Make Gas Cans Great Again!

If you've used a newer gas can, say in the past five years or so, it's likely that it was a bad experience for you. I know it has been for me.

The newer gas cans have safety features that make them almost unusable. They are designed to be "safer" somehow, I'm just not sure how. Gas cans used to be a very simple thing. You popped off the cap, opened the vent, and poured gas out. It's gasoline -- everyone knows it's flammable, it smells, and you don't want to spill it if you can help it -- so you just don't.

However, like so many things, the government regulators decided that people needed to be "saved" from those dangerous gas cans.

That's where this story begins. I had to buy some newer gas cans, because the older ones I had were failing. One was starting to turn clear and began leaking, a few others were leaking at the mold lines (they're blow molded).

I looked around for new ones, and most stores I could find locally were carrying this Midwest gas can.

Sure, it looks pretty basic, but there's one issue -- unless you have three arms, you likely can't get the damn valve to work. You'll notice the red part half-way down the spout. That's the part that doesn't need to be there (I determined this immediately upon first use). With the gas can I retrofitted for this post, I already popped that part off with a screwdriver.

I have another gas can that uses some valve that has a green spring loaded flip part, then you can push a part forward, and open the valve. It's garbage because the seals are not made of Viton, or some other material that is gasoline resistant. As a result you can't open the valve because the O-rings are swollen.

Too much trouble for something so simple.

Someone on Substack mentioned that you can use the spouts for five-gallon water jugs as gas can spouts, however it wasn't known whether the threads for the cans were compatible.

I figured that someone might make a retrofit kit because that would be great! So, I decided to look on Amazon, and here's what I found.

This kit comes with five spouts, inserts for vents, caps for cans that already have vents, silicone rubber seals, two different lids course and fine thread (for spouts) and a drill bit to put vents in gas cans that don't already have vents.

Here's a view with the manual visible.

I decided to retrofit the first can I could find that was empty. It just so happened to be one of the Midwest gas cans. The other things that are held on by a zip-tie are the parts to seal the can with the spout inserted inside the opening for storage.

Here's another view before I retrofitted it, you can see the Midwest label for posterity.

Here is the gas can with all of the parts that I'm going to use.

Next was drilling the vent hole. I was surprised at how thick the gas can was at the top. I was not expecting it to be around 1/8 inch or around 2mm if you're a metric kind of person. I was careful to drill it slowly, so that I didn't get any plastic on the inside of the can.

The next step was to install the vent with the silicone seal.

I tried to push the vent plug in by hand but that wasn't happening. I ended up using a rubber mallet to drive it in.

Here's what it looks like when it's completed.

Here's a view from the top and back. You can see where I put the vent to the left. I did this because I didn't want it to be right where the seam was.

Now I have a new "old-style" gas can! As I deplete the other cans I'll retrofit them as well.

The kit was $18 after tax on Amazon. You can find tons of them with various different names. They are generic.

Hopefully this can help someone to keep rocking their gas cans longer. The spout is usually the part that rots first. Also, if you have to buy a new one, you can use one of these kits to make it suck less!

I don't think it's an accident that gas cans started to suck -- right around the same time they started to push electric lawn tools. But I'm sure it's just a coincidence. I'll have to run it by some of my "coincidence theorist" friends.

What do you think?

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