Diesel fuel types

[mmarzullo]

Hi All,
And happy Holidays!! I have a question about different types of diesel fuels. I have a 1956 FMD with of course a 4 cylinder diesel. I've been using #2 heating oil for fuel. I noticed it has been smoking a lot and it seems to have lost some power. It appeared to be running rough. I put in 5 gallons of kero in the engine and after some time it ran great with no smoke. I went back to fuel oil again and it started to smoke again and run rough. I was going to get off road diesel and someone told me it was the same fuel as heating oil and I have to put kero anyway for winter.
What do you guys think.
Thanks and Happy Holidays,
Mike

P.S. I'm in NJ and don't use the FMD in the winter unless I have to move snow.

[Stephen Girouard]

i'v always used a little kero in diesel on older engines when cold, i put a thred on the tractor page in here there was afew opinions, we dont get #1 diesel here karo helps, i'd use marvel mystery oil in it the karo is a little dryer, i use about 2 or 3 gallons for 20 gal diesel. lotsa truckers do this for a little performance, its more flamable , i use about a cup of marvel oil per tank, dont let noone tell you to put transmission oil it leaves deposits, its not made for combustion, one fella said he uses alot more karo with no problems, if your engines old & your in a colder climate you may need more. my 55 case has no thermostat i have to block the radiator for a while

tractor talk 12 14 07 i think youll be interested

http://www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42952

[ListerDiesel]

In Sweden they put additives into the diesel for winter use, I don't think we have it in the UK.

White Spirit is a common additive for diesel, and they sell it in the garages/service stations in sweden in winter. The regular diesel thjrows down waxes in extremes of cold and clogs the filters up, which was one of the reasons that truck makers atsrted putting full-flow fuel systems in, it adds a little bit of heat to the fuel.

I got stuck late one night with a truck chassis that I delivered to Sweden in winter, the diesel just froze solid. Got a breakdown truck out, he took the chassis to a dealershop, he had the keys to the workshop, dropped it off, found me a hotel and they collected me next morning. The workshop had 24hour heating, so a couple of minutes to bleed the fuel through and we were off, but not before a few bottle of the additive had been added!

It is not allowed to add the stuff in the UK as no Fuel Duty is paid on the white spirit.

Peter

[Mike Monnier]

The only real difference between #2 fuel oil and #2 diesel is that you may or may not have lube added to the fuel oil. That will depend entirely on your local terminal since the lube package is added at the rack. Some just add the lube package to maintain a single inventory and some omit it for fuel oil and keep the couple cents profit since you don't need lube in the furnace. You might try adding an additive like Stanadyne or Power Service and see if the additional lube they provide makes a difference.

[mmarzullo]

Mornin' All,
This was in the summer when I noticed it would smoke more and then the engine seemed to loose some power. I determined that it had 1 injector that was the problem. I ran straight kero in it and it cleared up and ran fine. Went back to #2 fuel and started to smoke again. I have tried different types of diesel additives and did not help. Some one told me to use 50/50 mix of #2 and kero. I put 3 gallons of kero in it for the winter incase I need it.

Bottom line is there is real no diffence in # 2 heating oil and off road diesel fuel? Or is there.
Thanks and Happy Holidays

[spfx_dude]

We had a heck of a time classifying number 1, number two heating oils and diesel and Kerosene. We were using a very large heater / burner for fogging application in Northern Canada. The temperatures for the burner were wildly off and that made the machine malfunction. Typically around the world all of these above fuels were used in the same machine so why were we having such issues?What we came up with was that the difference was in the additives that were put into the diesel fuel and how it related to the burner / heat exchanger.

Really the way to classify these are by figuring out the pour points or the Baume numbers. This is a little complicated but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil

is a great link as it explains some of it. This may at least give you some information as to what the classifications of the fuels are. Our solution was to keep running on diesel fuel and to change the flow rate on the injector heads for our application. Good luck!

Ps: No there is no great difference between the two fuels except for what ever the additives are... But good luck getting that information out of the oil company!

[Rick McKay]

Where I live (frosty Upper Michigan), No.2 off road fuel and no. 2 heating oil are one in the same. They are kept in the same tank. The only difference being is how the fuel man writes up the bill when delivered. When he delivers to my shop & equipment, it says No 2 Off Rd, or if he delivers to the house furnace tank in the basement the bill states no 2 home heating. When you buy off road fuel at the station, after nov 1 you get a 70/30 blend of no 2 and no 1 respectively. The fuel man told me that their no 1 meets K-1 spec, but it doesn't smell the same, nor burn as clean in the torpedo heater as "genuine" kerosene. At a few local stations they have separate off road fuel pumps for no 2 and no 1, that way you can blend to your own preference. I sometimes have used straight no 2 even down to 0 degrees ambient(because it was left in the tank from summer), but the engines don't start as well as on blended fuel when its that cold. When you burn blended fuel, your fuel economy decreases (trade-off for the easier starting), as there are fewer btu's/gal in no. 1 fuel. However, older engines with decreased compression will smoke a little less on the blended fuel. The best thing to reduce smoking, and increase engine life is to get them up to operating temperature as soon as possible by preheating with a block heater, and partially blocking the radiator with cardboard or shutters to keep them hot. If your engine's compression is a little weak, and your operating temp stays down below 150, your going to get quite a bit of unburned fuel going out the stack!

