Diesel mixed with gas

[tjandrews]

Diesel has a low octane rating.

Some 50’s tractors ran distillate fuel or tractor fuel with an octane of 35-45. They would start on gasoline and get good and hot and switch over to the distillate. Many times the carb had additional heat from the exhaust manifold to help vaporize it.

These engines had a 5:1 to 5.5:1 compression ratio. The same tractor with gasoline only had a 6:1 ratio for the 60 ish octane gasoline at the time. Many later converted the tractors with higher compression pistons or in case of the JD 2 cylinders a higher compression head.

It wasn’t till the early 60’s that they raised the compression ratios further for more power per cubic inch.

For example the AC 226 was the same basic engine from the 1953 WD45 with 6.45:1 till the1980 175 with 8.2:1. There were some camshaft on other minor differences as well

Many tractor pullers would bolt 175 parts into their wd45 boosting HP from 38 to 54 hp

The spark plugs and other components don’t care.

The manual for my grandfather's 1952 Case SC says to "be sure to use a good, clean grade of gasoline with an octane rating of at least 65." It was one of those tractors that, with a special manifold, could use something the manual calls "low-cost fuel."
We still use that old workhorse, and I would have no problem with adding the OP's mixture to enough gasoline to fill the 14-gallon tank. I might even consider the extra top-level lubrication to be beneficial.

 

[tjandrews]

I had a tank with really old half varnish gasoline that I used as a fire starter. WHOOSH!!! I agree, be careful with burning gas.

My grandfather used gasoline to start brush fires - until he wound up with third degree burns on both arms because of an unexpected gust of wind...

 

[Fxfymn413]

In the 1950 and 60's it was not uncommon to add a little diesel to the tank to free up a stuck valve.

As for using gasoline as a fire starter; I am a retire fire marshal and it was not uncommon to locate an arson suspect in the local hospital being treated for burns caused by using gasoline as the accelerant. Don't do it!

 

[dvan1966]

My grandfather used gasoline to start brush fires - until he wound up with third degree burns on both arms because of an unexpected gust of wind...

A friend of mine spent 2 weeks in the burn unit after using gas to start a brush fire on a windless day. The fumes "puddled" on the ground and when he lit a match 20+ feet away, whoosh. He called me after calling 911. I beat the ambulance to his house, skin hanging off his arms and legs.

 

[jyoutz]

What's wrong with that ratio? Better to put it to use than throw it away.

Typically when we use fuel for burn piles or forestry drip torches, we use a 50-50 mix of gas/diesel and it just burns, not explosively. Just add some old oil to the mix and it would make good burn fuel.

 

[Shady oak]

Pipelines routinely send multiple fuels through a pipeline at once such as gasoline of multiple grades, heating oil, aviation fuel and diesel, seperated by plugs. Gasoline is normally clear, with the amber tint coming from small amounts of mixing with diesel or oil. Just saying, gasoline is not pure.

Well pipelines do regularly run alternate products back to back. But no plugs, or at least now my 45 yrs hauling petroleum have told me. Products are determined by gravity readings. So, when a "change" comes in they have someone take readings for the gravity, becoming more and more frequent as the changeover is near. (Most pipelines run at the speed of a man walking) so, if you are following gas with distillate, when you reach a gravity ready midpoint between the two products you switch the valves from the gas to the distillate tank.

While I don’t know what the process is now with ethanol added, if you made a delivery and mixed gas and fuel for example, you would pump the tank out and take the "slop" back to the pipeline and they would take a sample. Depending on the gravity, and the amount of product in storage tanks they would simply put it in the most similar tank, and credit you for the gallons at that grade. But if it contained ethanol, nope. No Ethanol ever goes in a fuel storage tank at a pipeline.

 

[Pecosbill7]

Greetings,

Somone at my work accidently topped off one of the small engines with diesel. I would guess that about 1 gallon of diesel was added to the 7.5 gallon tank. The Diesel gas mixture was removed and the plugs and fuel filter was changed. Fresh fuel was added and the engine runs fine now. A fresh oil change is planned as well. All the machines at my work that are gas have "GAS" written on the caps and all the diesel machines have the fuel caps painted the same color as the pump handle.

So my question is what should be done with the gas diesel mixture?

Thanks
Sean

I'd just save it and use it to start a brush pile fire whenever you've done some clearing. In Texas that seems to be several times a year.

