - 6-5-2008 at 15:46

If you meant me, Dr. Sauron, I'm sure it was 40 proof. They sell it 1750 mls at a time for about $10 in every market and pharmacy in town.
I'll go check to make sure, but watching it go over sure was a waste of time.

Sauron - 6-5-2008 at 19:13

I was addressing woelen, but, if both of you say 40 proof/20% then maybe it is so. It's just that I have never seen vodka bottles at anything but 80 (formerly, 86) proof, and 100 proof.

The trend seems to be 700 ml bottling at 80 proof replacing 750 ml, and 80 proof replacing 86 proof some time ago. Whether this is being driven by the regulators to make their taxation arithmetic easier, or by chiseling distilleries, deponent knowetrh not. In my country it is now a criminal offense to import anything over 80 proof potable spirits. So no absinthe, no Chartreuse, no 151 rum, etc. The very last bottle of liquor anyone gave me prior to my going tea-total, four years ago, was a nice cask strength (93 degree) Armagnac - which I never opened.

Anyone wanting to obtain high proof neutral spirits for solvent use in jurisdictions where it is not readily available can either ferment mash himself, strip that to 40% or so, and fractionate from there. Or buy potable spirits, and fractionate those.

Vodka is best as it is already neutral.

Rum, cheap brandy, gin, whiskey etc can all be used. 151 rum is great if you can get it, as it is already 75% ethanol. In the case of gin you can remove a lot of the botanicals by treatment with activated carbon, either batchwise with powdered AC or in a fixed bed (long tube) with granular AC (GAC). This is also the method used by home distillers to polish their "vodka". Best done at about 50% ethanol/water.

Getting the neutral 95% ethanol to anhydrous is another matter and has been discussed extensively in other threads. It is only necessary if you need anhydrous ethanol.

In my locale I can buy Merck anhydrous ethanol, and I can buy denatured 95% ethanol, but the latter is loaded with MEK and god knows what else. It is OK for most recrystallizations.

[Edited on 7-5-2008 by Sauron]

MagicJigPipe - 6-5-2008 at 19:23

Wow, and I thought my state's liquor laws were bad.

Anyway, I wonder, is the normal 80 proof (I know Smirnoff and Absolut both make 100 proof vodkas) more expensive (per amount of EtOH) than this reduced strength 40 proof vodka? If not, why not just get the stronger stuff? Is hard liquor illegal or not allowed in your area?

I've often wondered how cost effective it would be to set up an EtOH "distillery". You know, to make it out of corn or something similar. Of course, there would be something illegal about it as it would be the clear eqivalent of "moonshine". Honestly, I don't really care. It just seems like it would be kind of a hassle to concentrate and purify the resulting EtOH. I've read a little bit about EtOH production but it was a long time ago. Perhaps that will be one of my projects I'll do in the future when I have more money and time. It certainly can't hurt if it's done "legally" or in absolute secrecy.

Does anyone have ANY experience with production of EtOH at home? Surely this has come up before. Time to UTCSE (UTcrappySE)!

[Edited on 5-6-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

Sauron - 6-5-2008 at 20:26

In Thailand it is all driven by the de facto monopoly of Suramaharaj Co., (King's Liquors) which used to be the concessionair of the royal monopoly (now discontinued). By a revolving door system this company keeps a tight grip on the Escise Department and that's what sets the regulations.

I tried to get into this racket to make absinthe for export, with heavy political backing, including the brother of the deputy director general of Excise, but it turned out that she was looking forward to a big consulting retainer from Suramaharaj when she retired - in other words, they bought her before we even put in a bid.

Meanwhile the Public Health Ministry has an anti-alcohol program going (the same hypocrisy goes on with regard to tobacco, which is grown here as well as imported). Whether the 80 proof limit is at the behest of the liquor monopoly or the PH people, I am not sure.

I am not the only one frozen out of the booze racket. Suntory of Japan in partnership with the Boonrawd Brewery folks wanted to set up a distillery to make Suntory here for export back to Japan. They got fucked too. Suntory imports Thai glutinous rice and ferments that to ethanol to make Suntory in Japan but they run afoul of the powerful rice farmer lobby and so they figured why not do the fermenting and distilling here? But, Suramaharaj blocked them. Welcome to Asia!