Keep those diesels hummin!

Rick

[mmarzullo]

Rick M,
In NJ if you get caught with off road fuel on the road you get a big fine. The fuel guy said #2 home heating fuel and off road are almost the same except for winter. They cut it with some other stuff which could be kero. He told me to not use off road in the winter. Use a 70/30 blend. My concern was the smoking of the engine and I did notice one cyclinder was not running right with #2 HHO. When I did use kero straight it ran great with no smoke and ran smooth. I never had a problem starting the engine with #2 HHO. I don't use the loader in the winter unless we get hammered with the white stuff.
This summer I'm going to run 70/30 blend and see what happens.
Thanks for all the input Guy's.
Mike

[~Wittes-End~]

I wonder if white spirits are the same as what we call white gas here? Do you use white spirits in pressurized lanterns?

[ListerDiesel]

Originally Posted by ~Wittes-End~

I wonder if white spirits are the same as what we call white gas here? Do you use white spirits in pressurized lanterns?

It's related to Turpentine/Paraffin, low flashpoint stuff and is used for domestic paint thinning in the UK (Not cellulose paint)

In blowlamps and pressure stoves we use Paraffin, but use Methylated Spirits to heat the burner up initially, that is alcohol.

Paraffin is what you call kerosene I believe.

Peter

[mmarzullo]

Turpitine/mineral spirts is not the same as white gas. I thoght #1 kero was concidered white gas. I use coleman fuel for fuel in my pressurized lanterns. I know 8 or 9 dollars a gallon. Who want's to play with that stuff anyway. I have a coleman white gas/unleaded fuel lantern which is brand new. That I won't use. I can't see putting a lite match by gasoline. Must be the fireman in me!!

[MikeyT]

Kero is Kero(sene), or paraffin to Peter, Coleman is white gas (aka Unleaded gas without the car engine additives). Coleman gas fuel appliances will burn unleaded, they just stink more, due to additives they put in automotive fuel.

Coleman kerosene lanterns are as Peter described, they have a preheater cup you fill with alcohol (it burns sootless and does not smell), once the generator tube is hot, turn on the kero, and they will burn with little or no smell. You can burn diesel in these, but they stink and get very sooty (I would not use diesel in the wick type kerosene heaters, the diesel and soot will quickly foul the wick, and the wicks are expensive).

Michael

[ZackaryMac]

I believe in my location, furnace and diesel aren't the exact same. My reason for thinking this is because twice now I've tried furnace oil in my little Kubota diesel tractor. The first time I thought I put the pump out of it, as it sputtered, smoked, knocked, and barely ran. I figured the pump failed, but drained the fuel out of it and put in fresh diesel, after a minute it ran as before I tried the furnace oil. That was during the winter, so I guessed maybe the fuel was waxing up - which I later realized was stupid to think that, as furnace oil isn't "summer" or "winter", otherwise a fill-up late summer would wax up come winter, which never happens, so... - , so I tried it again in the summer. It STILL didn't like this fresh batch of furnace oil. It didn't miss as much, but it sure didn't like it. Less power, more smoke. A fellow at work has a 5.9l Cummins in his boat, and burns furnace oil in it all the time, and never has a problem. I figure the small diesel in the Kubota just doesn't make much heat (small displacement), and the furnace oil needs more to burn efficiently, which draws me to the conclusion they are not the same, here anyway.

I have seen this same furnace/diesel oil discussion on many forums and the conclusion is typically the same as here.

I've never tried it in my truck, though maybe that would support/argue against my theory.

[Jud]

Guys:
Go back to this thread and read up on this issue, thoroughly hashed last summer:

www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38628

[mmarzullo]

That was good reading. But the just talked about taxes and dyes. They did not have any experiance on using HOO or Diesel fuel in an 1950's engine. I have run HHO in my 1956 FMD and it does not like it. I put in #1 Kero and ran fine. I'm going to try to run 70/30 blend this summer and see what happens. Modern diesels probaly like HHO or off road fuel. The fuel is not made the same from 50+ years ago. I just don't want to ruin my FMD's engine.
Thanks Mike

[rrfxxxr]

For what it's worth, when I was a kid, I had an uncle that made his own "diesel" by adding 2 quarts of oil to (50 gal) kero for #2 diesel and just added 1 qt for #1 diesel for winter time use in North TN. or was it a gal of oil, I'm not sure now that I think about it. I was pre-teen (non-detergent 30W motor oil). I think it depends on how the injector pump gets it's lube.
Just something I remembered when reading this thread.

