Jet Fuel?

[Iplayfarmer]

Rumor has it that winter diesel, kerosene, and jet fuel are all practically the same thing.

Is this true?

Does anyone have experience running kerosene or jet fuel in their tractors?

I'm told that Jet fuel burns cleaner, more efficiently, and gives you more power. I've burned Jet fuel in my kerosene shop heater and had really good success, but I want some input before I even think about it in my tractor.

 

[SkyPup]

Nope, the rumor is not true, #1 diesel, kerosene, and jet fuel are not the same thing at all. Neither does jet fuel burn any cleaner or give you any more power or make the exhaust smell like roses.

If you want to use them be sure to add the proper amount of lubricity additives to it so you do not destroy all of your injection equipment, as all of them are lacking the proper lubricity rating for use in any diesel engine.

They are also real low in cetane, like below the minimum of 40 cetane for diesel #2.

The jet fuel has allot of other additives too, especially antigel to keep it from gelling at high altitudes.

If you've got an old diesel that you really don't care about any more, use it in that.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Thanks, SkyPup! Makes perfect sense when I see it put your way. I wouldn't have thought of all of those aspects.

Now here's the next question...

Could winter diesel be used in place of kerosene? Would all of the lubricants, etc. in the diesel gum up my shop heater?

This all comes from my laziness in not wanting to get another fuel container. If I can get one fuel that works for both the tractor and the shop heater, I'll save time, space, money, and inconvenience of having to get another container, make separate trips to fill each, and risk getting them confused with each other in the shop.

Obviously, if it's not a good idea, I'll just get another gas can and make sure it's labled properly.

 

[SkyPup]

I am not absolutely certain, but my take on it is this.

Winter #1 diesel has less straight chain paraffins and more aromatics to help resist gelling, however kerosene is a lower cut that has more paraffins and less aromatics and will gel quickly at below freezing temps due to the high paraffin content.

Paraffins burn fast and clean, aromatics burn slow and dirty.

Therefore, using Winter #1 instead of kerosene in the heater should be okay, all things considered, except for it may smoke considerably more.

 

[CTyler]

My experiance is this....

I have an older(10yrs) 55k Ready Heater, one of the topedo types. The No. 1 diesel is a little smelly for me if you have to run it a lot and No. 2 off road was just to much smell, it also started fouling the spark plug. This caused it to take a long time to start or trip the safety and not start up. Just had to clean the plug and wipe off the photo sensor it was ok again.