Bottom line, my former partner now makes Jade Absinthe (I named it) in France, and distributes it through a British company. I dropped out. We also investigated doing this in Laos (communists) or Cambodia (thugs) but then I determined that the real market for absinthe was about 10% of what I'd been led to expect, and thus not worth my while. So, adios.

I'm sure my former partner has a nice hobby, and makes a fine product. But he is not getting rich, even at $100 a bottle. Just not enough bottles moved for that.

MJP, there's a great deal of information about home fermentation and distilling of ethanol on the net, the best to my mind being my old pal Tony Ackland's website, Tony is an enthusiastic Kiwi chemical engineer and home distiller. New Zealand is one of the few places where this is legal.

Another old pal, Gert, in Malmo, Sweden, sells turbo yeasts for fermenting sugar-water and a variety of other substrates to concentrations as high as 20% (but getting much beyond 15% requires very efficient temperature control.) He also sells Rashig rings for column packing, and for the large semi-underground Scandiavian bootleg market, essences for flavoring vodka (including a horrible one for absinthe.) www.partyman.se. I am sure Gert has distributors for his yeasts in USA.

Fermenting is best done in a cool dark place. Fermenting in a tropical climate like mine requires cooling systems, and under he best of circumstances is a messy laborious, somewhat finicky process demanding attention to detail, cleanliness , and careful technique. In practice you need to keep microbial contamination to a minimum, that means cleaning up with biocides, but then you have to rigorously remove all traces of the biocide from the fermentation vessel or else they cheerfully kill the yeast! Biocides also are necessary to keep the yeast from overgrowing the entire area (floors, walls, ceilings, furniture) and again, protecting the fermentation vessels from contamination with biocides. Bacteria are an enemy as they multiply much faster than yeast and love sugar water. So do insects. Sound like fun? Welcome to Biotechnology 101. A microbiology lab is de rigeur for keeping track of what is going on in your ferments and environment. You will have airborne yeast and airborne bacteria in absundance.

[Edited on 7-5-2008 by Sauron]

Sauron - 7-5-2008 at 09:25

The Tony Ackland website is

http://homedistiller.org/intro.htm

Very valuable information there.

Twospoons - 7-5-2008 at 15:08

I'll second Sauron's link - some excellent info there that I've used to great effect. Building an alcohol still is fairly easy. I used a stainless stock pot and put a jug element in the bottom. For a reflux column I used a 250ml measuring cylinder, with a hole bored in the bottom (diamond holesaw), packed with knitted copper mesh and siliconed to the potlid. An adjustable reflux head was built from odd bits of broken glassware (I save the ground joints) and creatively applied MAPP gas and silicone

.
28L of wash, fermented from 7kg of sugar, yielded roughly 5l of spirit at an estimated 90%. Didn't bother to measure the conc - I dilute by taste!
Copper mesh works very well as column packing. Copper is also supposed to destroy any sulphur compounds coming off the wash.

Sauron - 7-5-2008 at 20:20

A couple of tips:

1. There's an awful lot of dormant yeast that settles out of the mash, and even after you filter or decant the mash will continue to throw more. Removing the dormant yeast is important because it is a source of diacetyl off slavors if it is overheated in distillation.

2. As any confectioner will tell you, sugar-water loves to boil over, and mash stiull contains enough unfermented sugar to do the same. This can be very sticky and messy, be prepared.

Twospoons' estimated yield of 5 liters 90% from 28 L mash is about right, it means he got the mach to about 16% abv or a little better which is normal. With special yeasts and expensive equipment it is possible to get to 20% but honestly, it is not worth the trouble and expense to get 6 L instead of 5 L. At those levels the heat of fermentation is such that it has to be removed by external cooling (or internal cooling coils) with good engineering to hold temperature constant +/- 1 C or so. This costs money.

I also recommend the website of a company called Louisville Brass & Copper if you want to see how real distillers, even microdistillers, do it with commercial copper stills from 5 liters to 200 liters, and on up to proper massive industrial setups.

Contrabasso - 7-5-2008 at 21:28

Is the commercial formation of anhydrous alcohol not done in the gas phase? by catalysis?

Distillation of fermentation mash can get stuck at the azeotrope point. Be very careful that absolute alcohol in the UK is produced by the addition of benzene - leaving a benzene trace in the alcohol.

