Diesel engine question....

[Chuck Wintle]

I often wondered what will happen to a diesel motor if gasoline is substituted for diesel fuel. Will the motor run or will it blow up?

[Kevin Barnett]

I often wondered what will happen to a diesel motor if gasoline is substituted for diesel fuel. Will the motor run or will it blow up?

Tried it. Stops running.

BP handles are all green. Green usually denotes diesel. shortly afterward realized something amiss. No longer stop at BPs.

One dropped tank later, good to go.

[Joe Angrisani]

You'll ruin it. It'll run, but a diesel gets some of it's lubrication from the fuel oil, so things like the cylinder walls will be scored and damaged in short order (think minutes).

In case you're curious, the "other direction" isn't so bad. If you put diesel in gasoline engine, it won't run. But it won't do permanent damage.

[Jim O'Dell]

Yeah, worked on a few GMs where people did that. Drop the tank and flush it out. Flush the fuel lines and replace the fuel filter. It's worse when there is water in the diesel, but then the station is responsible for paying that fee. Word of advice, steer clear of Murphy oil (Walmarts around here use it). Jim.

[jim hollenback]

The cylinder walls, like is a gas engine, get most of their lubrication from the crankcase oil. What is really at risk is the high pressure fuel pump and injectors. These depend on the lubrication from the fuel oil. Gasoline has zero lubrication properties.

[Shawn Pixley]

My old Peugeot 504D Station Wagon blew a head gasket when the diesel I bought was contaminated with gas and water at a station in Sprague Washington in the 80's. it got me all the way to Seattle. It died a half block from my apartment in Queen Anne. I loved that car. It had about 340k miles on it when the gasket blew.

[Brian Elfert]

I had the opposite issue once. I was putting diesel into my diesel VW Golf and an employee shut off the pump because he thought I was putting diesel into a gasoline car.

[Curt Fuller]

Besides the lubrication issue, diesel engines "fire" from the heat of compression. I don't know for sure whether gasoline has a higher or lower point of ignition but I think it's significantly lower. That's why high performance engines with 11-12 to 1 compression ping or pre-ignite on regular gasoline. Diesel engines are running around 20 to 1 compression.

[Chris Damm]

The bosses son was diving our diesel flatbed and put 40 gallons of gas in it 40 miles from the shop. He made it 2 miles from the station. The engine could not be rebuilt and was a very expensive mistake. He no longer worked there either!

[Mike Henderson]

You'll ruin it. It'll run, but a diesel gets some of it's lubrication from the fuel oil, so things like the cylinder walls will be scored and damaged in short order (think minutes).

In case you're curious, the "other direction" isn't so bad. If you put diesel in gasoline engine, it won't run. But it won't do permanent damage.
When I was in the army, I was a driver before I went to OCS. One night on maneuvers, I came back late and went to the wrong truck (in the boonies, no lights) and put diesel in a gas jeep. Luckily, the tank was half full so it was a mixture of gas and diesel. The jeep ran as long as I had the choke out about half way and it smoked. I was glad to get that tank of fuel used and fill back up with gas. I didn't tell the motor pool what had happened when I turned the jeep in.

Mike

[Rick Moyer]

Completely gasoline or partial gasoline? You can put SOME gasoline in a diesel engine, maybe 10-20% and probably be ok.

[Jerome Stanek]

And it depends on the engine. Back in the 70's when I was in the service they had multi fuel engines in some of the trucks

[Jeremy Hamaker]

I've heard or experienced stories secondhand, both ways. Gas may blow up your diesel or just stop running. At which point you may have to drain the tank. Blow the lines. Replace the filter(s). Clean the injectors.
Diesel in a gas car may mean you can run the diesel out of it, if you're lucky and can mix in gas. Or, it may require up to draining the tank, blowing the lines, replacing the filters, and cleaning the injectors. In my opinion, the consequences are dire enough both ways that I always am -very- careful to make sure the types don't get crossed...

[Brian Elfert]

All this confusion over fuel types is part of the reason why the military is trying to standardize on JP8 or diesel as the fuel source for everything. The other reasons are to only have to haul one type of fuel and diesel is not nearly as explosive. I have even read about them trying out diesel powered motorcycles.

[Jim Matthews]

I remember that landmark... it's been paved over, since.

Were you the one that left the "Repair order despatched to factory" note in the window?
It was a handy drop for the Thurn and Taxis carriers, until Seattle became the gleaming metropolis we know today.


253521

[Curt Harms]

I had a Volkswagen beetle in high school. That motor had a bit of a problem with valves. A mechanic recommended adding about a quart of diesel or #2 fuel oil to a 10 gal. tank of gas to help a little with valve lubrication. Claimed European gas (at the time at least) was formulated differently and had some lubricating properties. At any rate, I didn't have any more valve failures.

