bx22 woes......help

[billfjr]

I've always feared it, now I've gone and done it. I inadvertantly added gasoline to my bx22 diesel!!!

Engine started to miss, shudder, and lose power. I ran it for about two minutes to try to determine the problem, then shut it down. When I realized what I had done(gasp), I drained all fuel, disconnected fuel line, and allowed fuel pump to pump the rest out. Refilled tank with diesel, reconnected lines, bled lines, and restarted.
Engines sounds and runs normal now, and reaches full power.

My question is could I have damaged the engine?

Engine has 140 hrs, and seems completly normal.

 

[Darren]

If it's running ok now, I doubt you damaged it.

I've heard of one instance where a guy was deliberately adding gasoline to the diesel in a semi to get more power. He had flames coming out the stack toward the end. He was fired of course. The point is he did that over a period of time and yes the engine was screwed. They had to use a sledge hammer to get the head off. There wasn't much left of the turbo insides.

 

[44trxfun]

bill, I don't think you're the first to do this. If I recall correctly, you'll find a few other posts on this topic if you use the search feature (upper right corner). Good luck!

 

[Junkman]

Back in the 1970's & 1980's, Mercedes used to say add 5 - 10% gasoline to the diesel for weather below 32 degrees. It never hurt my engines that I knew of. I am certain that you haven't done any damage to the engine.

 

[DmansPadge]

No damage done. The important part was that you noticed it wasn't running right and you shut it down and corrected the problem. At work, a new fireman put 20 gallons of gas in a $600,000 ladder truck and nobody knew for a few days. It didn't hurt anything... the tank holds about 100 gallons and 20% gas didn't slow down the Detroit diesel. It wasn't discovered until the secretary ran a gas/diesel usage report a few days later that it showed up he added gas instead of diesel. By then it wasn't worth messing with it. They fill the trucks up almost daily.

I have went to using yellow cans for diesel and red cans for gas. It's hard to confuse it like that!

 

[JerryG]

A little added will not hurt, but you can't add straight. You did the right thing by getting it out asap. Junk is right about adding some. I worked with a guy for 4 years that added gas to his tri-axle almost daily. The first time that I saw him at a convenience store pumping gas, I just about flipped. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[billfjr]

Thanks to all of you for your response....I feel better!

 

[Scrounger]

I ran a HUMMER on 50-50 once since we needed fuel and only thing we had was plain ole regular. It ran better, we started adding a bit of gas to each tank. I'm sure the AF would have killed us, but we did it for years.