 

[mx842]

I remember way back in my younger years me and several of my buddies were riding to roads looking for lost deer hounds from the day before. We were riding in a 1947 dodge, and it was about 6 of us drunk fools plus the old guy driving packed in that old car. The guy driving said, okay boys time to pony up we need gas. He had a small green sign on the dashboard that read....Ass, gas, or grass nobody rides for free, so he had everyone digging in their pockets for spare change. I think I had something like a buck fifty to throw in and after the collecting was over, we had enough to get a couple more 6 packs and $2.50 in gas. He had parked the old Dodge next to the gas pump and we left this one guy out there to pump the gas. Well, we loaded back up and started back down the road and after about a mile or so the old Dodge started to bucking and shaking with a little smoke coming out the tail pipe and finally, he pulled over to see what was going on. I noticed a slight bit of diesel smell in the air but kept it to myself and we headed back down the road. We rode every back road in Chesterfield County before the day was out and we finally made it back to the club house. Before we got there we had to stop off at of the guy's house so he could go in to raid his wife's cookie jar for some more beer money. We barely got halfway out of the driveway before she came out of the house a screaming and yelling, and I thought we were all goners for sure because everybody knew she always kept an ol' 12 ga single barrel right by the door loaded with # 4 buckshot, but our faithful driver got on the gas and screamed out the driveway in a trail of smoke and diesel fuel fumes.
By the time we hit the beer store and got back to the hunt Shak the old Dodge had calmed down and was running a little better, it still smoked a little with minor diesel fumes coming out the tailpipe, but all in all we got there in one piece. We were sitting around by the fire talking about the day's deeds when soon the topic of what in the world had happened to the old Dodge and everybody had their opinions and offered up their suggestions on how to come up with a fix. One guy got out a matchbook and commenced to filing down the points. Someone else said it's the dang condenser for sure. one guy yelled out it probably just needs a fuel filter. When he said fuel filter a light bulb went on in my head and I looked over at the guy that was in charge of gas pump, and I asked him which one of those pumps did you use to put gas in the car. He yelled out, well the cheapest one I could find you know we didn't have much money to put in the tank so being the cheap scape that I am I went the economy route. I softly asked him just how much was that gas? He said it was a real good price just .12 cents a gal. Now I never claimed to be the best at reading or math by any stretch of the imagination, but I do remember the sign at the gas station saying Reg .22 cents mid grade .26 cents and hy test .34 cents a gallon and down below that it said road diesel .17 cents and off-road diesel .12 cents a gallon. Well that about took care of the big mystery and we rode that poor boy like a mule for the next 20 years. It's a good thing we didn't have room in that old car to carry much of anything except bodies and beer because if there had been a shot gun in there somewhere it may have been used in the wrong way. That old guy thought the world of that old Dodge and to do any harm to the ol girl meant trouble for somebody. He got over it in a few days after we dumped about $3.00 worth of hy test in the tank and the ol girl ran better that it did when it was brand new.

 

[Williy]

Back in the days of WW2 you had gas rationing and my dad
had an old model A Ford and he said they would start the car
on gas and then switch over to kerosene and they had an old
oak tree the en order to stop the A he parked with the bumper
up against that old oak tree and let the clutch out and he said
that it would bounce about but finally stop. He said that the
kerosene burned so hot you could not shut the thing down
so the use of the oak tree

When I want to burn brush I mix some gas with the drain oil

willy

 

[BnRidge]

Well pipelines do regularly run alternate products back to back. But no plugs, or at least now my 45 yrs hauling petroleum have told me. Products are determined by gravity readings. So, when a "change" comes in they have someone take readings for the gravity, becoming more and more frequent as the changeover is near. (Most pipelines run at the speed of a man walking) so, if you are following gas with distillate, when you reach a gravity ready midpoint between the two products you switch the valves from the gas to the distillate tank.

While I don’t know what the process is now with ethanol added, if you made a delivery and mixed gas and fuel for example, you would pump the tank out and take the "slop" back to the pipeline and they would take a sample. Depending on the gravity, and the amount of product in storage tanks they would simply put it in the most similar tank, and credit you for the gallons at that grade. But if it contained ethanol, nope. No Ethanol ever goes in a fuel storage tank at a pipeline.

Hmm, pipline pigs, what are they used for. I have no first hand knowledge of such a thing, just heard it from a friend:

Pigging - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org