[ray hampton]

do/did they made a two cycle diesel engine ?

[Jerome Stanek]

Yes they do make a 2 cycle diesel. We had an Agri Roto tiller that was 2 cycle you had an oil reserve that injected oil in with the diesel.

[John Lanciani]

Lots of bigger diesels, too. Detroit Diesel made two strokes up to at least 16V92* size.


*16 cylinders in a V configuration with each cylinder being 92 cubic inches

[Jason Roehl]

do/did they made a two cycle diesel engine ?

Lots of locomotives had/have had them for many years, and all the large, low-speed (less than 300 RPM) diesel engines are two-stroke...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine

[ray hampton]

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel , I heard about a loco that got 500 miles per gallon
16x92=1472 cubes
do this engine use a gasoline engine to start the diesel engine

[Joe Angrisani]

......I heard about a loco that got 500 miles per gallon.....

500 miles per gallon per ton of freight.

[ray hampton]

500 miles per gallon per ton of freight.

each car holds50 tons and each train can pull 100 cars==5000 x2000=10 million lbs

[Brian Brightwell]

My John Deere blew a head gasket.

[Howard Garner]

Lots of bigger diesels, too. Detroit Diesel made two strokes up to at least 16V92* size.


*16 cylinders in a V configuration with each cylinder being 92 cubic inches

And EMD made two strokes for the railroad engines. Much larger thenthe Detroit Diesels.

[Curt Harms]

I always figured container ships and the like used steam turbines for propulsion. Not always, it turns out.


Low speed engines are the reliable and preferred choice as the main engine for ocean-going merchant vessels, such as bulk carriers, tankers and container vessels. In general, low speed engines are understood to be two-stroke engines covering the market segment for engine speeds below some 250 rev/min. Power varies from approx. 2,000 to 87,000 kW.


http://www.mandieselturbo.com/0000950/Solutions-and-Applications/Marine-Applications/Merchant/Low-Speed.html


Google says 87,000 kilowatts = 116,668.922 horsepower.

[David Weaver]

Steam turbines are pretty piggish on fuel compared to the big two stroke diesels. I'd imagine the big diesels cost more to build, though.

Warstila, B&W (which I guess is a division of MAN now), who knows what companies are left...everything seems to be changed by M&A all the time.

[Quinn McCarthy]

You ever listen to car talk on NPR? Some lady called in seems like a few months ago with the same problem. I can't remember what they told her to do. You might be able to download old episodes from cartalk.com.

Quinn

[Chris Friesen]

I always thought it was kind of weird that they made the gas/diesel nozzles and tank openings possible to interchange. One of them should have been round and the other square or something--make it physically impossible to mix-n-match.

[Jason Roehl]

I always thought it was kind of weird that they made the gas/diesel nozzles and tank openings possible to interchange. One of them should have been round and the other square or something--make it physically impossible to mix-n-match.

Diesel nozzles at most gas stations are larger than the receptacle in gasoline vehicles.

Also, if you need to fill a can with diesel, and you visit a truck stop to do so, squeeze the trigger very gently! DAMHIKT.

[Rick Moyer]

Diesel nozzles at most gas stations are larger than the receptacle in gasoline vehicles....

That's not always true. Truck stop pumps will be larger, but many "regular" gas stations lately are adding a diesel pump with the smaller car nozzles; at least in my area.

[jim hollenback]

That's not always true. Truck stop pumps will be larger, but many "regular" gas stations lately are adding a diesel pump with the smaller car nozzles; at least in my area.

True. I have a late model year 2004 Duramax. The earlier ones had the fill tube sized for the car sized out front nozzles. With my model, and I assume ones after it, the fill tube was bigger so you could go out back and fill up with the big boys. Just use caution on topping off, those big boy pumps really flow some fuel.

[Dan Hintz]

Since we're adding stories...

On my first move from Florida to Indiana (late 90's?), I drove a Penske. The first few hundred miles were painful... the truck was extremely slow to react, I couldn't really get up to speed without a mile or two of "runway", and all I could think was "this is going to be one painful 1,000 miles!". Within a few miles of the first fill-up, the truck suddenly started pepping up. I could accelerate, I could actually hit the governor speed! Spoke to the guy when I dropped it off, he said it was likely the last person to drop it off filled the tank with regular because at the time it was quite a bit cheaper than diesel. The engine never blew up, but it was a pig until that regular gas was out of there.

Oh, I also noted an extremely hot leg a few miles form the pick-up point. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but I couldn't continue to drive like that (it wasn't just hot, it was starting to burn my leg!). After dinking around with it on the side of the road, I figured out the engine cowling inside the cab had not been properly sealed... the rubber gasket was folded under, so the heat of the engine was being blown right at my legs. Not a good way to start a 1,000 mile trip.