Emergency fuel?

It is a low flammability, long life fuel.

MrCheerful

Mark (keep snipped-for-privacy@thegroup.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Give us a laugh - how much was it?

I have seen it priced at about 10 pounds for 2.5 litres, dear for petrol, but cheap for an emergency. The main advantage I see is: that it is non smelly and lasts for ages.

MrCheerful

A steel container, e.g. a 10 or 20l jerry can is also non-smelly, and will comfortably last a year (that's how long I keep petrol), probably a lot more, like 2-3 years. At the end of that period you just empty it out into your fuel tank and refill it.

Isn't the emergency fuel meant to be safer to carry around in your boot than a can of petrol? I'd have thought that was the main selling point.

Two things:

[a] I can't see how it could be safer - if it's significantly less flammable than petrol it will be of no use as fuel. [b] A strapped down steel jerry can protected by the boot enclosure is safer than a plastic fuel tank hanging under the back of the car.

This stuff is sold in the US under the brand name 'Spare Tank'. It's less flammable than petrol because it doesn't contain butane or pentane, and has a flash point of over 100 deg. F compared with petrol at minus 40 to 50 deg F. A petrol engine apparently will run on this mixture, although it probably wouldn't be too good for cold starting. However, if you run out of petrol, the engine will still be warm.

This is a link to the US patent, which explains all:

Terry D.

Seems to have only an octane rating of 86 which is very low, so might cause the engine to pink or run really roughly. Might be OK for big undertuned lazy American V8s designed to run on milk.

Anyone remember "tractor vapourising oil"?

-- James

Yes. I have a friend who still makes up his own TVO replacement fuel for running a tractor.

Davemar (dave snipped-for-privacy@mailandnews.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Don't forget - they're 'merkin Octanes, which are (of course) bigger than our Octanes...

The US measure differently to us - we use RON, they use MON+RON/2 (1), which gives a lower figure.

They tend to sell three flavours over there - Regular (87), "midgrade" (89) and Premium (93).

(1) - RON - Research Octane Number, MON - Motor Octane Number. We prod the molecules in a lab, they do that plus put it in a little single cylinder test engine that's calibrated to pink, then average the two.

/me waves!

ISTR it was one part petrol to 16 parts paraffin or something like that.

We had a Massey Ferguson, with an uprated (Pistons & Valve seats IIRC) "Standard" engine.

Fuel tank came in 2 parts, A gallon of petrol to start, and about 7 gallons or so of TVO (which we used to mix in an old aluminium beer barrel, straight from the pumps at the local petrol station).

There was a little butterfly valve which you'd put to petrol to start, once it had warmed up, you flipped the valve, and you could see the colour of the fuel change in the float bowl underneath.

Great tractor that. You didn't need the clutch, just stuff it in gear (from standstill), and presto!

Pete.

It was £1 + vat and I think it was a 1.25ltr size container. I didn't bother as I wasn't sure if this stuff would do any damage to a modern cars cat converter.

Can't see how it would dammage the cat, prolly less likely to as there would be no addatives and crap that's in pump petrol,

Don't forget that it was invented in america.. and if it so much as caused the exhaust to smell differently than when running on normal petrol someone whould have sued them for a few million dollars for the sensory depravation they have suffered :)

It'd be safer in a modernt engine tho.. as it could be a lower octain fuel.. putting it in a car with a carb and fixed ignition timing then it could cause the engine to pink.. but a modernt car with a knock sensor will automaticaly adjust the engines timing and fueling as needed to allow it to run on this stuff.

Wow, that's my "learn something new every day" sorted for today.

I can understand petrol left for a long time in a near empty tank 'going off' through reaction with the atmosphere. But what exactly happens if it's in a full, sealed tin?

Thought it was just paraffin?

No, it is a mixture of fuels.

As I did not know which ones, I checked on the web and found the following page which contains some interesting recipes for TVO (and one or two other TVO related points):-

Lots of things, but they happen really slowly.

To start with, the oxygen in the (small amount of) air in the container reacts with some of the more reactive (non-straight alkane) components. This initiates polymerisation reaction which eventually lead to a lot of the lighter fractions forming longer chains.

Even if you eliminate all the air, polymerisation reactions will still take place, and over very long periods of time the petrol will become unusable.

But it should be just fine for the first couple of years.