Sauron - 8-5-2008 at 00:55

As a practical matter one never distills straight from mash (16% or so) to high proof spirits, you first strip the mash, then polish the ethanol/water mixture with GAC to remove gross congeners, then distill the 50% or so to high proof, which is at best the azeotrope.

The use of the ternary azeotrope with benzene to break the azeotrope is one method of producing anhydrous ethanol but such ethanol is no longer potable.

The azeotrope can be dehydrated with molecular sieves, corn meal, calcium oxide, etc. But no one bothers to take ethanol to anhydrous state for drinking purposes, there's no point. Anhydrous ethanol is a solvent or reagent only, and for that purpose, the trace of benzene from the ternary azeotrope technique is not usually a problem.

Just don't use that ethanol to make Purple Passion punch.

MagicJigPipe - 8-5-2008 at 03:25

I couldn't even imagine attempting to consume 100% EtOH (you're not even supposed to consume 95% and THAT is a hard burden to bear, especially if you're no longer a teenager

).

Did I mention that there is actually a Sunday alcohol market in my area where people buy alcohol during the week and sell it at nearly double the price on Sundays? Alcoholics LOVE Everclear (most bang for the buck) and it would probably be profitable to sell the EtOH on Sundays for an awesome profit here. Unfortunately, I consider that no different than peddling pure meth so I won't have any returns but...

EtOH production sounds very cool to me. Thanks for the link, Sauron. I do believe this will be one of my projects in the near future! (I mean, no it won't, that would be illegal...)

I have a strong interest in setting up dedicated "stills" and such for the synthesis of certain compounds (my next project is to set up a dedicated sodium benzoate/base to benzene "still"). It's just awesome to know that, no matter what, I can always have benzene, EtOH etc... whenever I need it.

OT
Speaking of which, has anyone else in the US noticed that benzene seems about as hard to get as 55 gallon drums of phenylacetone (not that I've tried but I can imagine)? What the hell is up with that? I mean, cigarettes and gasoline are still around and they cause cancer! I don't know, it just seems like everyone is WAY too paranoid. I thought I scored once with this Canadian company but, in the end, they told me that they could not ship benzene to the US. I mean, for a chemical so widely used in industry (styrene production) it is exeedingly difficult to obtain. Hell, until I get my benzene "still" set up I would be willing to pay HAZMAT charges for it...

[Edited on 5-8-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

shadow - 8-5-2008 at 04:06

Jig,

Here's 1of 4 listings from chemsavers. Their ACS is $35 + shipping. However they seem to be out of stock on all 4. They sent me a liter a couple months ago.

Benzene
71-43-2
Grade Purity DOT Formula View
for organic residue extraction (GC) min. 99.5 % Benzene, 3, UN1114, II, ORM-D. C6H6

Size Price Shipping
1L $48.99 $10.50
500mL $32.62 $8.50

Did you get your car fixed?
Using a DVOM at the starter will tell you if you are getting current from the ignition switch. If not, it could be the switch.
Same thing at the headlights. Pull off the connector and make sure current is not getting to front. If its not, check for continuity from the fuse and then the relay to the light connector.

[Edited on 8-5-2008 by shadow]

MagicJigPipe - 8-5-2008 at 07:23

Yes, I finally just said "fuck it" and rigged a switch that ran from the positive terminal of the battery to the the starter and then into the car (to switch it on). I did the same with the headlights. Now, basically I have a push button switch in the car to activate the starter and a toggle switch for the headlights. I made it look as professional as I could. It's not bad, I can live with it. I mean, I'm probably gonna drive it 'til it falls apart anyway (I'm not going to sell it). That way I can take the A/C and various fans and the radiator/condenser out for lab use once it's no longer drivable.

Oh yeah, I figured out it was most likely the ignition or the wires. Both of those things I really didn't want to mess with replacing. I mean, everything works fine now and I only spent $15 (I had most of the wires and electronics tools already).

I'm sorry, but $60 for a liter of benzene is insane. Did you say it was ACS Reagent? If it is I suppose that's okay, but I really don't need reagent grade. The place in Canada was selling it for $80 a gallon including shipping.

[Edited on 5-8-2008 by MagicJigPipe]