My 3 cyl diesel (16HP) G1800 Kubota "loves" to burn bio-diesel. It runs better and smells better. More pep.
BTW: my 1977 VW Rabbit diesel stated in the owner's manual if #1 diesel or winterized diesel was n/a, (below 15 degrees F) to add 1Gal unleaded gas to a full tank (10 gal diesel).
I never had a problem in North Mississippi even at -4 degrees one year. I had a little 120V (I think it was about 300W) water heater in-line on the bottom rad hose. I was an EMT with the county amb service, so during winter I would leave it plugged in every night. Boy I miss that 51 mpg. (56 if I would keep it off the floor)
Thanks for "sparking" that memory.
Sbw

[Backfire]

My Cat-426 manual says

"
FUEL sulphur is chemically changed during combustion to form sulphuric acid. The acid chemically attacks metal surfaces and causes corrosive wear. Higher engine OIL TBN values are essential to to minimize corrosive wear.
"

Since that was written in 1987 fuel sulphur content has been greatly reduced and the 2006 standards have just about done away with it. Oils have been appropriately adjusted all along as the pollution standards changed.

But sulphur is also a lubricant and injector pumps alone seem ideal candidates for problems (they depend on the fuel for lubrication and adjusted engine oils do diddley for them). The short of the long is that I've started doing what a britt suggested to me once, he'd been doing it for some time i.e. simply add a can of engine oil to every tank of fuel. There's a few smoke puffs as a result but much better lubrication all around.

As for supply (I'm not familiar with what you call kerosene) it depends on regional wholesale supply practices. In Quebec both heating oil and diesel are (as per refinery sources) *one and the same product* except for dyes and BOTH vary in degree of refinement with average temperatures. In the summer there is less refining, a lower price, more water content, more BTU per gallon (for diesels). I can confirm this as I've noticed a huge difference in water separator content using summer fuels and a higher max speed on tuneup runs, plus somewhat rougher running.

Colder months will cause deliveries to follow the thermometer and by November only -40 (C or F) is available. It's impossible to buy an out-of-step product because the retailers simply don't store any. My heating tank is outdoors and I have to use fine oil but if I haven't kept any from the previous winter then I have to wait it out. Minimal delivery is 200 gallons and that's what I burn all winter long so filling up with maybe a September (-5) grade is not an option.

The only explanation (?) I can think of for different performance with fuel oil is regional practices involving additives OR that diesel sold in warm regions at a time when much colder climates are within a tank range would have to be more refined. The truckers may move 1000 miles north in a day but the stoves will not. So in summer you might be getting summer heating oil but a more refined diesel. This would not apply in the north where you can only stay or go south from :-)

I'd be curious to hear from people in the north comparing heating oil to diesel both bought at the same time from the same source.

[mmarzullo]

Update!!
Well it turns out That I had 2 slightly bent push rods. I replaced the push rods and some one told me to advance the pump timing. I advanced the pump timing and the tractor starts on the 2nd or 3rb revovlution and dosent smoke at all anymore. It has alot of power now and I'm using # 2 home fuel oil.
Thanks
Mike

[bitsnpieces1]

Concerning 'white gas', when I was young (1945-'60), Amoco carried a non-leaded gasoline with no additives of any kind that was rated at 100 octane. It was used in small 2 strokes and gasoline lanterns (Coleman) as well as cars. It was called White Gas by everyone I knew because it had no color at all, perfectly clear. The Coleman lantern fuel was used more and more as the supply of the Amoco gas went down.
Since it had no additives it didn't leave any deposits when evaporated in the burner.

[ronm]

Originally Posted by bitsnpieces1

Concerning 'white gas', when I was young (1945-'60), Amoco carried a non-leaded gasoline with no additives of any kind that was rated at 100 octane. It was used in small 2 strokes and gasoline lanterns (Coleman) as well as cars. It was called White Gas by everyone I knew because it had no color at all, perfectly clear. The Coleman lantern fuel was used more and more as the supply of the Amoco gas went down.
Since it had no additives it didn't leave any deposits when evaporated in the burner.

Exactly, we had the same thing, white gas, at the mountain cabin for Coleman lamps when I was a kid. I don't remember where they got it, but 5 gal. would last a few years-& they left it up at the cabin all winter, & it never seemed to go bad...unlike this "crap" we get now, that turns to gum inside of a month...my Mom still has a Coleman clothes iron, of all things...has a little gas tank on the back, & a little pump. she used to fire it up & iron clothes at the cabin. I remember she had to wear an oven mitt to use it...