HELP! Petrol in Diesel Engine!!!!

I've just filled up and managed to put about three gallons of petrol into my tank, before realising my mistake and putting in another ten gallons of diesel. With the two gallons which were already in there, I reckon the ratio is 12/3. Do I need to drain the tank, will the petrol mix with the diesel, or am I going to hit a pocket of petrol due to the difference in specific gravity? Cheers, John

Reply to
John Stokes
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John Stokes posted ...

Just run the engine normally, but keep putting in a few gallons of Diesel as you use it .. No long term harm should come to the engine, provided it's in reasonable condition to start with .. :)

Reply to
Paul - xxx

I'm not sure your get away with it to be honest, the problem you face is the engine "running away". This means the engine accelerates more and more until destruction! If you do take the gamble i would get ready to stall the engine by putting it in a high gear just in case.

Jinx

Reply to
Jinx

I know two people who have done this, one who virtually filled the tank with almost 100% petrol. It ran like a pig - he syphoned out what little he could and replaced it with diesel then topped up with diesel as often as he could to get the mix better.

I think it was as close to not running as it could have got, but he ran the car for thousands of miles after that and never saw any ill effects.

Conversely I have about a gallon of diesel in the 101, and that doesn't seem to have troubled it much either!

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

If I leave the tank to settle overnight, or syphon the fuel into jerry cans, am I right in assuming that there is sufficient difference in the specific gravity of petrol and diesel that the petrol will float to the top?

Reply to
John Stokes

Twas Mon, 5 Jan 2004 18:38:09 -0000 when "John Stokes" put finger to keyboard producing:

A year or so ago I put around £5 of petrol in a near empty tank, when I reralised I filled it with diesel and it never seemed to notice. it was a nissan engine.

-- Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.) ___________________________________________________________ "To know the character of a man, give him anonymity" - Mr.Nice.

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mrniceATmrnice.me.uk
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Reply to
Mr.Nice.

IMHO you'll be fine. Really.

Reply to
QrizB

I don't know - isn't one soluble in the other? Water and ribena are different specific gravities, but they don't separate like that. You could put a bit of each in a jar and see what happens. I reckon they will just mix.

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

AFAIK they are miscible in all proportions so they won't settle, there is the problem that the petrol vapour will make it all a bit more flammable than diesel alone.

If the engine runs ok then your only real worry is wear on the injector pump. In the past when I have been given diesel contaminated with diesel I have diluted it to what I was fairly sure was 10% petrol,90% diesel and run it in the tractor (coz I don't have a vehicle that uses derv).

AJH

Reply to
sylva

No, it will mix.

Reply to
SimonJ

Don't be silly. This can and will not happen. To be honest, I think you haven't a clue.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

I sometimes have people off me free cans of petro-diesel, when they've inadvertanly filled up with the wrong one, siphoned it off and re-filled. As the 2.25 will run on a 50-50 mix reasonably happily (although smoky) I havn't the heart to tell them it would have been fine in thier motor.

Alex

Reply to
Alex

It will be fine I did exactly the same in my disco and it ran fine and still shows no side affects.

Peter

Reply to
scorpio

I did exactly the same thing once, much to my embarassment. After calling the local LR dealer (who fell off his chair laughing) I took his advice and drove it normally but refilling with diesel every time the tank got to half empty.

It did smoke a bit for a while but that gradually got better and no hard appeared to come to the engine at all. As the dealer told me - they advise their farmer customers to add petrol to the tank in winter to stop the diesel from freezing.

Regards Steve G

Reply to
SteveG

of course you will, ask any old truck driver what they used to do in the winter when the diesel began to gel,

they'll tell you.. put a couple o gallons of petrol in the tank,

diesels will run on alomost anything (well, older designed ones will) that's why you can run them on greasle (used cooking oil), parafin if you put some ATF in it, you can add lpg to the mix, via fumigation or injectors and back off the fueling of the diesel and get better mpg and power..so they claim, but no company that does diesel gas assist conversions tell you what the combined fuel consumption is, just less diesel will be used.. well duh, cos your replacing it with lpg, how much of that do you use :)

Reply to
CampinGazz

On or around Mon, 05 Jan 2004 20:53:26 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

they will. don't worry about that sort of ratio though. Lob as much diesel as you can in with it, use it for a bit and top up. be a good idea to run the tank nearly-dry sometime soon to get rid of most of the petrol.

Some people actually put a small percentage of petrol in the diesel to make it run better, or used to :-)

Reply to
Austin Shackles
0On or around Mon, 5 Jan 2004 22:33:18 +0000 (UTC), "CampinGazz" enlightened us thusly:

AIUI, you can either get more power at similar cost or keep the power the same and run on cheaper fuel (at the moment!), by backing the diesel right off.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Diesel engines are a tad more forgiving. ISTR (maybe Rich Clafton) running his 200Tdi on Parafin and engine oil when he couldn't get diesel in the Libyan desert (or some such mix recommended in Tom Sheppards; Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide).

Martyn

Reply to
Mother

Don't worry. With that ratio of petrol there should be no problem. Just fill up with diesel as usual. If you're worried run the car until the tank is close to empty then fill up o diluite as much as possible. Last year I managed to fill up to about 90% petrol and although the car ran incredibly badly until I got the petrol ratio down to below 70% no long term damage seems to have been done.

-- Keith (London, UK) Land Rover Discovery 300TDI

Reply to
Keith

My view was to steer more on the cautious side of this.

petrol being more volatile thus requiring lower compression diesel less volatile thus the higher compression My concern was of the more volatile fuel in the higher compression engine!

Diesel engines are very well known to run away under certain circumstances, this is usually by the fuel being drawn through the air intake or on worn diesels the engine lubrication itself being drawn pass the pistons and vaporising, so in effect the engine becomes self fuelling. The most effective way to stop a diesel engine running away is to block its air in take ( with something very substantial). I should imagine that a quick search on google will confirm the above.

A diesel engine is basically controlled by its amount of fuel, where as a petrol engine uses air.

My own experience of filling up with petrol was that the car just cut out! Once home the tank drained and diesel added, then once a few tank fulls through the fuel fillers were changed. I had no problems either. I wouldn't of liked to advise someone to do anything that might cost him any extra.

Ta Jinx

Reply to
Jinx

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